JAMES LARKIN

JAMES LARKIN

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Today a statue of “Big Jim” stands on O’Connell Street in Dublin. Completed by Oisín Kelly, and unveiled in 1979,[48] the inscription on the front of the monument is an extract in French, Irish and English from one of his famous speeches: Les grands ne sont grands que parce que nous sommes à genoux: Levons-nous.
Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal: Éirímis. The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.
The slogan, first used on the 18th century French radical paper Révolutions de Paris,[49] also appeared on the masthead of the Workers’ Republic, founded by James Connolly in Dublin in August 1898. Originally the organ of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, this periodical later became the official organ of the Communist Party of Ireland, which was founded in 1921. The original slogan is usually attributed to Camille Desmoulins (1760–1794), the French revolutionary;[citation needed] but it appears, only slightly modified, in an essay written by Étienne de La Boétie (1530–1563) and first published in 1576.[50]
On the west side of the base of the Larkin monument is a quotation from the poem Jim Larkin by Patrick Kavanagh: And Tyranny trampled them in Dublin’s gutter Until Jim Larkin came along and cried  The call of Freedom and the call of Pride And Slavery crept to its hands and knees And Nineteen Thirteen cheered from out the utter Degradation of their miseries.

On the east side of the monument there is a quotation from Drums under the Windows by Seán O’Casey: He talked to the workers, spoke as only Jim Larkin could speak, not for an assignation with peace, dark obedience, or placid resignation, but trumpet-tongued of resistance to wrong, discontent with leering poverty, and defiance of any power strutting out to stand in the way of their march onward.
A road in Raheny, north Dublin, is named after him.

Actor: Stephen Rea
Written by: Enda Walsh
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