James Connolly is to become the latest Republican hero to be immortalised in film after the trade union SIPTU announced it is to part-fund a biopic of the labour activist’s life.
Connolly, the Scottish left-wing firebrand executed for his part in the 1916 Rising, will be played by the actor Peter Mullan while the movie will be directed by Adrian Dunbar, best known for his on screen roles in The Crying Game and My Left Foot.
A key figure in 1916, Connolly will be the second leading Republican to receive the biopic treatment. Michael Collins was the subject of a lavish 1995 production, directed by Neil Jordan.
Connolly, who in 1912 founded the Labour party, was acting general secretary of SIPTU’s predecessor, the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union at the time he was led before the firing squad in Kilmainaham jail.
The union has not made public how much it plans to invest in the film, saying this would be determined following consultation with the producers. The overall budget is estimated at e10 million.
SIPTU’s participation, believed to be a first for a trade union in Ireland, was announced by General Secretary Joe O’Flynn at a ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of Connolly’s execution in Dublin.
He said: “James Connolly was passionately committed to organising workers. His prowess as a Union organiser was demonstrated in various parts of the country – in Belfast organising the young women working in the linen factories, in Wexford organising foundry workers, in Kerry where he was instrumental in establishing the ITGWU’s Tralee Branch.”
In Dublin, Connolly and ‘Big’ Jim Larkin – to be played by Patrick Bergin in the new feature – were at the centre of the 1913 Lock-out. O’Flynn recalled: “They thwarted the aim of William Martin Murphy and the Employers Federation to smash the ITGWU and discourage workers from ever getting organised again.”
Connolly’s legacy lives on in the present day labour movement, said O’Flynn: “Today we acknowledge his sacrifice. We reflect on his legacy – the vision of a people free from want, free from impoverishment and free from exploitation. And as we recognise that major social deficits continue amid this unprecedented economic boom, we rededicate ourselves to work for the elimination of exploitation by organising workers to stand together to assert their rights to share fully in the fruits of this prosperity.”
The Connolly biopic will be produced by Tom Stokes and Frank Allen of Rascal Films. It has the working title Norah’s Journey.
“The film is a daughter’s story of an ordinary man who creates a revolution and of a young woman’s transformation from daughter into revolutionary,” a spokesman for the producers told hotpress last year. “Out of this wonderfully dramatic material, our intention is to make the kind of film that’s accessible to everyone.”