Connolly Commemoration 2025 Ivana's Speech - The Labour Party
Comrades, members of the Connolly family, friends.
As Leader of the Labour Party, it is an honour to address you today, as we gather to commemorate the founder of our Party and our shared movement on this – his 109th anniversary.
James Connolly founded our movement.
And he also inspires our activism.
As we continue to take our battle of ideas to the workplace, to our communities and to the ballot box.
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Since last we stood on Arbour Hill, more people have voted than ever before around the world.
Democracy was tested in more countries in 2024 than in any other single year in history.
But democracy faces more than mere tests today.
It is under attack.
We watch with horror the malign influence of autocrats across the world – of Putin, Netanyahu, Orbán, Lukashenko and others.
Even in the US, we watch with horror as Trump and his acolytes carry out a creeping erosion of democratic values, free speech and the rule of law.
Our response to this horror must be a rededication to the democratic values of our founder and early leaders of our movement.
As Constance Markievicz said, denial of democracy is one of the ‘crying wrongs of the world’. She argued that women had to ‘bite the apple of freedom’ in the quest for voting rights; she urged hope for change.
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In the face of brutal wards in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere; in the face of poverty and exploitation, hope and optimism become acts of resistance.
As socialists and social democrats, our imperative is to fight for a better future – based on our values of equality, solidarity and fairness.
Here in Ireland, over the past year, we in Labour have done just that.
In all three elections held in 2024, Labour set out our stall for our communities.
We asked voters to reject the politics of division and hate.
Our message was simple.
To challenge the neo-liberal economic system, the capitalism of inequality.
To build better together; to build a fairer, more equal society with active state interventions on housing, childcare, healthcare, climate action and workers’ rights.
We aimed to show that there is an alternative.
And our vision, our values and our message of hope resonated with voters, as the election results showed.
I stand before you now as Leader of a Party with 56 Councillors; eleven TDs, two Senators and – for the first time in a decade – a Labour MEP elected to represent us in the European Parliament.
Aodhán O Ríordáin’s successful campaign ‘For the Love of Dublin’ conveyed a message of hope and optimism that won through, over the politics of hate and of fear.
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Our politics of hope had a resonance outside Ireland too.
After that year of elections, Social Democrats are now in ten Governments across Europe.
The Labour Party is now in power again in Britain for the first time in many years.
And we celebrate the victory last week of the Australian Labor Party, who fended off the Liberals to achieve an historic landslide.
Their newly re-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put it well –
Australian people voted for .. fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all. For the strength to show courage in adversity and kindness to those in need.
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The politics of kindness – that’s what we stand for.
Not the shouty politics of aggression and drama, but the serious politics of compassion and of delivery.
Workers and communities want us to organise to agitate for those values.
So we must do as Connolly did, to build a popular movement.
A common Left platform to put forward our Labour values of equality, solidarity and fairness.
Connolly, the republican, knew that those basic values – our patriotic values – are socialist and not nativist at their core.
As he said,
The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour. They cannot be dissevered.
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In his day, Connolly articulated righteous rage at the condition of the working class in Dublin and beyond.
But righteous anger was not the limit of his ambition.
He wanted working people to control their future.
For small voices to have big dreams.
He was an optimist.
A visionary.
An activist, who believed in a better world.
It is that optimism that drives us all in Labour.
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Unfortunately, optimism is not a defining feature of the new Government here.
It is tainted by the mess of its original formation, by Michael Lowry’s two fingers to democracy.
This cobbled-together coalition is grubby, secretive and without direction or ambition.
On Gaza, an era-defining genocide, this Government have fallen short of the mark in failing to do more to hold Israel to account; in failing to progress the Occupied Territories Bill.
We in Labour will do all we can to secure its passage and to end the horrific bombardment and starvation to which Palestinian civilians are being subjected.
On housing, the civil rights issue of this generation, this Government have also failed. They have not delivered their so-called ‘Housing Tsar’ or on any real state intervention to deliver homes at scale.
And on workers’ rights, our movement’s northern star, they have already reneged.
As the Party of the trade union movement, of workers’ rights, we pledge to stand firm to retain a key focus on the need to secure improved conditions for workers and unions.
To deliver on a living wage; on sick pay; on auto-enrolment; on collective bargaining rights.
And on an active State that can deliver on housing, health, climate action and childcare.
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In a true republic, inspired by Connolly’s vision, a government should have righteous anger and radical hope;
Righteous anger at how its people have to struggle.
And a radical hope that there is a better way.
That is the challenge before our Party.
It is a challenge to which I know we will all rise.
As we re-affirm our commitment to the politics of kindness and hope, our commitment to optimism and to Connolly’s democratic values.
So that the communities we represent can have their voices heard.
And so that, together, we can build the equal republic that Connolly dreamt of, and that our communities so desperately need.