THE IRISH WORKERS MOVEMENT IN AMERICA Due to the fact that Irish workers used the English language in America, there was never any Irish Federation in either the Socialist Labor Party or the Socialist Party.
The Workers Party of America made some effort at organizing Irish-American workers when they held a meeting in Cleveland, OH on Sunday, Feb. 10, 1924. The meeting was addressed by Albert F. Coyle, editor of the Locomotive Engineers Journal, and Thomas J. O'Flaherty, of the editorial staff of the Daily Worker. Coyle spoke on the communal system in ancient Ireland, while O'Flaherty spoke on the life and work of Jame Connolly and his influence in the labor movement in Ireland. The Daily Worker and the newspaper of the Irish American Labor League, The Irish People, were sold to the gathering.
At the close of the meeting a club was organized to carry the Communist message to the Irish workers of Cleveland, working in cooperation with the local section of the WPA.
[fn. "Irish Radicals Hold Meeting in Cleveland: Organize Connolly Club, Boost Daily Worker," in The Daily Worker, Feb. 12, 1924, pg. 5].
“A Radical Irish Magazine,” by T.J. O’Flaherty [June 2, 1923] Announcement by Workers Party of America journalist Thomas J. O’Flaherty of The Irish People, a new WPA-related monthly magazine directed to the task of radicalizing the Irish workers in America. O’Flaherty briefly outlines the history of the socialist Irish press in America, beginning with James Connolly’s paper The Harp (1908); Big Jim Larkin’s short-lived 1918 paper, The Irish Worker; and running through the first incarnation of The Irish People, published by the Irish American League and edited by O’Flaherty for 6 months in 1921. This new monthly version of The Irish People was intended to “tell the Irish workers in America some things they are not told by their bourgeois, superstitious press,” O’Flaherty declares. Business manager of the publication was M.J. Scanlan of the Amalgamated Street Carmen’s Association, and included among the contributing editors was William F. Dunne.
