WILLIAM MORRIS & IRELAND BY JOE DWYER
“The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make” WILLIAM MORRIS In ‘Labouring Men’, the historian Eric Hobsbawm argues that “the really interesting and original contributions to Marxist theory in these islands came from men like William Morris and James Connolly.” His elevation of Morris and Connolly is revealing. Admittedly, in some regards, it would be difficult to find two more divergent characters. One born and raised in a sphere of privilege and comfort; the other spent their childhood enveloped in overcrowded, urban squalor. One prophesised about a world revolution that never materialised; the other went out and made revolution, ultimately meeting his end before a firing squad. However, on closer inspection, the parallels are clear to see. Both William Morris and James Connolly were revolutionists first and foremost. Both men adhered to an educationalist revolutionary creed, placing their faith in the working class ahead of any other strata of society. Neither trusted parliamentarian-led movements, mindful of the vitiating compromise and moderation that comes from constitutionalism. While perhaps most widely remembered today for his imitable Arts and Crafts design work – whether wall coverings, stained glass, carpets, furniture, or tapestries – in his own time, William Morris was equally known for his social activism and political pronouncements. Morris was converted to socialism in December 1882 following a series of lectures organised by the Democratic Federation (later renamed the Social Democratic Federation). The following month, he joined the Federation and so began 13
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The more unmanageable will not be asking for a mere Dublin parliament, but will be claiming his right to do something with the country of Ireland itself, which will make it a fit dwelling-place for reasonable and happy people WILLIAM MORRIS
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years of unfaltering activism, lecturing, and writing in aid of socialist revolution. However, the SDF ultimately proved to be too stifling for the increasingly revolutionary Morris. Its founder, Henry Hyndman, treated the party as his own personal fiefdom and his controlling, domineering leadership ultimately drove away the SDF’s most capable personalities. In December 1884, ten members of the SDF’s executive, including William Morris and Eleanor Marx, publicly denounced Hyndman and resigned from the SDF. The following month, in January 1885, this same breakaway grouping launched an alternative political vehicle: the Socialist League. Four years later, the SL would be the first political organisation that a young James Connolly joined.
Connolly was there…
In April 1889, James Connolly - having just left the British Army - reunited with his brother John in Dundee, Scotland. It was there that he joined the SL. While the League was technically a splinter organisation, both the SL and SDF operated in Scotland as loose networks of social activists and trade unionists. Indeed, despite the opposition of both sets of leaderships, many Scottish activists even held joint-memberships. John Connolly, James’s brother, was the secretary of the Scottish Socialist Federation, the collective title adopted by several Scottish branches of the SDF. The Scottish Socialist Federation openly took in members of the SL also and - when John left for Edinburgh - James took over as secretary. When assessing Connolly’s later political writings, it is important to appreciate these formative political forays and ideological groundings they provided. It was through the studygroups of the Scottish Socialist Federation that Connolly was first introduced to socialist and anti-colonialist theory. In this environment of fertile exchanges of new ideas, Connolly first honed his analytical framework. In the words of Donal Nevin: “All of Connolly’s writings on economic and social issues are infused with the basic premises of Marxism as propagated in Britain in the last decade of the 19th century when he was imbibing his ideas from Marxist leaders of the British socialist movement in parties which were avowedly Marxist, the Socialist League and the Social Democratic Federation”. Within such groups, the works of William Morris were to ISSUE NUMBER 1 – 2022 - UIMHIR EISIÚNA 1 anphoblacht
