Joshua McKinney

In both Internationalist and Nationalist politics in Ireland. James Connolly has been glorified. But the question needs to be asked. What side would Connolly be on?
From an economic perspective, James Connolly was a staunch Socialist after being inspired by Karl Marx and Fredrick Englels. For social issues he was very Nationalistic and had respect for Christianity and he believed criticising religion was a bad idea for Socialist Politics.
The left go as far to claim that James Connolly would be a supporter of Open Borders, Mass Immigration, LGBT etc. This is a very extraordinary claim to make because there are tons of collected sources of James Connolly to prove he would not be a supporter of these ideals.

James Connolly along with his comrades who were executed for taking part in the 1916 uprising, wanted Ireland to be an independent, Patriotic, Self-Reliant Republic.

James Connolly supported Irish language movements, literacy societies, commemoration committees. In one of his essays he applauded them:

“These agencies, whether Irish Language movements, Literary Societies or Commemoration Committees, are undoubtedly doing a work of lasting benefit to this country in helping to save from extinction the precious racial and national history, language and characteristics of our people.”—James Connolly. Socialism and Nationalism.
“Help us to secure to all our fellow-countrymen, a free, full and happy life; secure in possession of a rational, human existence, neither brutalised by toil nor debilitated by hunger, and then all the noble characteristics of our race will have full opportunity to expand and develop. And when all that is good in literature, art and science is recognised as the property of all – and not the heritage of the few – your ideals will receive the unquestioned adhesion of all true Irishmen”.– James Connolly. Addressing the Gaelic Leaguers.

James Connolly opposed Immigration, Sexual Degeneracies, Criticising of religion, especially christianity:

“It is hard to believe that any Socialist really thinks that the immigration question is serious enough to justify a Socialist in doing the dirty work of the capitalist class”– James Connolly. Letter from Connolly to Matheson.
“I have long been of opinion that the Socialist movement elsewhere was to a great extent hampered by the presence in its ranks of faddists and cranks, who were in the movement, not for the cause of Socialism, but because they thought they saw in it a means of ventilating their theories on such questions as sex, religion, vaccination, vegetarianism, etc., and I believed that such ideas had or ought to have no place in our programme or in our party.”– James Connolly. Wages and Other Things {1904}
“Socialism, as a party, bases itself upon its knowledge of facts, of economic truths, and leaves the building up of religious ideals or faiths to the outside public, or to its individual members if they so will. It is neither Freethinker nor Christian, Turk nor Jew, Buddhist nor Idolator, Mahommedan nor Parsee – it is only human.“– James Connolly. Socialism and Religion. The New Evangel.
“The democracy of Ireland, amongst the first of the steps necessary to the regeneration of Ireland, must address itself to the extension of its ownership and administration to the schools of Erin. Whatever safeguards are necessary to ensure that the religious faith of the parents shall be respected in the children will surely be adequately looked after by the representatives of a people to whom religion is a vital thing. Such safeguards are quite compatible with the establishment of popular control of schools, with the building and equipment of schools that shall be a joy to the scholar and an inspiration to the teacher, and with such radical overhauling of the curriculum as shall ensure that full recognition shall be given to the deeds and ideas of the men and women whose achievements mark the stages of the upward climb of the race, as their failures to achieve mark the equally important epochs of its martyrdom”.–James Connolly. The Reconquest of Ireland, 1915.

“It is not Socialism but capitalism that is opposed to religion; capitalism is social cannibalism, the devouring of man by man, and under capitalism those who have the most of the pious attributes which are required for a truly deeply religious nature are the greatest failures and the heaviest sufferers. Religion, I hope, is not bound up with a system founded on buying human labour in the cheapest market, and selling its product in the dearest; when the organised Socialist working class tramples upon the capitalist class it will not be trampling upon a pillar of God’s Church but upon a blasphemous defiler of the Sanctuary, it will be rescuing the Faith from the impious vermin who made it noisome to the really religious men and women.” – James Connolly. The Harp, January 1909.

James Connolly supported the concept of Free Speech. Even for Speech he did not agree with:

“Nora, we demand free speech for ourselves. We must grant it to others even though their opinions are different from ours.” –James Connolly to his Daughter Nora when being attacked by a priest for leading striking dockers.
I hope this article I have spent time writing and editing debunks all of the propaganda that the current day Irish Socialists spout about Our Martyr, James Connolly. He would indeed be sickened by them big time if he were to be alive today.