Jim Connell

[1] Connell was born in the townland of Rathniska near Kilskyre, to the north of Kells, County Meath and as a teenager became involved in land agitation and joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

He held a variety of jobs, including time as a staff journalist on Keir Hardie's newspaper The Labour Leader, and was secretary of the Workingmen's Legal Aid Society during the last 20 years of his life.

Or hoodwinked forever by twaddle and cant?”Connell was inspired to write a socialist anthem after attending a lecture at a meeting of the SDF during the London Dock Strike of 1889.

[3] In 1920 in How I Wrote "The Red Flag" he commented:[6] Connell died in south London on 8 February 1929, and his funeral was held in Golders Green.

In 1997, a local committee was formed to erect a memorial,[7] and on 26 April 1998 a monument to him was unveiled in Crossakiel, County Meath, Ireland, where he had addressed a crowd of 600 in 1918.