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27 August 1998 Edition

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Remembering the Past: 1913 Lock-out

By Aengus O Snodaigh

In 1913 the principal employers in Dublin, alarmed at the successes and the rapid growth of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, combined to crush the union and to break their leaders, James Larkin and James Connolly. During that momentous year much happened which was to have bearing on later years and many of the lessons learnt were not lost on future generations.

In January quay porters at the North Wall came out in protest for better pay and less working hours and against non-union foremen. This was to be the start of a long battle. When the Irish Independent despatch corps declared in favour of joining the ITGWU the newspaper's owner and employers' leader William Martin Murphy warned of immediate dismissals. He carried out this threat against workers of his Dublin Tramway Company who joined the union, locking them out from 26 August.

From there the dispute escalated, with non-union scab labour ensuring that Dublin's rich did not have to forego the luxury of travelling on the trams. In response Murphy's companies were blacklisted, with union members refusing to handle anything to do with them. They in turn were victimised by their employers. (By 22 September 400 employers had locked out 25,000 workers.)

Larkin and William O'Brien, William Partridge, PT Daly and Thomas Lawlor were arrested and charged with sedition early on in the dispute. On bail Larkin announced a meeting for O'Connell Street for Sunday 30 August, which was duly proclaimed by the British authorities. Larkin burnt that proclamation outside Liberty Hall on the Friday night saying:

``We will meet in O'Connell Street. If the police and soldiers stop the meeting let them take the responsibility. We want no men but men that will stand. They have no right under law to proclaim the meeting. You have every right to hold the meeting, but you have been too supine and too cowardly in the past to hold meetings. If Belfast Orangemen can hold a meeting I do not see what is the matter that Dublin labourers can't hold a meeting. If they want revolution there that day, there will be revolution.''

Connolly was refused bail and sentenced to three months imprisonment.

With several clashes on the eve of the meeting between workers objecting to scab labour, particularly in Ringsend, Brunswick (Pearse) Street and outside Liberty Hall the atmosphere was becoming tense. (James Nolan died that night, while John Byrne was to die a few days later of injuries received in a baton-charge outside Liberty Hall.) To ensure the O'Connell Street meeting did not take place hundreds of police and soldiers were positioned in the side streets in readiness to crush any show of solidarity with the workers.

At the moment announced for the meeting, a figure emerged from the window of one of William Martin Murphy's hotels (the Imperial, now Cleary's). Recognising him, the crowds in the street surged foward to hear what he had to say. Larkin, disguised with a beard, was arrested immediately and driven away, but those in the street were not so lucky. In a brutal indiscrimainate attack the police left over 300 badly injured.

This set the tone for the next few months with continuous attacks by the police on workers' gatherings and on their dwellings. Such was the savagery of the attack, the day was christened Bloody Sunday.

The coming months were characterised by heightening tension, labour unrest, acute poverty, food ships and the extreme measures which families were forced into to nourish their children, including fostering them in England. Despite outside support the union and the workers were defeated after months of being locked-out. They drifted back to work and accepted the employers' anti-union pledges from January 1914. It was a major set-back for trade-unionism in Ireland and its fight for workers' rights against employer exploitation.

The Lock-out and Bloody Sunday occurred 80 years ago this week.

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