"It is, indeed, a great honour for us children of brigadistas to share with International Brigade veterans Sam Lesser [95 next week, March 18] and Jack Edwards [96] in this celebration of the life of Jack Jones. It is all the more so for myself, since the last overseas journey undertaken by Jack James Larkin Jones was to Dublin in January of last year, to celebrate the centenary of the foundation of my own Irish union – the ITGWU, now SIPTU – by Jack’s fellow Liverpudlian and namesake, Big Jim Larkin.
Those who have viewed "Memories of a Future", the documentary on the IBMT’s commemorative re-crossing of the Pyrenees in 2006, will have seen Jack’s identification with Ireland’s struggle for independence further exemplified as he joined with my wife Annette in singing "Kevin Barry", a song that he himself had especially requested from her. Indeed, his son Mick recalls from his childhood years how Jack used to sing "Kevin Barry" to both Jack Jnr. and himself - as a lullaby!
In "Union Man" Jack wrote of how the writings of James Connolly were among the formative influences of his youth. I also recall, when I brought both Mick and himself to visit Dublin’s Kilmainham Gaol in 2003, how moved Jack was on coming to the exact spot in that grim prison yard where the wounded Connolly, strapped to a chair, had been executed by British imperialism after the Easter Rising of 1916. [SEE my 1971 thesis at www.atholbooks.org/connolly_america.pdf - "Connolly in America"]
"We are proud of the British Battalion", is that line from "The Valley of Jarama" which we sing out with such justifiable pride at the close of IBMT commemorative ceremonies. Here today, in this Imperial War Museum, it is important to recall that the British Battalion also stood in the best anti-imperialist traditions of the Labour movement.
On the eve of the 1938 battle of the Ebro, British and Irish International Brigade volunteers – including IBMT members’ relatives like Sam Wild [Battalion Commander], George Green [who would be killed in action], Frank West [who would be captured and imprisoned in San Pedro concentration camp], James Jump, John Langstaff, Edwin Greening, together with my own father Michael O’Riordan and Jack Jones [both of whom would be wounded on Hill 481] – were particularly honoured to be associated with India’s struggle for independence, as they received a solidarity visit to that Ebro front from the Indian National Congress leader, Pandit Nehru, accompanied by his daughter, Indira – a future Prime Minister like her father.
The British Battalion’s anti-imperialism was even more strongly affirmed by its adoption, as one of its marching anthems throughout the course of the Spanish Anti-fascist War, of James Connolly’s own "Rebel Song". At the IBMT Pyrenees commemoration ceremonies in the Figueras fortress of Castell de Sant Ferran, there were three International Brigade veterans present: the late Bob Doyle of Dublin and the late Jack Jones, a Liverpool Club supporter, accompanied by his lifelong comrade and friend from youth - notwithstanding the fact that he’s an Everton supporter! - this veteran whom, to the end of his days, Jack Jones both addressed and referred to as Young Jackie Edwards, although his senior by only one year! .
And in that Catalan fortress, on Easter Sunday 2006, there could be heard, loud and clear, the voices of both of those Liverpudlian brigadista Jacks, as they heartily joined with me in singing these verses by James Connolly":
Come workers sing a rebel song,
a song of love and hate,
of love unto the lowly
and of hatred to the great.
The great who trod our fathers down,
who steal our children’s bread,
whose hands of greed are stretched to rob
the living and the dead.
Chorus:
Then we’ll sing a rebel song as we
proudly march along
to end the age-old tyranny
that makes for human tears.
And our march is nearer done
with each setting of the sun
and the tyrant’s might is passing
with the passing of the years!
We sing no more of wailing
No songs of sighs or tears;
high are our hopes and stout our hearts
and banished all our fears.
Our flag is raised above us
that all the world may see,
’tis Labour’s faith and Labour’s arm
alone can Labour free.
Chorus
Out of the depths of misery
we march with hearts aflame;
with wrath against the rulers false
who wreck our manhood’s name.
The serf who licks the tyrant’s rod
may bend forgiving knee;
The slave who breaks his slavery's chain
a wrathful man must be.
Chorus
Our army marches onward
its face towards the dawn,
in trust secure in that one thing
the slave may lean upon.
The might within the arm of him
who knowing freedom’s worth,
strikes hard to banish tyranny
from off the face of earth.
Then we’ll sing a rebel song as we proudly march along to end the age-old tyranny that makes for human tears. And our march is nearer done with each setting of the sun and the tyrant’s might is passing with the passing of the years!
[See www.albavolunteer.org/2010/03/celebrating-the-life-of-jack-jones/ for report in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Volunteer. For the SIPTU report on March 18, 2010, see http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs071/1102805358929/archive/1103190210248.html -
LIBERTY ONLINE: "Connolly’s Rebel Song in Imperial War Museum"]