The Leadville miner’s strike led by Irish immigrant Michael J. Mooney, in 1880 was the first major labor conflict in the central Colorado silver boomtown, shutting down most of the area’s mining district, as miners pressed for higher wages, an 8 hour workday, and more control over their working conditions.

The performer James Walsh is an Associate Professor at UC Denver, where he has taught for the past 27 years specializing in Labor and Immigration politics and history, as well as the Irish Diaspora.