Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

"If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain."

So James Connolly warned us and, unfortunately, when we look at the gross inequalities in our society today, the housing crisis, low pay and precarity, he is vindicated. The revolution he stood for remains unfinished.

For working class people the struggle for independence was bound up with the struggle to end the grinding poverty they faced. The labour movement could and should have placed itself at the head of the struggle for national and social liberation and in so doing united the working class across this island, Protestant and Catholic. The potential for that was seen just days after the first meeting of the Dáil with the engineers' strike in Belfast, when 60,000 workers went on strike, effectively taking control of the city. On May Day of that year in Belfast, 100,000 Protestant and Catholic workers marched together. The winning of power by workers and peasants in Russia in October 1917, led by the Bolsheviks, inspired people around the world, including in Ireland. Here, in the Mansion House, in February 1918, a crowd of 10,000 gathered to celebrate and show their solidarity with the Russian Revolution. The tragedy of this period of Irish history was the refusal of the labour leaders to unite the working class in the struggle for socialist change. Had they done so, we could have seen the defeat of imperialism and capitalism in Ireland and prevented the partition of this island, what Connolly warned of, the carnival of reaction. For the Socialist Party and Solidarity that is the key lesson for today: the working class must wait no longer.

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