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Black 47

Black 47 is a Celtic rock band formed by Irish-born Larry Kirwan and Chris Byrne, a police officer from Brooklyn, in 1989. They take their name from Black 1847, the worst year of the Irish famine. Although the band has Irish Republican leanings, they’re also politically motivated by socialist ideals. In writing this “James Connolly,” Larry Kirwan explains in an interview with Bill Nevins that The Wolfe Tones’ tribute inspired his song: “With [1916 Irish socialist hero] James Connolly, I hated the old standard song, ‘The Ballad of James Connolly.’ As a socialist myself, I resented that he had been railroaded by tears-in-the-beer nationalism. I thought that Connolly, the world revolutionary, would have resented that, too.”  

Listen on Spotify here.

Lyrics. 

Accordingly, they paint a far less idealized portrait of the Easter Rising and of Connolly’s death, and address the events of the day as a socialist uprising rather than a purely nationalist one.  James Connolly appears not as a martyr (Kirwan even sings, “Don’t let them make a martyr out of me”), but rather an angry leader, motivated by desperation and fighting for the economic rights of the people.

Black 47’s tribute begins with the Easter Rising and the march of the Citizen Army. Already this is a departure from the Wolfe Tones: here is no solitary hero, awaiting his death, rather a man of the people, fighting for a shared socialist future.

My name is James Connolly, I didn’t come here to die
But to fight for the rights of the working man, the small farmer too
Protect the proletariat from the bosses and their screws
So hold on to your rifles, boys, don’t give up your dreams
Of a Republic for the workin’ class, economic liberty

This James Connolly is not ‘laying down his life’ for the people, as he was in The Wolfe Tones’ ballad, an image that evokes passivity and sacrifice. Rather, he is militant, and his motivation goes beyond nationalism.

This is a very significant difference between the two tributes: in one, Ireland is at the forefront of the song and James Connolly’s identity. Black 47’s song explicitly mentions Ireland only once, and it is not in a patriotic light: “An English boss is a monster, an Irish one even worse.” Later, Kirwan, speaking as Connolly, will call out, “Here’s to you, Lillie, the rights of man, and international revolution.” For Black 47, Connolly fights not so much for Ireland as for “the working man, the small farmer too,” and rails against not England but “the bosses and their screws.”

Here, Kirwan sings that they fought “till a bullet pierced our leader, and we gave up the fight.” It is a far cry from the ‘murder’ of the Wolfe Tones’ ballad. Connolly becomes a casualty of war rather than a victim.

Most notably, Black 47’s “James Connolly” provides a spoken interlude in the middle of the song, in which Kirwan speaks as Connolly. It is impassioned, emotive, and humanizing. We hear Connolly’s motivation for battle, as well as his regret that he will be leaving so much behind:

Oh Lillie, I don’t want to die
We’ve got so much to live for
And I know we’re goin’ out to get slaughtered
But I just can’t take any more

Just the sight of one more child screamin’ from hunger in a Dublin slum
Or his mother slavin’ 14 hours a day for the scum, who exploit her
And take her youth and throw it on a factory floor?
Oh Lillie, I just can’t take any more

They’ve locked us out, they’ve banned our unions
They even treat their animals better than us
Oh no, it’s far better to die like a man on your feet
Than to live forever like some slave, on your knees, Lily

But don’t let them wrap any green flag around me
And for God’s sake, don’t let them bury me
In some field full of harps and shamrocks
And whatever you do, don’t let them make a martyr out of me
Oh no, rather raise the Starry Plough on high, sing a song of freedom
Here’s to you, Lillie, the rights of man and international revolution

Speaking of his career in music in an interview with Steve Malinski, Kirwan cited the performance of this spoken portion as one of the most memorable moments of his career:

“When I first wrote “James Connolly” and the feeling from that song… It was the first time we were doing it, we didn’t really know it. Paddy Reilly’s is always rowdy. So as we went on with the song it got deadly quiet and when we finished the song there was total silence and everyone knew something had happened because that was the first time we had introduced the middle part with the dialog in it. We all knew something great had happened.”

This humanization of Connolly is deeply stirring and feels a necessary aspect to any tribute. The James Connolly of The Wolfe Tones’ Ballad feels too saintly to be believed. Here, we have a man deeply troubled by the role he feels he must play. It is a moment of relatability that I deeply needed as I listened to these ballads.

Two Tributes

I confess that in listening to these songs and learning more about James Connolly, I had a hard time relating to the hero or the singers’ admiration for him. I am a pacifist at heart. The Irish revolution has a complicated and bloody history, one that is hard for me as an outsider to understand fully. Often, we sympathize with the revolutionaries central to our own stories, George Washington, for example, while we can be dismissive of those in other cultures. The perception of these figures at times depends solely on pop culture and the sympathy of their portrayal. I think of revolutionaries who have been deeply violent but who have nonetheless attained some international acceptance for their cause, based upon the lore that surrounds them: Che Guevara or William Wallace, for example.

James Connolly remains such a figure to many, which is why I find these tributes so compelling. There is a tension here between two separate groups, each with their own claims to James Connolly. It is of course important to note that the Wolfe Tones are an Irish band that have remained in Ireland, while the Black 47 is comprised of expatriates and Americans. Different sympathies are at play here. To many, James Connolly is a father of Irish independence. To others, he’s a socialist rebel, fighting for economic, rather than political or nationalistic, liberty.  

James Connolly understood this, even as he lay in hospital awaiting execution. During a visit from his wife, Lillie, he worried, “They will never understand why I am here. They will all forget I am an Irishman.”  For years, there was some dispute about his role in the Easter Rising and his motivations. But as historian John Newsinger notes in his article, “James Connolly and the Easter Rising” :

“In more recent years controversy has been replaced by consensus, and historians concerned with Connolly’s political ideas and activities have argued, in quite extensive literature, that there was no contradiction whatsoever between his Marxist politics and his participation in a foredoomed republican putsch, that his participation in the Easter Rising was indeed the inevitable crowning conclusion to a lifetime’s political endeavor.” 

Which means that these two dissimilar songs present two halves of a whole, two necessary representations of a complex historical figure, a socialist and an Irishman. One could argue for one song or the other as the stronger portrait. I think in the end it is important that both exist, and perhaps sincerity is the most significant aspect of any tribute. The Wolfe Tones and Black 47 succeed on this count.