SIPTU General Secretary John King has delivered a major address to mark the 110th anniversary of the execution of James Connolly, trade union organiser, socialist thinker, and revolutionary leader, who was killed on 12 May 1916.
Speaking at the commemoration, King drew on Connolly’s enduring legacy to call for renewed solidarity in the face of rising inequality, a cost-of-living crisis, and what he described as a government that has abandoned the interests of working people.
King warned that without serious engagement from Government on workers’ living standards, Ireland faces significant industrial unrest, including in the public sector, where the current pay agreement expires at the end of June.
Read the full speech below.
Sisters, Brother, Comrades, Friends,
We gather here today to mark the 110th anniversary of the death of James Connolly — trade union organiser, socialist thinker, revolutionary.
Connolly was executed in Kilmainham Gaol on the 12th of May, 1916. Wounded so badly during the Rising that he could not stand, he was tied to a chair before the firing squad. The British Empire believed that by killing Connolly they could kill his vision for a socialist republic. Instead, they immortalised them.
Connolly was not simply a man of one rebellion or one week in Irish history. He was a lifelong agitator for dignity, equality, and democratic power in the workplace and in society. He believed that political freedom without economic freedom was hollow, warning against replacing one ruling elite with another while ordinary people remained trapped in poverty, exploitation, and insecurity.
And 110 years later, his vision still inspires us.
Connolly was born in Edinburgh in 1868 to Irish immigrant parents who knew hardship intimately. He left school young, worked from childhood, and understood from lived experience what it meant to struggle for survival. Learning socialism in overcrowded tenements, in factories, in labouring work, and among the poor.
When he arrived in Ireland, he came to a country marked by inequality and exploitation. Dublin in the early twentieth century was one of the poorest cities in Europe. Workers lived in appalling conditions. Children died from disease and malnutrition. Casual labour meant families could be hired one day and discarded the next.
Connolly did not pity the poor. He organised them.
He understood something that remains true today: when workers stand alone, they are vulnerable; when workers stand together, they are powerful.
Connolly’s politics were radical because the reality facing workers was radical. He saw capitalism not merely as an economic system, but as a structure that concentrated wealth and power into the hands of the wealthy.
He believed in a republic worthy of the name — not merely a green flag over Dublin Castle, but a workers’ republic where the wealth created by labour served the people who created it.
One of Connolly’s greatest strengths was his clarity. He warned that independence without social transformation would leave ordinary people behind. His famous words remain painfully relevant:
“If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic, your efforts would be in vain.”
That warning has challenged every generation of Irish people, and does so today.
Because while Ireland in 2026 is wealthier than the Ireland Connolly knew, many workers still live with insecurity, anxiety, and inequality. Today, workers in Ireland live in a different world — but face familiar struggles.
The forms of exploitation have changed. The language has changed. But the imbalance of power Connolly fought against remains. We have a housing crisis, we still have record levels of child poverty and depravation.
Workers today face soaring housing costs, unaffordable rents, food inflation, childcare costs, energy bills, transport costs. Many workers feel that despite working harder than ever, they are at best standing still.
Ireland’s economy appears strong on paper. Yet many workers ask a simple question: if the economy is doing so well, why do ordinary people feel under such pressure.
Working people do not believe that established politics is working for them, they do not believe that the established Political parties of this government are working to make their lives better.
This Government has abandoned the interests of working people, have bent over backwards to serve the interests of capital, profit and business, while working people have been left to carry the burden of this crisis alone.
This cannot continue. The Government must act to address the needs of working people, the less off and the marginalised. Because if workers learned anything in recent weeks, it is that they know how to get this Government’s attention.
Failure to engage meaningfully with workers’ needs will be fatal to the maintenance of industrial peace.
Across the private sector workers will deal with their demands to meet the needs of this enduring cost of living crisis directly with their employers, and this will undoubtably lead to Industrial conflict.
The current public service agreement expires at the end of June.
If there is no serious engagement from this Government on protecting and advancing the living standards of public sector workers and on strengthening provisions against outsourcing then there will be no agreement and with that serious industrial unrest across the public sector, led by our Union.
As it stands, SIPTU is consulting with thousands of public service activists on behalf of our 80,000 public sector members. They are ready for the battles ahead if that is what is required. And where the Government fails to act, workers will deal with their demands directly with employers. That path leads to industrial conflict. The choice of which road we take belongs to this Government.
That choice is here and now, over 2,000 NAS workers are going on strike in a dispute over pay justice against their employer, and I know that you will join with me in extending solidarity to these brave women and men in their battle.
Workers have concerns around job security, remote work, AI-driven restructuring, and workplace surveillance. Workers fear not just low wages, but instability itself — the sense that jobs, homes, and futures can disappear with little warning.
Connolly would recognise that fear. The triumph of neoliberalism has seen progressive forces in retreat all over the world. We live now in the midst of a Billionaires Revolution.
A coup where an unelected elite has consolidated its grip on both economic and political power, facilitated by political parties that share their values.
They have executed a counter-revolution against the very idea of the common good.
This is no abstract theory. The collective wealth of billionaires surged by $2.5 trillion last year alone and the 12 richest billionaires own more wealth than the poorest half of humanity, that’s over four billion people! It is obscene!
This is the fruit of their revolution: a world shaped by self-interest and greed, where wealth dominates our politics.
Their playbook is global they promote far-right parties seeking to divide us, privatise state assets and sell off the family silver, pour more public money into private hands, seek to sideline the media and control the digital tools that shape our reality.
And let us be clear: Ireland has not been immune.
We are one of the countries where inequality has grown most rapidly.
The values of a selfish elite have led us from one existential crisis to another.
So, what must we do?
We must act as Connolly did, organise to a build a new society and workplaces based on the Common Good.
But let us be clear about something: trade union and labour movement activism is not a spectator sport. Our goal is a better world, better communities, better and safer workplaces. Now more than ever, our task is to build this union and this movement to meet the moment because the moment demands it..
Workers are not looking for tinkering at the edges of a broken system. They are not looking for scraps while the spoils are enjoyed by the wealthy and the elite.
Workers want hope. They want radical ambition. And it is the duty of our party, our union and this movement to offer that hope clearly, confidently and without apology.
We have seen in recent times a troubling rise in populist movements that exploit the genuine frustrations of working people their anger at the housing crisis, at the health service, at a system that seems designed to work for those at the top.
We cannot leave the ambition of hope to what we witnessed on the streets across this country. But that is a false hope, not in the interest of working people. It will not build a fair society.
It channels legitimate anger not toward the structural changes that are needed, but toward scapegoats: migrants, minorities, the most vulnerable. Connolly spent his life fighting exactly this kind of politics. Our answer to the politics of resentment must be the politics of solidarity.
And we know that radical progressive change is possible, because we are seeing shoots of it happen.
Look at New York, where the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani has shown that when people are given a genuine choice a bold, hopeful, progressive alternative they will take it.
That is the inspiration we should carry with us. People do not lack the appetite for change. What they too often lack is a movement willing to offer it to them.
Whilst Connolly would have recognised the fears of workers, he would also recognise the immense power that still lies within organised labour.
Across Europe, stronger collective bargaining systems are gaining renewed attention, not so to the same extent in Ireland, where Irish unions are fighting against political and establishment resistance to expand bargaining coverage and strengthen worker protections. You only have to look at the recently published good jobs bill in Northern Ireland to truly see how worst in class we are, when it comes to this basic fundamental right.
This matters enormously. The Labour Party, Connollys Party, our Party should lead on the commitment to deliver this right to the workers of Ireland.
Connolly understood that trade unions were not simply service organisations. They were schools of democracy. Places where ordinary people learned confidence, solidarity, leadership, and collective power.
That message is urgently needed in 2026.
We live in an era where wealth inequality is widening globally. Technological change is reshaping employment faster than governments can regulate it. Artificial intelligence and automation promise efficiency, but workers rightly fear being treated as expendable in the pursuit of profit.
Connolly would ask us a fundamental question:
Who benefits from economic progress? Does technology liberate workers from hardship?
Or does it simply increase wealth for those already powerful? Do productivity gains improve the lives of working families? Or are workers told to accept insecurity while profits soar?
These are not abstract questions. They are political questions. Moral questions. Democratic questions.
And Connolly never believed democracy should stop at the factory gate or the office door.
He understood that democracy without economic justice becomes fragile. When people feel powerless in their workplaces and insecure in their lives, social trust erodes. Cynicism grows. Division flourishes. That is why solidarity matters now as much as ever.
Connolly rejected attempts to divide workers against one another. He knew division only strengthened exploitation.
Today, when some seek to blame migrants, public servants, welfare recipients, or younger generations for social problems rooted in inequality and failed policy, we must remember Connolly’s internationalism and his belief in the shared interests of working people everywhere.
His socialism was rooted in human dignity.
And dignity is what workers continue to demand today.
The dignity of secure housing.
The dignity of fair wages.
The dignity of collective representation.
The dignity of work-life balance.
The dignity of retirement after a lifetime of labour.
The dignity of knowing your children will have a better future.
That was Connolly’s vision.
It remains worthy of all of our efforts today and everyday.