ALMOST 40 years ago, a book lover went to an auction in Dublin and bought a bundle of issues of The Workers' Republic, the Socialist weekly paper edited by James Connolly in the last year of his life.
When he brought them home, he found he had 37 of the 48 issues, the last published just two days before Connolly kept his appointment with Pearse at the GPO. And something more: a curious bundle of loose scraps of manuscript, many of them written in a rapid, flowing, almost feminine hand. The writing seemed familiar. It turned out that he had bought what remained of the printer's copy for The Workers' Republic: more than 200 pages of contributions, mostly manuscript, in various hands, with about 75 pages in Connolly's own hand. The Connolly items include editorials, obituaries, advertisements, short introductions to pieces reprinted from other papers: all the detail and variety of an editor's weekly work.
None of these items has been seen by any historian. How they survived is anybody's guess. It is a miracle they did survive, and have finally been recognised and brought to light. They are now being offered for sale by the son of the original purchaser, at Mealy's annual Dublin sale of rare books and manuscripts next month.
In one sense, these papers tell us little that is new. All the material or nearly all, has been published. But there is the world of difference between reading the printed page and studying the original manuscript, with all that it tells you about hesitations, second thoughts, pressure of time: sometimes even the emotion seems to come through more clearly.
Few could remain unmoved while reading Connally's original manuscript tribute to his friend Keir Hardie, the British Labour pioneer who stood by the Dublin workers in 1913 and joined Connolly in denouncing the Great War. Connolly writes about him almost as though summing up his own life: "He was a worker, with all the limitations from which no worker ever completely escapes ... He had been denied the ordinary chances of education, he was sent to earn his living at the age of seven, he had to educate himself in the few hours he could snatch from work and sleep, he had to face unemployment and starvation in his early manhood ... Yet he rose through it all, and above it all, never faltered in the fight, never failed to stand up for truth and justice as he saw it, and as the world will yet see it . . ."
In one of the final issues, the pacifist Francis Sheehy Skeffington wrote a review of Connolly's play, Under Which Flag. His typescript starts as follows: "It is a ticklish thing to write a newspaper criticism of a play when the author of the play happens to be also the editor of the newspaper in which the criticism is to appear. It is doubly ticklish when the author and editor is, moreover, a military commandant, and the critic has to run the gauntlet of an armed and zealous guard on entering or leaving the editorial sanctum."
These words do not appear in the published article; in the typescript, they have been struck out in pencil - by Skeffington? By Connolly? By Skeffington at Connolly's request? Who knows.
The review continues, and after various comments Skeffington notes that "the young actress who took the part of the heroine, Ellen, has not yet sufficient experience to develop adequately an emotional role". There follows a manuscript insertion in Connolly's hand: "but showed great promise". The whole passage is then struck out in blue pencil, and does not appear in the printed review.
So here we have Connolly, three weeks before the Easter Rising, worried about hurting the feelings of a young actress. One can imagine the two men going through the article, half joking, while the "armed and zealous guard" of the Citizen Army stands duty outside. Six weeks later Dublin was in ruins, and both men - commandant and pacifist - were dead.
Very clearly these papers ought to be in the National Library. But can it afford to buy them? The auctioneers' estimate is £12,000 to £16,000, but they may go for more. That may be stretching things for a library whose purchase budget is invariably well spent by this time of year.
In this case, however, assistance is surely available if the library cares to ask. Can anyone doubt that SIPTU and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions - to name but two - would be ready, if asked, to contribute to a Connolly acquisition fund?
