Our early enthusiasm for this project proved somewhat unrealistic and over ambitious, so not surprisingly we missed the 2016 target. However, we remained determined to find a way to tell James Connolly’s story on screen and hopefully engage this generation in a more meaningful consideration of his life’s work and ideas for Ireland.
We concluded that the best way to do this might be with a combination of Connolly’s own words and his personal history, combined with the views of those who now have to face some of the major challenges of our time. Also, with the emergence now of more wars and a ruthless and greedy class of billionaires dictating politics on a global scale, we felt that a serious review of Connolly’s ideas in Ireland would be timely.
I’m hoping to get more of Connolly’s writing soon. We’ve read through Labour in Irish History and it was excellent. It’s an incredible tragedy that he was executed by the British before seeing a free Ireland. The country would be such a better place if he’d been able to organise and agitate for his version of socialism rooted in Irish history while they were building their government structure.
