While Ireland Holds These Graves! - Posted: Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Greetings members, the Central Labor Council has brought to our attention this play being presented at UAA Mainstage in early May. While Ireland Holds These Graves is the story of the Easter Rising of 1916. A brief synopsis of the subject, and the flyer for the play are presented below:
"An unexpected commotion disrupted routine in a busy city center on an April morning one hundred years ago. Armed men commandeered the main post office in a major city in the world’s most powerful empire. One of their leaders interrupted the musings and conversations of those going about their business by reading out a proclamation declaring an Irish Republic.
The Easter Rising of 1916 was underway. Over the next several days, a handful of rebels battled British troops; the imperial might directed against Dublin smashed the city’s core into smoking ruins [...] One rebel leader with an impressive record as a political activist and union organizer in three countries regarded independence as an indispensable first step in realizing a worker-run society. Let’s destroy the British Empire’s subjugation of Ireland, he said. But let’s also remove the power of the bosses who defraud, degrade, dismiss, and terrorize Irish working people. That the bosses might be Irish didn’t deter James Connolly from the goal of an Irish workers’ republic." --- Peter Gilmore, United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, 2016
