New lecture highlights unjust imprisonment of Irish-American radical

Maurice J. Casey

Maurice J. Casey, the historian-in-residence at EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum, spoke about Mr Mooney in the third lecture in the museum’s Hidden Histories of the Irish Abroad series.

Labour organiser Tom Mooney spent 22 years in California’s San Quentin prison following his conviction on perjured evidence of planning a bombing in San Francisco in 1916.

He was saved from hanging by the intervention of President Woodrow Wilson, which saw his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. He was eventually pardoned in 1939 by Culbert Olson, the liberal Democratic Governor of California.

However, his release came only after his imprisonment became an international cause célèbre, bringing together Irish socialists, black civil rights activists and Mr Mooney’s elderly Mayo-born mother in a global campaign for his release.

Prominent Irish radicals including Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Jim Larkin visited Mr Mooney in prison, while Mary Mooney – who became known as “Mother Mooney” to millions – embarked on a worldwide tour to highlight the injustice of her son’s imprisonment.

Mrs Mooney’s tour was supported by the socialist International Red Aid, which linked the case to the plight of the Scottsboro Boys and racial discrimination in the US. The Scottsboro-Mooney tour travelled the world – but was refused permission to come to Ireland because of a broader “red scare” in the country.