CONNOLLY, James. Labour in Ireland. Labour in Irish History. The Re-Conquest of Ireland. (Rare first collected edition)

With an Introduction by Robert Lynd. Dublin & London: Maunsel and Roberts Ltd., 1922. First collected edition. Crown octavo. pp. xxvii, 346. Original publisher’s blue cloth, titled in gilt on spine. A remarkably fresh and well-preserved copy internally, the text clean and bright throughout; cloth with only light general wear and minor rubbing to extremities. An attractive example of one of the foundational texts of Irish socialism and labour history.

An important collected edition bringing together Connolly’s seminal Labour in Irish History and The Re-Conquest of Ireland, works which profoundly shaped twentieth-century Irish political thought. Written with characteristic force and clarity, Connolly places the Irish struggle for independence within the wider framework of class conflict, labour organisation, and international socialism. The chapters on the United Irishmen, Grattan’s Parliament, Dublin labour conditions, Belfast industry, and co-operation in Ireland remain among the most influential interpretations ever produced by an Irish revolutionary writer.

Particularly notable is the inclusion of the celebrated “To the Masters of Dublin” open letter, originally published during the 1913 Lockout, one of the defining documents of Irish labour agitation. Connolly’s warnings to Dublin employers, reproduced here, stand today as some of the most powerful prose produced in the history of Irish trade unionism.

Issued only six years after Connolly’s execution following the Easter Rising, the volume occupies a central place in the canon of Irish revolutionary literature. Copies in original cloth and in such pleasing condition are increasingly difficult to obtain, especially as many surviving examples were heavily read within labour and republican circles. An essential Connolly title and a cornerstone work for collections relating to Irish nationalism, socialism, trade union history, and the revolutionary decade.

FN: James Connolly (1868–1916), socialist leader, trade union organiser, and signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, remains one of the most influential political thinkers in modern Irish history. Born in Edinburgh to Irish immigrant parents, Connolly became active in socialist politics before moving to Dublin in 1896 where he founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party. He later played a central role in the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union alongside Jim Larkin and emerged as one of the principal leaders of the 1913 Dublin Lockout. During the Easter Rising of 1916 Connolly served as Commandant-General of the Dublin forces. Severely wounded during the fighting, he was executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol while strapped to a chair, an event that transformed public opinion and cemented his status as a martyr of Irish independence. His writings, particularly Labour in Irish History and The Re-Conquest of Ireland, exerted a profound influence on Irish republicanism, labour politics, and socialist thought internationally.

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