Jim Gralton Commemorative Ceremony

leitrim | anti-capitalism | event notice Wednesday December 28, 2005 00:56 by Gerry Bambrick - Connolly Forum

A wreath laying ceremony will be held at the site of Jim Gralton’s Pearse-Connolly Hall in Gowel, Drumsna, Co. Leitrim, on this Thursday afternoon the 29th December at 3.30.p.m. to mark the 60th anniversary of the death of the famous Leitrim socialist. The event is being held under the auspices of the Connolly Forum.

Gralton was the only Irishman ever deported by a native government. Born near Effernagh, Co. Leitrim, in 1886, Jim Gralton emigrated to America as a young man. It was in the U.S.A. that he became involved in the labour struggles of the time. Never breaking his links with Ireland he was active in the Connolly Club in New York, which also counted among its members Jim Larkin, Nora Connolly and Liam Mellows.

When he returned to Leitrim in 1932 to help his aged parents, he became immersed in left wing political activity. He joined the Revolutionary Workers Group, spoke at numerous anti-eviction meetings and re-opened the Pearse-Connolly Hall in Gowel, Co. Leitrim. When a massive Red Scare enveloped the country in 1933, Gralton became the victim of a political witch-hunt and was deported from Ireland as “an undesirable alien”. He became the only Irishman ever to be deported from his native land.

The Leitrim socialist was never allowed to return to Ireland and spent the remaining days of his life in the American Labour movement. He again became involved in the Irish Workers Clubs in New York, reprinted Connolly’s pamphlets, raised funds for the International Brigades in Spain and participated in the many political campaigns of the period. He died in Bellevue Hospital, New York on the 29th December 1945, and was buried in Woodlawn cemetery.