Arthur Scargill to be among guests at Crossakiel festival

Arthur Scargill, former president of the National Union of Miners in Britain, famous for his showdowns with former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, will be among the speakers at the parade at the Jim Connell Trade Union Festival in Crossakiel over the May bank holiday weekend. Mr Scargill will be joined by Bob Crowe, general secretary of RMT; Shay Cody, general secretary designate of IMPACT, and Phil McFadden, president of DCTU, at the parade, beginning at 3pm on Sunday 2nd May. The weekend festival begins on Friday 30th April in McCabe's Bar with music that evening and on Saturday. Sunday 2nd May sees children's entertainment starting at 2pm, the Jim Connell Trade Union Parade, starting at 3pm, and a music festival, starting 4pm at McCabe's, with Grada, Christof, Entheos, Saramai Leech, Eugene Donegan and The Farrelly Brothers and Noel O'Neill. Jim Connell, writer of the Labour Party anthem 'The Red Flag', was born in Kilskyre in 1852. As a teenager, he became involved in land agitation and joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood. At 18, he moved to Dublin, where he worked as a casual docker, but was blacklisted for his attempts to unionise the docks. Failing to find any other work, he left for London in 1875, where he spent most of the rest of his life.  He worked at a variety of jobs. He was a staff journalist on Keir Hardie's newspaper, The Labour Leader, and was secretary of the Workingmens' Legal Aid Society during the last 20 years of his life. He wrote 'The Red Flag' in 1889 on the train from Charing Cross to New Cross after attending a lecture on socialism at a meeting of the Social Democratic Federation.  It was inspired by the London dock strike happening at that time, as well as activities of the Irish Land League, the Paris Commune, the Russian nihilists and Chicago anarchists.  The song quickly became an anthem of the international labour movement. Although he wrote it to the tune of 'The White Cockade', it has come more often to be sung to the tune of 'Tannenbaum.' The song has echoed around the world, sung with fire and fervour, for over a century. Although a competition was held in 1925 to replace it as the Labour Party anthem in Britain and over 300 entries were received, it has not yet been displaced.  Newly elected Labour MPs entered the House of Commons in 1945 singing it and the Rand Miners of South Africa went to the gallows singing it. It has appeared in virtually every collection of international labour songs published.  In 'How I wrote The Red Flag', written in 1920, Jim Connell wrote: "Did I think that the song would live? Yes, the last line shows I did: "This song shall be our parting hymn". I hesitated a considerable time over this last line. I asked myself whether I was not assuming too much. I reflected, however, that in writing the song I gave expression to not only my own best thoughts and feelings, but the best thoughts and feelings of every genuine socialist I knew...I decided that the last line should stand."  Connell died in 1929 in London. At his funeral in Golders Green, 'The Red Flag' was sung to both airs.