Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Make Cookies. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Margaret Kiljoy, and I'm still thinking about the really mediocre
Speaker 2: cookies I made that I ate. All of my guest
Speaker 2: today is Katie still? Hi Katie?
Speaker 3: I'm back Hi?
Speaker 2: Yeah, on this totally different day.
Speaker 3: That is a totally different day.
Speaker 2: Why I'm still thinking about the cookies. The cookies did
Speaker 2: not last long enough for me to still be thinking
Speaker 2: about if we had recorded on a sear But.
Speaker 3: See if you're still thinking about them the next time
Speaker 3: you record.
Speaker 2: Hopefully all be thinking about better cookies.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But someone's going to send me their punk house cookie
Speaker 2: recipe and it's going to be better than what I had,
Speaker 2: So I'm excited. But our producer Sophie, Hi, Sophie, Hey,
Speaker 2: And everyone's say hi to Daniel, who's our audio engineer?
Speaker 1: Hi? Danel?
Speaker 3: Hi Danel?
Speaker 1: What up? Dj Danel?
Speaker 2: Our theme musical is written for us by one woman.
Speaker 2: And this is part two of a four parter about
Speaker 2: the East Rising, which was well, you should listen to
Speaker 2: part one. I did the quick version of it. Why
Speaker 2: would you listen to only part two? Is there something
Speaker 2: be a weird choice? I know, I can't even that's
Speaker 2: why I can't get into I've said this before. It's
Speaker 2: like why I can't get into like comic books or
Speaker 2: things that are not I can't. I have to start
Speaker 2: at the beginning of things and work my way through.
Speaker 3: And it's so overwhelming. When you saw you see there's
Speaker 3: five hundred issues.
Speaker 2: They're not this is not linear, it doesn't work, and
Speaker 2: this one is linear mostly. I mean, actually, all of
Speaker 2: history is a big, non linear, complicated web of a
Speaker 2: story you can't actually sit down in, but you can try.
Speaker 2: And that's my job because it's cool, little cool stuff.
Speaker 3: Linear in the sense that you've planned.
Speaker 2: Out four episodes, So that's true. We're on number two,
Speaker 2: that's true. Where we last left our heroes, we only
Speaker 2: talked about half of them when we talked about the
Speaker 2: sketchy aar half the nationalists. Today we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about the socialists, which for some of you listening might
Speaker 2: be the sketchy half, in which case we have different
Speaker 2: conceptions of things. Today we're gonna start James Connolly, we
Speaker 2: briefly introduced last time as the guy who was like,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? We're not into the red
Speaker 2: wine of battlefields? What the fuck is wrong with you,
Speaker 2: or specifically said blithering idiot about Patrick Pierce.
Speaker 3: Oh love that.
Speaker 2: James Connolly was born poor as fuck an Irish slum
Speaker 2: in Edinburgh, Scotland. He went to work at ten. Contrast,
Speaker 2: and a lot of some of the nationals are working
Speaker 2: class too, But overall, this man went to work at
Speaker 2: ten because he couldn't not because he needed to make
Speaker 2: money for his family. He joined the army as an
Speaker 2: old old child of fourteen years old. Oh boy, I
Speaker 2: think he lied about his age. I don't think England's
Speaker 2: not the best place in the world, but I don't
Speaker 2: think they were recorded.
Speaker 3: They also didn't ask for his identification.
Speaker 2: Sure think kid, Yeah whatever, fucking Irish, Scottish whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he spent seven years stationed in Ireland, realizing he
Speaker 2: was on the wrong side. An awful lot of Irish
Speaker 2: rebels spent time in the British military, or the British
Speaker 2: Colonial Service, or even the British aristocracy. So twenty one,
Speaker 2: he's been in for seven years. They're like, go to India,
Speaker 2: and he's like, go to fucking hell, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to serve in India. So he deserted. He married a
Speaker 2: woman named Lily Reynolds and moved to Scotland and had
Speaker 2: a bunch of kids, six of them. Did I mention
Speaker 2: he was Catholic?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I well Irish Scottish, yeah like it or
Speaker 3: it's almighty in Scotland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm sure there's people who like really care,
Speaker 2: you know, there's people are like, ah, you know whatever,
Speaker 2: I don't fucking care. And as an aside, I complained
Speaker 2: all the time about this on the show. But there's
Speaker 2: all these histories of these like great men of history,
Speaker 2: and it ignores their families and they're like the women
Speaker 2: in their lives right, who are often as involved as
Speaker 2: in whatever project they're doing as the man is. Because
Speaker 2: a lot of these histories kind of come across like
Speaker 2: these guys themselves also ignore their families and the women
Speaker 2: in their lives. And sometimes that's true. But I'm realizing
Speaker 2: more and more because the actually there's people who talk
Speaker 2: about this, they talk about why sometimes people leave their
Speaker 2: families and their personal lives out of it when they're
Speaker 2: kind of like because there's a certain part about like
Speaker 2: when you're like, oh, I'll be the figurehead of this,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like I'll take the fall for this,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes in a literal way, right, You're like, nah,
Speaker 2: I swear I'm the only one who I know, you
Speaker 2: saw a hundred people with guns, but I was the
Speaker 2: only one there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, but they want to protect their family to
Speaker 3: a degree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so more and more, I'm realizing that that's
Speaker 2: happening more often than I realized, which is cool because
Speaker 2: one of the biggest disappointments of this show usually is
Speaker 2: when the men who get written about in history turned
Speaker 2: out to be pieces a shit to the women in
Speaker 2: their lives. And that's one of the primary ways that
Speaker 2: I judged straight men.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, James Connelly had a family and he cared an
Speaker 2: awful fucking lot about them. Yeah, and he he included
Speaker 2: them in his work. He fought for them, and I
Speaker 2: everything I've read is its good.
Speaker 1: Like you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's also like basically canonized, you know, Like yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's like but whatever, like I've you know, I
Speaker 2: try to read contrasting opinions about various people and stuff,
Speaker 2: and like, I read a fuck ton of like right
Speaker 2: wing people writing about all these people too, you know,
Speaker 2: And soon enough, James Connelly is a socialist and he's
Speaker 2: the head of the Scottish Socialist Federation and he's working
Speaker 2: with all of these different socialist groups. He starts off
Speaker 2: as like more of a British style Marxist, which at
Speaker 2: the time means he's more into like social democracy, slow
Speaker 2: change through electoralism and all that. He does not stay
Speaker 2: in this school of thought. Meanwhile, while he's working in Scotland,
Speaker 2: he's already fighting for an Irish socialist Republic, his lifelong dream.
Speaker 2: He's also a sober man, or as it gets written about,
Speaker 2: he's abstentatious. Abstentatious, Okay, I know, I kind of like
Speaker 2: there's all these like different words for teetotal or straight
Speaker 2: edge or whatever in history, and a lot of people
Speaker 2: in history I keep finding sober people and vegans. They'll
Speaker 2: be called vegetarians or pure vegetarians sometimes, but I run
Speaker 2: across a lot more of them in history than I
Speaker 2: am originally would have expected.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. Yeah, we just kind of gloss over that,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it seems like an important fact, and I
Speaker 3: think for him it's like part of this like you know,
Speaker 3: when we're drunk, we don't get shit done kind of thing,
Speaker 3: you know, or like our worst selves come out.
Speaker 2: I haven't actually read him talking about it. I've only
Speaker 2: read him like kind of complaining about in the like
Speaker 2: different revolutionary spaces when there's too much drinking at them.
Speaker 3: And definitely diffuses your revolutionary energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or sometimes it's spikes it.
Speaker 3: It can. But then you get a hangover the next
Speaker 3: day and you're like, oh, I have to actually show up.
Speaker 2: I know, and you're like in prison and you're like,
Speaker 2: I don't remember throwing a rocket a cop. Take your
Speaker 2: word for it. He was a fucker, yeah, yeah, probably,
Speaker 2: I mean he did, but yeah, probably did. So he's sober.
Speaker 2: The pay for Socialist Revolutionary Organizer. You're going to be
Speaker 2: shocked to hear this. It's shit. It's shit pay really Yeah,
Speaker 2: and when you have six kids none not easy to work.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So he goes to the US for a while. First
Speaker 2: he goes to travel and raise money for the Union
Speaker 2: and you know, to pay for his own life and
Speaker 2: family and stuff by going on speaking tours and selling
Speaker 2: newspaper subscriptions to the Irish diaspora in the United States.
Speaker 2: And he's giving talks all over the country about why
Speaker 2: Irish American folks need to support socialism, which is not
Speaker 2: popular at the time, you know, I mean the Irish
Speaker 2: American diaspora leans slightly conservative. Yeah, he misses the shit
Speaker 2: out of his family. He writes his wife letters about
Speaker 2: how fucked up America is for having stolen all the
Speaker 2: land from indigenous people. Because this guy can't miss this
Speaker 2: is like the late nineteenth century, you know, he sure
Speaker 2: can't live in an unlucky and hard life. One of
Speaker 2: the times, while he's in the US, his eldest daughter
Speaker 2: dies tragically in a fire. While he is away, He's
Speaker 2: gone back to the US, to Troy, New York, and
Speaker 2: he's setting up for his family to emigrate there because
Speaker 2: he's like, well, this is where I can have a
Speaker 2: better life for my kids. This is where they can
Speaker 2: be educated better than they would be in the Irish
Speaker 2: slum of Edinburgh, you know. And one of his daughters dies,
Speaker 2: and I think this haunts him for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life. His family moves with him to Troy, New York,
Speaker 2: and at least two of his daughters, Nora and Fiona,
Speaker 2: find work pushing shirt collars around the city and big crates. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you know that Troy, New York was called Collar City
Speaker 2: Coller City, and it was where all the shirt collars
Speaker 2: were being made, and the shirt collar Worker Union was
Speaker 2: the first all woman union in history in US history. Sorry,
Speaker 2: it was found in eighteen sixty four by a nineteen
Speaker 2: year old woman who worked the shirt collar factory. But
Speaker 2: by the early nineteen hundreds, the pay is shit for
Speaker 2: his daughters, the conditions are shit. Workers aren't allowed to
Speaker 2: talk to each other. The Protestant Irish get all the
Speaker 2: managerial jobs and the Catholics get all the worst jobs.
Speaker 2: Is a big part of like, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: anti papist bigotry that we've come up a bunch on
Speaker 2: this show. And Troy is the third time we'll bring
Speaker 2: this up on this episode. Won't be the last. Troy
Speaker 2: had the highest tuberculosis rate in the country.
Speaker 3: Oh, there it is again.
Speaker 2: It's a marker of poverty. Yeah, because of people living
Speaker 2: in crowded and on hygienic conditions. Yeah, so his daughter's
Speaker 2: won on strike. The first version I read about this
Speaker 2: was like Connolly organized his daughter's workplace. I don't think
Speaker 2: that's true. I think his daughters and the union at
Speaker 2: the factory organized to that. Yeah, he supported them, he
Speaker 2: raised money for them, and he also raised some daughters.
Speaker 2: That sound kind of badass, so I know exactly right.
Speaker 2: And local union politicians and the Catholic Church were backing
Speaker 2: the owners, which is not a good sign when you're
Speaker 2: trying to have a union and the fucking that is
Speaker 2: like specifically fighting against like antipapas, bigotry and hiring practices,
Speaker 2: and the Catholic Church and the local union politicians are like, eh,
Speaker 2: but we like the money of the companies, you know.
Speaker 2: So he did that thing. And then in nineteen oh five,
Speaker 2: everyone get out your Bengo cards. Tuberculosis free space has
Speaker 2: been checked off. In nineteen oh five, the union organizers
Speaker 2: in the US did one of the coolest things I've
Speaker 2: ever done. Time for a Bingo square. They founded the
Speaker 2: Industrial Workers of the World. Yeah, they they fucking I
Speaker 2: didn't try to put them into this episode. Industrial workers,
Speaker 2: by the way, doesn't mean people who industrial work do
Speaker 2: industrial work like foundries and like molten metal and shit.
Speaker 2: It means entire industries being organized into one union instead
Speaker 2: of like different. Prior to industrial unionism, it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: the drivers of the train have one union and the
Speaker 2: coal shovelers of a different union, and the porters don't
Speaker 2: get one fuck you.
Speaker 3: And you know this is a big change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it changes the labor movement worldwide. And this
Speaker 2: union we talked about way more than I ever expected to.
Speaker 2: It was founded by anarchists and socialists getting together and
Speaker 2: being like, fine, fuck it, work together. The Bolshevik thing
Speaker 2: hasn't happened yet. There's no reason for us to hate
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 3: Like Irish nationalism and Irish labor.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Kind no, totally, And I have a feeling that
Speaker 2: because this is going to influence the shit out of
Speaker 2: the Irish movement. And so now all the workers can
Speaker 2: strike together because they fight together for the same contract
Speaker 2: and they are specifically an anti racist union. They are
Speaker 2: specifically a they probably probably say anti sexist union rather
Speaker 2: than feminist union, but they're specifically fighting also for the
Speaker 2: rights of women in labor. The black anarchist who is
Speaker 2: hero of the first ever episode of Cool People did
Speaker 2: Cool Stuff, Lucy Parsons. She has this quote that I
Speaker 2: found about this that I am ninety percent sure as
Speaker 2: a paraphrase and not her actual words, but it is
Speaker 2: cool anyhow and a decent reflection of her and the
Speaker 2: union's perspective. Quote. Every time a cleaning lady gets paid
Speaker 2: less than a janitor for doing the same work. It
Speaker 2: hurts all the women and all the men. It robs
Speaker 2: women and keeps men working for low pay so he
Speaker 2: won't get replaced by a woman. When Negroes or Jews
Speaker 2: or the Chinese are paid less, it keeps wages low
Speaker 2: for all. White Christians are paid a little bit more
Speaker 2: and told that they are not exploited. And so the
Speaker 2: IWW is like running around like all of the immigrant
Speaker 2: groups and the racialized groups and the gender minority groups
Speaker 2: that the regular unions aren't touching. They're running around organizing them.
Speaker 2: Fucking cool at home, incredible. Lucy Parsons was one of
Speaker 2: the founders of the IWW, and James Connolly does what
Speaker 2: half the heroes on this show do. He joined the
Speaker 2: IWW's the thing to do while you're in the US,
Speaker 2: which means get out your red string. I can draw
Speaker 2: a direct line from Lucy Parsons, a black and indigenous
Speaker 2: woman born a slave who becomes an anarchist union organizer,
Speaker 2: to James Connolly, one of the most prominent East a
Speaker 2: Rising heroes, and therefore to lighting the fuse that trashed
Speaker 2: the British Empire.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, thanks Lucy.
Speaker 2: Connolly. He starts working for the Wobbles, that's what they're
Speaker 2: called the IWW. There's a lot of arguments about where
Speaker 2: that comes from, and it probably has to do with
Speaker 2: their interracial solidarity and some of the ways that people
Speaker 2: were mishearing some of the ways that they talked. He
Speaker 2: moves to New Jersey and starts working as a sewing
Speaker 2: machine factory, and in order to work there, and rather
Speaker 2: in order to organize there, he learns Italian and German
Speaker 2: in order to better organize with the workers there. Then
Speaker 2: he's in the Bronx and he's selling labor newspapers alongside
Speaker 2: some other Irish immigrants socialists. They formed the Irish Socialist
Speaker 2: Federation and they have three basic principles. They want to
Speaker 2: organize the Irish in the US to assist the revolutionary
Speaker 2: movement in Ireland. They want to teach the Irish and
Speaker 2: the US socialist principles, and they want to teach the
Speaker 2: Irish workers in the US to cooperate with workers of
Speaker 2: all other races and nationalities. So no notes, good goals.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. The Irish Socialist Federation published a newspaper called
Speaker 2: The Harp which taught basically, hey everyone, let's get along
Speaker 2: socialism like Protestants and Catholics. Can we please be fucking chill. Also,
Speaker 2: we need to support the Indian independence movement against the
Speaker 2: British and atheists. We love you guys, but could you
Speaker 2: like be a little bit less Internet Reddit atheist about it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like a talking point back then.
Speaker 3: Internet read it right, specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was like yeah, because the atheists were like,
Speaker 2: anyone who is religious is a piece of shit and
Speaker 2: a moron and can't be a socialist, right, okay, and
Speaker 2: so like, but all these people believe in God, do
Speaker 2: you want them to be socialists or not?
Speaker 3: This like what, Yeah, come on, give me something. Let's yeah,
Speaker 3: make this a space for people, a welcoming space.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that was this big thing. And he wrote
Speaker 2: a lot about being both a Catholic and a socialist,
Speaker 2: which is a very contentious thing at the time, And
Speaker 2: he mostly wrote about what I would call now I
Speaker 2: would say he wrote about being like culturally and somewhat
Speaker 2: theologically Catholic, but not like interested in the institutions of
Speaker 2: the Catholic Church. He constantly railed against it whenever it
Speaker 2: would wield power against people. But he has this quote
Speaker 2: that I think more than anything else, sums up what
Speaker 2: went wrong with the Irish Revolution a couple of years later,
Speaker 2: and just accurately predicts the problem. Quote if you remove
Speaker 2: the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over
Speaker 2: Dublin Castle, unless you said about the organization of the
Speaker 2: socialist Republic, your efforts would be in vain. The green
Speaker 2: coated Irish soldiers will guard the fraudulent gains of capitalist
Speaker 2: and landlord from the quote thin hands of the poor,
Speaker 2: just as remorselessly and just as effectually as the scarlet
Speaker 2: coded emissaries of England do today. Yeah, yeah, you can,
Speaker 2: you can relabel it green, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, say this. One thing I love about this show
Speaker 3: is learning just how strong progressivism and different thing for
Speaker 3: so long that people have been talking about these things.
Speaker 3: And I'm always surprised by like, wow they're saying that
Speaker 3: back then. Wow, yeah, specifically anti racist, anti sexist. Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, are we still having these conversations? But yes, no,
Speaker 4: Like that's such a good point. And one of the
Speaker 4: things that's really interesting is that a lot of it
Speaker 4: went backwards for much of the middle of the twentieth century,
Speaker 4: and like we'll talk about it a little bit later.
Speaker 4: But like during the revolutionary period of Ireland you got
Speaker 4: a lot of women who were involved in the government,
Speaker 4: and then you don't until the late seventies.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in all of these revolutionary movements you'll see like
Speaker 2: women combatants, and we'll talk about some more of them
Speaker 2: that are gonna come up. We've actually already talked about
Speaker 2: one of them. And then you don't for a very
Speaker 2: long time, you know. But in nineteen ten James Connolly
Speaker 2: and his family moved back to Ireland and the story
Speaker 2: really gets going. But first what gets going is you
Speaker 2: out to the stores in order to buy the things
Speaker 2: and the stuff that make the things to turn me
Speaker 2: into a hypocrite by talking about it.
Speaker 3: Just you on this computer machine in front of you,
Speaker 3: typing in the website. You don't have to go to a.
Speaker 2: Store buy stuff dot com. Don't go to that. That's
Speaker 2: probably a real site and it's probably probably probably bad.
Speaker 2: But here's the ads anyway, and we're back. And one
Speaker 2: thing I learned while doing this show all of this
Speaker 2: I'm offscript again, sorry, Sophie. All of these old revolutionary
Speaker 2: groups they all like sold newspapers and stuff, which is
Speaker 2: like the podcast at the time, like the people would
Speaker 2: read the newspapers for like the letters section right where
Speaker 2: people would just like talk shit and stuff is like
Speaker 2: the Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was our Twitter.
Speaker 2: They sold ads like anarchists, socialist whatever, you know, super
Speaker 2: lefty newspaper sold ads And it made me feel better
Speaker 2: because I only learned that while doing this show.
Speaker 3: We've always had ads people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so goes back to Ireland and Irish leftists and
Speaker 2: revolutionary history is entirely interwoven with how Irish responded to
Speaker 2: the enclosure of the comments. We're gonna talk about Irish
Speaker 2: leftism for a minute. We talked about this in our
Speaker 2: episode about the Molly mcguires. Basically, in England they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's form above ground unions and withhold our labor to
Speaker 2: build power for the working class, which is cool. That
Speaker 2: is actually overall a better strategy than we're about to describe.
Speaker 2: The Irish faced with the same problem the enclosure of
Speaker 2: the commons. Their primary form of solution was let's meet
Speaker 2: at the pub, put on crazy costumes, including a lot
Speaker 2: of cross dressing, and then go kill the landlords. Huh okay.
Speaker 2: And they were approaches yeah, similar vibe, no, completely different
Speaker 2: vibe and you actually get this whole thing. In Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: did a two part are about it. The Molly mcguires,
Speaker 2: where where you run into this like tension where the
Speaker 2: English and the Irish coal miners are organizing together. And
Speaker 2: basically like whenever the union is made illegal, then everyone's like,
Speaker 2: all right, well, put on a dress and kill some otherfuckers,
Speaker 2: and so like it really incentivizes them to keep the union.
Speaker 2: It is legal because when you outlaw unions, men put
Speaker 2: on dresses and kill people and that's good, and that's good,
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first, yeah, in this context especially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's an awful lot of names for these
Speaker 2: an awful lot of these secret societies, and they're very informal.
Speaker 2: Some of them are more formal. It's all scattered. And
Speaker 2: also the Iris shouldn't write a lot of their medieval
Speaker 2: and early modern history, so you only get what's written
Speaker 2: by outsiders and what's written by the courts against them
Speaker 2: and stuff, you know. But overall, the names that people
Speaker 2: remember these secret societies the most are the Ribbon Men
Speaker 2: and the Molly mcguires, And.
Speaker 3: They're both great names.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What's funny is the first one was called the White boys.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was not about the racial it was not about
Speaker 2: whiteness as a racial concept that did not exist at
Speaker 2: that time. Yes, just the white boys. I know it
Speaker 2: is bad.
Speaker 3: Oh is better?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ribbon men's good. They're gonna cut you up.
Speaker 3: And that's good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So these tactics influenced the Irish rebels of the late
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, the Fenians, who preferred the secret society model
Speaker 2: overall to the labor union model. But you also get
Speaker 2: unionism in Ireland. Another fucking returning hero of the pod.
Speaker 2: This is just like the Capstone piece. I'll probably shut
Speaker 2: up about Ireland for a while after this. Jim Larkin. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Jim Larkin is another returning hero of the Pod. He's
Speaker 2: a big part of Irish Unionism. He's mostly famous for
Speaker 2: trying to make Ireland free and socialist, but to our listeners,
Speaker 2: he might be famous for helping run the Dill Pickle
Speaker 2: Club in Chicago, which was a desegregated social club and
Speaker 2: jazz club that didn't serve alcohol and helped create Chicago's
Speaker 2: underground political and cultural scene at the end of the
Speaker 2: nineteen tens, which he ran alongside an anarchist dynamiter. Fuck yeah,
Speaker 2: but in the meantime, before all that, he helped unionize
Speaker 2: Ireland alongside Connolly basically for until nineteen thirteen, nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 2: It was like, kind of him in charge of this
Speaker 2: union about to talk about and then Connolly is the
Speaker 2: second in command, and then and then Jim leaves the country.
Speaker 2: They and others they start the Irish Transport and General
Speaker 2: Workers Union, which was a IWW inspired union, and specifically,
Speaker 2: the thing it did that scared the shit out of
Speaker 2: the political class, the capitalist class was that skilled workers
Speaker 2: and unskilled workers were now in the same union. So
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirteen we get the most immediate precursor to
Speaker 2: the Easter Rising, which is called the Dublin lockout. The
Speaker 2: workers were like, hey, we're like fucking starving to death
Speaker 2: and dying of tuberculosis because the history of the world,
Speaker 2: I swear to God, is the history of tuberculosis. Irish
Speaker 2: deaths by TB were fifty percent higher than England or
Speaker 2: Scotland at this time. Wow, and like those aren't Like
Speaker 2: England's not just full of rich people. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of poor people there.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of poor people there too. Yeah, it's actually.
Speaker 2: This really interesting thing where whenever the socialists would leave
Speaker 2: Ireland or Scotland and go to the US, they'd be like,
Speaker 2: the American poor has a higher standard of living in
Speaker 2: that they have more stuff, but work way the fuck
Speaker 2: harder and are like more fucked. Yeah, but then like
Speaker 2: the Irish and whatever, the poor are just fucked everywhere.
Speaker 2: And in Dublin they all have TV.
Speaker 3: It's bleak.
Speaker 2: Like two of our heroes this week have lifelong struggle
Speaker 2: with TV and probably only survived to do the fighting
Speaker 2: because of access to familial wealth. So it's mostly poor
Speaker 2: people dying of it, right, Yeah, So folks are like,
Speaker 2: we're going to do something about this. It wasn't just
Speaker 2: about TV. But you know, as a part of it,
Speaker 2: we have this new union bring us all together so
Speaker 2: we can do a general strike, which you know, we
Speaker 2: can do so much more because we have this one
Speaker 2: big union attitude. This is fucking great. We love it.
Speaker 2: Everybody loved it. No one had any problems with it
Speaker 2: except for all the people but with power and money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the people you would assume might have a problem
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like this this part just stays in
Speaker 2: like classic no complications. This is like we're just strongly
Speaker 2: in regular cool people territory, the great lockout. The richest
Speaker 2: man in Ireland was this guy, William Martin Murphy or
Speaker 2: is the press like to call him William Murder Murphy. Ooh,
Speaker 2: if people to be fair, if people said that about me,
Speaker 2: I'd be like, yes, murder is my middle name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd lean into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He was a press baron and an industrialist and
Speaker 2: a politician and just like everything's shitty. He's just a
Speaker 2: fucking classic nineteenth century Robert baron. Dude. He's a little
Speaker 2: bit like a little bit lefty compared to a lot
Speaker 2: of them. Right, He's fine with skilled workers having unions,
Speaker 2: but unskilled workers. Oh no, that is a step too far, okay,
Speaker 2: to make things messy. Not only is an Irish Catholic,
Speaker 2: he's an Irish nationalist.
Speaker 3: Oh yep, we are get in the messy territory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ireland for the Irish, just you know, with capitalism. Basically,
Speaker 2: his position is Ireland for me, please, I want to
Speaker 2: run it. Also, he calls himself Catholic, but his workers
Speaker 2: got one day off in ten Like, I'm sorry, I have
Speaker 2: you ever heard of the fucking sabbath? You fucking Catholic?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That doesn't sound super catholic, but a lot of times
Speaker 3: people that are Catholic don't sound super catholic.
Speaker 2: It's true. It's true. Also, sometimes his workers work seventeen
Speaker 2: hour days, and he had a whole network of spies
Speaker 2: and informers among his workers to like hear what they
Speaker 2: were up to and see that.
Speaker 3: It sounds awful.
Speaker 2: He's a piece of shit. He's absolutely a fucking He's
Speaker 2: an archtypical cool people bad guy.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: Not and that he is cool people. Although his middle
Speaker 2: name is murder, so he's interesting.
Speaker 3: That part's cool, but not because of him necessarily. Someone
Speaker 3: gave him a cool nickname.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like cool, like in that way that like
Speaker 2: when you watch a movie and there's like a bad guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't like him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes I like the bad guy, especially when they're
Speaker 2: gay coded. I don't feel good about that. Yeah. Twice
Speaker 2: in my life, small children have looked at me and
Speaker 2: turned to their parents and said, mom, is that a villain?
Speaker 3: Well, Margaret villain kills jo I has a bring to.
Speaker 2: It is It's true. It's true.
Speaker 3: It's a vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to be fair, it was like and like
Speaker 2: just a little bit of a beard, was wearing a
Speaker 2: black dress and had like a little bit of makeup
Speaker 2: and long dark hair. I looked like a Disney villain
Speaker 2: because they painted Disney villains to look like me before
Speaker 2: I transitioned.
Speaker 3: Oh, are you the true the Disney villain archetype. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they owe you a lot of money.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should be getting some fat residuals for that.
Speaker 2: I agree. I'm just going to join whategricultural groups are
Speaker 2: fighting against Disney right now. I feel like that'll go
Speaker 2: really well for me. I made a Current Events joke.
Speaker 2: It's almost like a pop cancer joke.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Murder Murder Murphy. What's his last name, Murphy, Murder
Speaker 2: Murphy Murphy. He's like old Bill Murder Murphy. Him and
Speaker 2: all the other bosses, not all of them, A lot
Speaker 2: of the other bosses just lock out the workers of Dublin.
Speaker 2: Like thousands and tens of thousands of workers are suddenly
Speaker 2: unionizing in this general union, and so they're like, all right,
Speaker 2: your workers unionize, fire them all and hire scabs. Don't
Speaker 2: let them come to work anymore. They're fucking done. One
Speaker 2: notable exception to this, this is not a beer ad.
Speaker 2: Guinness didn't lock out their workers. Okay, they actually paid
Speaker 2: their workers pretty well and they didn't lock out their workers,
Speaker 2: including several who are in this union. However, they weren't
Speaker 2: like totally on the side of the workers, and they
Speaker 2: told their workers they couldn't sympathy strike. Okay, they did
Speaker 2: that they would be fired, but they wouldn't be fired
Speaker 2: just for being in the US union and it, you know,
Speaker 2: and they would continue to negotiate with the union. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, Guinness is delicious.
Speaker 2: I know their founder for more than a century back
Speaker 2: was against Irish independence. Well, don't like that, but that
Speaker 2: was the one hundred years prior to all of this, Okay,
Speaker 2: so whatever, we can't.
Speaker 3: Wow, Guinness has been around a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like late seventeen hundred's dang, Okay, it is
Speaker 2: really good. I really like their na beer. I drink.
Speaker 2: I'm not abstentatious, but I'm not the fasiest thing, and
Speaker 2: I kind of like an a beer.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we're of an age. I don't know how
Speaker 3: you told you are, but we're of an age where
Speaker 3: that non alcoholic beer sure sounds better sometimes.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, like, oh, I can drink a beer with no consequences.
Speaker 2: This is great, yeah, exactly, but there were consequences for
Speaker 2: the resulting labor struggle. It was fucking huge. This was
Speaker 2: the largest labor uprising in Irish history. I believe. Whenever
Speaker 2: you see like the largest or the first or whatever,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I gotta see a lot more sources. But yeah,
Speaker 2: all across Dublin the police started acting like police, which
Speaker 2: is to say, well, you mentioned earlier about how Ireland
Speaker 2: had a bloody Sunday, and I mentioned that they had four,
Speaker 2: which is approximately four too many. I almost wrote three
Speaker 2: too many because one of the bloody Sundays kind of
Speaker 2: has a little bit of a back and forth and
Speaker 2: like fifteen police informers get shot, but then like a
Speaker 2: fuck ton of Irish civilians get gunned down by the army.
Speaker 2: This is years later. This is a couple years later.
Speaker 2: It's like nineteen twenty years. So I don't have the
Speaker 2: numbers in front of me because this is some part
Speaker 2: of what I'm talking about today.
Speaker 3: But we're offscript again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first bloody Sunday was in nineteen thirteen during
Speaker 2: the lockout, when the police attacked protesting union workers in Dublin.
Speaker 2: They killed two people and they injured more than four
Speaker 2: hundred people, just like fucking shooting into the crowd and
Speaker 2: all that shit. And here you run into the tensions
Speaker 2: between nationalism and labor unionism again because immediately when the
Speaker 2: workers are locked out, when he starts coming in from
Speaker 2: socialist unions in England, the British cooperative movement starts sending
Speaker 2: literal tons of food on rented ships because they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: workers need our help. We're workers, Our fucking loyalty is
Speaker 2: to our class, not our fucking country. And there's another
Speaker 2: tactic that syndicalists used to great effect very recently at
Speaker 2: this time, which I've talked about, not just in the
Speaker 2: episode about the Battle of Cable Street, but even talked
Speaker 2: about I think last episode I did, because it's so
Speaker 2: fucking cool when it keeps coming up, which is that
Speaker 2: when the Irish dock workers were starving in London during
Speaker 2: a strike, the syndicalists organized that the kids of the
Speaker 2: starving dock workers would get taken care of and literally
Speaker 2: raised for about a year or so in the homes
Speaker 2: of the Jewish like tailors. Okay, and later this defeats
Speaker 2: British fascism because when the fascists are like Hey, Irish,
Speaker 2: you're white, join us against these fucking Jews. And then
Speaker 2: they're like, are you fucking kidding me? Those Jews fucking
Speaker 2: raised me a piece of shit. I speak Yiddish, die
Speaker 2: you know, and they beat in the Battle of Cable
Speaker 2: sit whatever. Anyway, this was a whole fucking I swear
Speaker 2: to God that's not trying to just make this an
Speaker 2: ad for every episode I've ever done.
Speaker 3: But ye know it's good though. There's going to be
Speaker 3: links to all the episodes referenced, yeah, and not so well.
Speaker 2: You probably have to search them, but yeah, you're gonna search.
Speaker 2: It's okay. So the syndicalists were like, hey, the Socialists
Speaker 2: of England are ready to look after your kids because
Speaker 2: everyone's starving because everyone's locked out. But the Catholic Church
Speaker 2: was like, no, you can't do that. Your kids will
Speaker 2: become atheists and Protestants and that's worse than starving to death.
Speaker 2: We're the Catholic Church. Yeah, So nationalism, or particularly in
Speaker 2: this case, the church, worked against internationalism that could have
Speaker 2: helped the strike. The final seal of the not winning
Speaker 2: of this strike was that the English workers didn't go
Speaker 2: so far as to sympathy strike that was like, they
Speaker 2: were like, oh, maybe we'll sympathy strike and if they
Speaker 2: had managed to write, if the if the working class
Speaker 2: of the of Ireland and fucking England had struck together,
Speaker 2: it could have fucking changed more than this arising.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But in the end the English workers were like, that's
Speaker 2: not happening. We don't want to starve too, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the strike collapsed. Most workers signed I won't unionize promises
Speaker 2: to get their jobs back and went back to work.
Speaker 2: I've read other accounts that say that this ended in
Speaker 2: more of a draw. I think those are kind of optimistic,
Speaker 2: but they point out that the status quo survived, but
Speaker 2: so did the union. This union is still around and
Speaker 2: actually it's not even at its peak. I think it
Speaker 2: peaks s later I remember when nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3: I guess in those terms, it's a bit of a draw. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, they didn't get the gains that they wanted,
Speaker 3: but the union exists, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So during all of this, the workers did
Speaker 2: form an organization that is going to change the course
Speaker 2: of world history. They formed the Irish Citizen Army, and
Speaker 2: their slogan, which is sick, is people will only be
Speaker 2: free when they own the land they plow and the
Speaker 2: stars in the sky. Their flag is the most Irish
Speaker 2: shit ever. And that's saying something because there's already an
Speaker 2: Irish flag with a harp on it. Yeah, their flag
Speaker 2: is a plow made out of stars. It's the Big Dipper. Okay,
Speaker 2: but in the US we call the Big Dipper and
Speaker 2: apparently in the UK it gets called the Plow.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't either, and that's a that's a Wikipedia
Speaker 2: level knowledge. But when I looked up a lot more
Speaker 2: about this flag. So this flag's cool as hell. Before
Speaker 2: you run out and buy one, know that this flag
Speaker 2: has been used by everyone from the Irish Labor Party
Speaker 2: to various incarnations of the IRA, including some of the
Speaker 2: bad ones. So you might not be saying like, hell,
Speaker 2: yeah the original synthicalists who fought in the East Arising
Speaker 2: or coolest shit when you rep it, and you might
Speaker 2: be saying something different.
Speaker 3: You might be throwing supporter on something you don't want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a note to me and the fact
Speaker 2: that I almost by one of these flags immediately after me,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do some assides about some of these ica
Speaker 2: fellow not even Fellows people. One of the founders of
Speaker 2: the Citizen Army was his man, Jack White. Imagine an
Speaker 2: adventurer with a fedora who had been in the British
Speaker 2: Army named Jack White.
Speaker 3: I'm imagining it.
Speaker 2: You've got this guy. He looks like fucking Indiana Jones.
Speaker 2: He is an archtypical nineteenth century adventurer.
Speaker 3: I am actually picturing Jack White of the White Stripes.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't I know the white stripe. So I
Speaker 2: didn't know that dude's name. Huh oh man, Wait, his
Speaker 2: name's Jack White and that's why they named it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess that makes sense. Yeah, So this Indiana Jones
Speaker 2: motherfucker is on the side of justice. He's a Protestant hero.
Speaker 2: He worked with our man Roger Caseman, who's the guy
Speaker 2: who brought down King Leopold and as gay as hell.
Speaker 2: He worked with him to get Protestants to back Irish independence. Later,
Speaker 2: just to speed run this guy because I think he's
Speaker 2: neat teen thirties, he goes off to join the Connolly
Speaker 2: column in the Spanish Civil War in order to fight
Speaker 2: against Franco and fight against fascism in Spain during the
Speaker 2: Spanish Civil War. Right and then he gives up his
Speaker 2: officer position when in the like Russian controlled Internationalist brigades
Speaker 2: because he's like, well, the anarchists are way cooler and
Speaker 2: they're doing way better work. So he like runs off
Speaker 2: and like stops being an officer to go join the CNT.
Speaker 2: So he's a cool guy. He's worth a side note.
Speaker 2: But then there's a main character, Constance Georgian Markowitz. The
Speaker 2: Irish Socialists were specifically feminist and were one of the
Speaker 2: first organizations to offer equal memberships to women. And this
Speaker 2: is a paramilitary organization. So this fucking countess born in
Speaker 2: London to an Anglo Irish landlord father goes class trader.
Speaker 2: Her father, as a landlord, tried to be like actually
Speaker 2: kind of cool. He gave out free food to his
Speaker 2: tenants when everyone was like hungry and shit, you know,
Speaker 2: he didn't give them the land, so he's not that
Speaker 2: cool but not that cool, yeah, but like bare minimum standards,
Speaker 2: I don't know whatever.
Speaker 3: Presumably she saw this and was like, okay, take it
Speaker 3: a step further.
Speaker 2: Basically that was like she was raised with a little
Speaker 2: bit of a like help the poor attitude, but then
Speaker 2: she was like, what about like really help the poor, right,
Speaker 2: she has a Polish last name because later she's going
Speaker 2: to marry a wealthy Polish guy from what's now Ukraine, Okay,
Speaker 2: And her first political issue had been suffrage, right, she's
Speaker 2: a suffragette. So she's like living these two lives. She's
Speaker 2: part of high society. She's hanging out with the rich
Speaker 2: people in Dublin and doing like landscape paintings and going
Speaker 2: to like balls and things, right, and then she's also
Speaker 2: fighting with the for the Gaelic League, the let's help
Speaker 2: people speak Irish thing. She becomes Fred with maud Gone
Speaker 2: and the woman who started the Daughters of Ireland, and
Speaker 2: soon she joins the Daughters of Ireland. And she would
Speaker 2: do shit like show up to these like revolutionary and
Speaker 2: nationalist meetings still wearing it like she's like straight from
Speaker 2: the ball. So she's still in her gown with a
Speaker 2: diamond tamara cool and instead of people being like, oh
Speaker 2: that's cool, they were like fuck you, you rich bitch. And
Speaker 2: she's like, oh my god, people don't kiss my ass.
Speaker 2: This is the best thing ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So she loves well, that's cool, I mean showing up.
Speaker 3: I think their appropriators, but both are cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think she's cool as hell. Soon enough,
Speaker 2: she's starting her own paramilitary organizations. She starts a youth
Speaker 2: scouting group called the Soldiers of Ireland that's like modeled
Speaker 2: after the Boy Scouts, which was actually kind of paramilitary
Speaker 2: at at start, and they actually pretty immediately are like
Speaker 2: you're a girl, you can't be in part of this.
Speaker 2: And then she's like fuck you, and they're like, oh, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: and so it's like it's not magically easy. There's like
Speaker 2: a bunch of times, even in the middle of the rising,
Speaker 2: there's like women snipers and like ryan around doing all
Speaker 2: this shit, and then they're like one of the guys
Speaker 2: is like, oh, I wish you had been in my area.
Speaker 2: It could have given the boys break from doing the
Speaker 2: dishes and cooking, okay, you know, and she's like, I
Speaker 2: just shot a cop. What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Follow us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And so there's like always this like tension
Speaker 2: right with those like wildly progressive ideals that sometimes are
Speaker 2: slightly harder to happen. But the Countess she's coole as shit.
Speaker 2: She gets arrested at one point for telling thirty thousand
Speaker 2: people to tell England to fuck off, and she's like
Speaker 2: hoists banners with say things like dear Land, thou art
Speaker 2: not conquered yet. Okay, because fucking Irish know how to
Speaker 2: do some poetry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this woman sounds awesome.
Speaker 2: No, she's fucking great. And she sees the socialist Irish
Speaker 2: Citizen Army and she's like, oh, that sounds great too.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be a socialist too, so she joins, She
Speaker 2: sells all her jewelry and goes into debt in order
Speaker 2: to feed people and run a soup kitchen.
Speaker 3: Money where her mouth is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, She designs the ICA's uniform and composes its anthem,
Speaker 2: which is based on the tune of a Polish song,
Speaker 2: because yeah, fuck yeah internationalist nationalism. You know. In her
Speaker 2: writing she told women, quote, dress suitably in short skirts
Speaker 2: and strong boots, leave your jewels in the bank and
Speaker 2: buy a revolver. Okay, and like I have jewels to
Speaker 2: leave in the bank. But like the fucking cool sentiment,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: It's like exchanging for practical things, the things you need
Speaker 3: to go fight this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this thing that's coming, you know. Yeah, And she's right,
Speaker 2: it's coming. I mean she's gonna help make it come. Yeah,
Speaker 2: She'll make sure it comes. Yeah, she's in the rising
Speaker 2: gun in hand. There is arguments about whether or not
Speaker 2: she shoots a cop, but she certainly gets in trouble
Speaker 2: as if she did. Later, she becomes the first woman
Speaker 2: elected to the UK House of Commons in nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 2: but she literally gets elected to turn around to turn
Speaker 2: it down as a boycott of English politics. So the
Speaker 2: first woman elected to the UK House of Commons was like,
Speaker 2: I just ran as a fuck you. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to be used.
Speaker 3: I mean incredible, incredible sub Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyhow, after the Dublin lockout and the Irish Citizen's Army
Speaker 2: forms during this, Oh and there's also this whole other
Speaker 2: thing where the Irish Citizen's Army is protecting feminist organizations
Speaker 2: that are like getting harassed, so like they would attach
Speaker 2: themselves to like bodyguard different women who are like getting attacked.
Speaker 2: After the Doublin lockout, Jim Larkin, he's kind of seen
Speaker 2: as like the main socialist guy behind me. He's the
Speaker 2: leader of this union and he's like, yeah, I got
Speaker 2: to get the fuck out of Ireland. And there's a
Speaker 2: lot of arguments about why he did. It's like a
Speaker 2: little bit avoiding persecution, a little bit burnout a little bit.
Speaker 2: Everyone fucking hates him a little bit. He's just heartbroken,
Speaker 2: you know. So he goes to the US and he
Speaker 2: starts a jazz club. After first he spends the years
Speaker 2: traveling around supporting, raising support friers, independence and socialism. But
Speaker 2: later he starts a jazz club. James Connolly takes over
Speaker 2: the Union and also the citizens Army. The Citizen's Army
Speaker 2: that changes the world is fucking tiny, as one participant
Speaker 2: put it again, way of words, with these people, it
Speaker 2: was a subject of amusing jokes and quiet laughter, and
Speaker 2: its actions were almost entirely ignored until the bud flowered
Speaker 2: redly on the second morning of Easter Week.
Speaker 3: Yeah whale with words.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unlike the ads which will be at completely different
Speaker 2: volumes from each other and have too many things and
Speaker 2: interrupt your your space in order to aggravate you into
Speaker 2: buying products in a horrible way, which is why God
Speaker 2: gave you the forward fifteen seconds and your how much
Speaker 2: does coolers on media cost a month? Selfie shrugs, confused, Look,
Speaker 2: and your dollars can get you into coolers on media
Speaker 2: where you don't have to listen to it at all.
Speaker 3: That's a good deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not knowing the price, it's a good deal for
Speaker 2: your dollars.
Speaker 3: Or listen to these ads.
Speaker 2: And we're back a great So that's the Irish Citizen's Army.
Speaker 2: It is not the only paramilitary organization that is going
Speaker 2: to do the Easter Rising. There's also the Irish Volunteers
Speaker 2: that formed the same year in nineteen thirteen. Why did
Speaker 2: they form, you, ask in or Margaret, I am asking, Well,
Speaker 2: most people start the Easter Rising story here, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to start it more with all the wild shit.
Speaker 2: England was considering giving Ireland this thing called home rule,
Speaker 2: where they would give Ireland the right to be sort
Speaker 2: of a state, like kind of like one third independence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this was a big deal, and the Centrists in
Speaker 2: Ireland were all about it, and the political apparatus of
Speaker 2: Ireland was all about it. And this is like the
Speaker 2: stranglehold on Irish politics. All of these like crazy rebels
Speaker 2: are absolutely a minority, and so there's all these elaborate
Speaker 2: political maneuvers that this is not the right podcast to
Speaker 2: get into where I just don't have it in me
Speaker 2: to talk about like how the House of Lords blocked
Speaker 2: it twice. But then if it did a third time,
Speaker 2: then it would work and et cetera. Right, there was
Speaker 2: one chunk of people, though, who really hated the idea
Speaker 2: of home rule, the Northern Protestants. Obviously not all of them.
Speaker 2: Several of them are amazing Iris nationalists who are going
Speaker 2: to fight and die for Irish revolution. But overall, as
Speaker 2: a like voting block and an organizing block, the Northern
Speaker 2: Protestants not excited. They're not excited because they're like, well,
Speaker 2: if England gets home rule, the Catholics will be in charge,
Speaker 2: and then they'll take revenge on us for how we've
Speaker 2: been exploiting them for one hundred and some years. They
Speaker 2: might not a phrase it that way, but that's where
Speaker 2: they're hard.
Speaker 3: To probably not, but you know, we can cut through
Speaker 3: the bullshit here and be honest at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely So. They formed their own reactionary paramilitary organization
Speaker 2: called the Ulster Volunteers. And what's wild about this They
Speaker 2: formed this to fight England if England tried to make
Speaker 2: them free. Oh, they were like willing, that is wild.
Speaker 3: You're correct.
Speaker 2: They were willing to go to war against England to
Speaker 2: force England to rule them completely. You can't set us free.
Speaker 2: You got me in charge of us. There are the
Speaker 2: fucking Proud Boys of Ireland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little bit of what's the thing where
Speaker 3: you're fall in love with your captor.
Speaker 2: Boot licking Stockholms.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to me for doing that because of
Speaker 1: a wonderful song.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's okay. I did the thing where when
Speaker 2: I don't know something, I laugh as if I got it,
Speaker 2: and then I was like, fuck it, I'm just gonna admit.
Speaker 3: It's a really good move and it works cool unless
Speaker 3: you admit it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I should have known that because of the bachelor's
Speaker 1: degree I have in psychology.
Speaker 2: But no. So these Proud Boys of Ireland, the real
Speaker 2: smarty pants, they're like, there's one problem. They have money
Speaker 2: and connections and guns because they are the empowered minority.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, in response, a bunch of Irish nationalist groups, including
Speaker 2: the Gaelic League, the Ancient Order of Hiberians, Shinfeane, the
Speaker 2: Irish Republican Brotherhood, they formed the Irish Volunteers and they're
Speaker 2: ready to fight back the ulcer Volunteers of our Home Rule. Basically,
Speaker 2: they're not necessarily like we're going to fight England they're like,
Speaker 2: we're going to fight this other militia, you know. I
Speaker 2: have read a lot of different accounts of how many
Speaker 2: people are involved in the Irish Volunteers, and they vary
Speaker 2: by times twenty of each other. Oh, it's a wide range.
Speaker 2: At the higher end, I've read that there's two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand of these folks. There's ten thousand of them by
Speaker 2: another account, which is still a fuck ton of people.
Speaker 2: I believe that this two hundred thousand is the sort
Speaker 2: of initial cores that is willing to fight the Ulster Volunteers,
Speaker 2: whereas the ten thousand is the people who are willing
Speaker 2: to do the fighting that's going to come later. That's
Speaker 2: my best guess. Yeah, or people just make up numbers,
Speaker 2: that's the other guess with the Irish Volunteers are not
Speaker 2: nearly so well armed, but they're hopping mad. And the
Speaker 2: formation of the Irish Volunteers at peels off a lot
Speaker 2: of members from the already small Citizen's Army because they're like, well,
Speaker 2: they're a bigger deal, you know, there's more of them,
Speaker 2: and they're you know, have plunkets, land to go train
Speaker 2: on and shit, and so there starts to being these
Speaker 2: tensions between these two groups, and they're both armed, so
Speaker 2: that could go badly spoiler It doesn't, but it could have.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Meanwhile, there's the Women's Council, which is Kumin Naman
Speaker 2: and they it's kind of interesting. Everyone else everywhere else
Speaker 2: you'll read like Irish Citizen Army and Irish Volunteers and
Speaker 2: they're always written in English. Kumin Naman is never written
Speaker 2: as the Women's Council. It is Kumin Toman and this
Speaker 2: grew out of the Daughters of Ireland. That and it's
Speaker 2: an all women's paramilitary organization. It both isn't isn't the
Speaker 2: Women's Auxiliary to the volunteers. It's complicated. A bunch of
Speaker 2: them are suffragists and trade unionists. Mostly they're white collar
Speaker 2: like kind of middle class, but a lot of them
Speaker 2: are working class as well. So things are looking real
Speaker 2: spicy in Ireland. What could happen? I mean, I already
Speaker 2: told you at the top what ends up happening, but
Speaker 2: exactly how spicy they'll get. And you get to hear
Speaker 2: all of these pretty fucking cool stories and you get
Speaker 2: to hear about them next.
Speaker 3: Week, oh, next week. Yeah, Oh, we got through this
Speaker 3: one fast. Well, I guess maybe not that fast. This
Speaker 3: is so enjoyable.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to hear about these stories next week.
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 3: I have been taking notes. I'm not well. See if
Speaker 3: they carry me through. We've got a few days before
Speaker 3: we're recording the rest. But I'm like, I'll be going like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 2: I do a lot of things where I like, because
Speaker 2: of my brain and how I don't remember names and things, well,
Speaker 2: just like even for myself, I just assume that the
Speaker 2: audience might have a similar method of brain work as me.
Speaker 2: So I do a lot of things where like I'll
Speaker 2: give you the countess his name, and then from forever
Speaker 2: on she's the countess, and like she's the countess, and
Speaker 2: like that help I'll use a lot of like this
Speaker 2: is why, you know, i'd be like these guys, the
Speaker 2: socialists blah blah blah, you know, because because it's complicated,
Speaker 2: and like I don't like when people just assume that
Speaker 2: everyone can remember all of this shit.
Speaker 3: No, So yeah, it's very helpful for me. Also me
Speaker 3: literally the activity of jotting down notes helps me as well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I've never become a great note taker. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'll have someone's name and then draw bubbles around it
Speaker 3: and then have arrows going to this person in that
Speaker 3: and then in their arrow coming back around. It's not
Speaker 3: something anybody else could ever look at.
Speaker 2: And there's all these hards next to James Connolly and
Speaker 2: the Countess.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, there are hearts next that. Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, if people want to see the other stuff
Speaker 2: you take notes about, like their events, they can listen
Speaker 2: to even more news.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they sure can. You can listen to even more news.
Speaker 3: You can watch our YouTube show some More News, which
Speaker 3: you do with Cody Johnston. And that's it. That's where
Speaker 3: you can see my stuff currently. Hell yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to see more of my stuff,
Speaker 2: I actually wrote if you want to almost like spoilers
Speaker 2: for next week, this week's substack. I posted it today
Speaker 2: as a recording, not today as when you listen to it,
Speaker 2: so it's actually last week substack for you all out
Speaker 2: there in future land. I actually ended up writing a
Speaker 2: little bit more about the personal side of Easter Rising
Speaker 2: and my interactions with my family around my uncle who
Speaker 2: fought in the rising and stuff like that, and so
Speaker 2: it's beautiful and that's and that's that's a public post.
Speaker 2: It's just more personal than my usual public posts, and
Speaker 2: so you can read that for free. It's probably called
Speaker 2: The Rising or something. I don't remember the names of
Speaker 2: the things.
Speaker 5: Should I read it this weekend or should I wait
Speaker 5: till after we record? I mean most I talked about Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: But so you can read that. You can follow me
Speaker 5: on substack for free. You can also follow me on
Speaker 5: substack for paid if you want more personal stuff. And
Speaker 5: you can listen to other cool Zone media shows. I
Speaker 5: really like them. There's a bunch of new ones that
Speaker 5: are going to be coming out also. I want to hood.
Speaker 5: Politics with Prop is sort of rebranded this year, just
Speaker 5: literally in terms of like logo and stuff. It's still
Speaker 5: all the same great content and it's one of my
Speaker 5: favorite go to current event shows and I highly recommend it.
Speaker 5: And that's what I have for plugs. Sophie's are great plugs.
Speaker 1: I want to plug an article that my business partner,
Speaker 1: Robert Evans wrote for Rolling Stone that came out recently.
Speaker 3: It's called the Cult of AI.
Speaker 1: We also have a two parter and Behind the Bastards
Speaker 1: that kind of covers it. The article is really, really,
Speaker 1: really incredible and I'm very proud of him, so check
Speaker 1: that out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's unstoppable, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's my guy and we'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.