Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.

Rethinking national marxism. Kostick Conor & Collins Lorcan. Dublin: Irish Academic Press.

He was born in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh Scotland to Irish immigrant parents and spoke with a Scottish accent throughout his life. James Connolly (Irish: Séamas Ó Conghaile 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was an Irish republican and socialist leader. He left school for working life at the age of 11 but became one of the leading Marxist theorists of his day.