Joan Burton evokes Connolly in urging Yes vote in marriage poll

The works of James Connolly have been evoked by Tánaiste and Labour leader Joan Burton in calling for support for the marriage equality referendum.

She said Connolly’s vision was not yet completed, and his message and mission remained relevant as each generation brought new challenges. Connolly, she added, had inspired the electrifying sentence in the 1916 Proclamation, guaranteeing “civil and religious liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities’’.

She said citizens would be called on in the referendum to vindicate that guarantee in respect of equal rights for one group who had endured discrimination and denial for many decades.

“I am glad our party is taking a distinctive role in this particular campaign that has equality at its heart and I am immensely confident it will bear fruit on Friday week,’’ Ms Burton added.

The Tánaiste, who was speaking on Sunday at the annual James Connolly commemoration in Arbour Hill, Dublin, said another immediate challenge related to unfinished business in the area of workers’ rights.

This week, she added, the Government had agreed a new Bill to provide for collective bargaining, as well as the reinstatement of registered employment agreements.

“A hundred years ago, the workers of Dublin went on strike to establish the rights to organise themselves in trade unions,’’ Ms Burton added. “Now in 2015, we are legislating for the right of those trade unions to have their voice heard.’’

Siptu general president Jack O’Connor said Connolly, alone among the signatories to the Proclamation, approached the rebellion from an international socialist perspective.

"He understood the great imperialist war as the ultimate barbaric consequence of the implosion of the capitalist economic system in Europe with all its attendant implications for the very survival of the human species itself,'' he added. "Moreover, he never shared in the simplistic nationalist illusion that ejection of the colonial oppressor would itself liberate the exploited majority of the Irish people.''