A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE 1913 LOCKOUT

Prior to 1820 Trade Unions were illegal.A charge of trade union membership carried a sentence of 6 months imprisonment. However, despite many difficulties trade unions survived, and in 1894 the inaugaral meeting of the Irish Council of Trade Unions (ICTU) took place in Capel Street with 119 delegates representing over 39,000 members. At the turn of the 20th century the working people of Dublin worked very long hours in deplorable conditions for very low wages. Families lived in overcrowded, decaying tenements subject to disease and death. A report to the British government at the time stated that conditions in Dublin were worse than those in Calcutta. Padraig Pearse from an article written in April 1913 states:-

'I suppose there are 20,000 families in Dublin in whose domestic economy milk and butter are all but unknown; black tea and dry bread are their staple articles of diet. There are many thousand fireless hearthplaces in Dublin on the bitterest days of winter. 20,000 families live in one room tenements. It is common to find two or three families occupying the same room - and sometimes one of the families will have a lodger! There are tenement rooms in which over a dozen people live, eat and sleep......'

James Larkin was the second son of impoverished Irish parents who had emigrated to Liverpool. He spent much of his childhood with his grandparents in Newry but returned to Liverpool at the age of nine to to earn his living, working a forty hour week for 2s.6d. As a young adult he worked his passage to South America and on his return was hired as a foreman on the docks in Liverpool. He lost his job by going on strike in sympathy with his fellow workers. This in turn led to his being elected general organiser for the British based National Union of Dock Labourers in 1906. This job took him to Belfast where he gained a reputation for being militant and charismatic. In his article in Trade Union Century James Plunkett tells us:-

'His militant methods while there had not only alarmed the authorities and employers of Belfast but also the executive of the union back in Liverpool. He had used his new found weapon of the sympathetic strike and his doctorine of "tainted goods" with devastating effect closing down job after job and even persuading the Belfast police to go on strike too, by convincing them that they should claim extra payment for the extra hours they had to spend on duty trying to keep order during the unprecedented succession of strikes.'

He was then sent to Dublin in 1908 to recruit dock workers there. People were malnourished, depressed and apathetic. Corruption among foremen abounded, with labourers being paid a pittance in appalling conditions. It was a mammoth task but Larkin's dedication, charisma and unwavering belief in these working people culminated, after a breach with his own employers, in the establishment of his own union, the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU). It's purpose was to mobilise the city's unskilled labour and it soon became Ireland's biggest and most militant union, with it's own distinct blend of trade unionism, republicanism and socialism - Larkinism. Larkin had become the hero of the the Dublin working class, organising cultural events where people were discouraged from drinking, which he saw as a weapon that working people inflicted upon themselves, as well regular trade union activities.

By 1913, when labour problems were convulsing Britain and Larkin was at the height of his power, he determined to break the anti-union stance of the Dublin United Tramway Company (DUTC). It was owned by William Martin Murphy - a conservative nationalist and ex-MP, who was also proprietor of the largest department store, hotel and a number of the city's newspapers which later amalgamated to become the Irish Independent. He had founded the Dublin Employers Federation in 1912.

Ireland's most bitter labour dispute began when Murphy demanded that all DUTC employees forswear membership of the ITGWU or be dismissed. Larkin immediately struck back by calling the tramway men in his union out on 26 August 1913. The company responded by locking them out, at which point Larkin orchestrated a wave of 'sympathetic strikes', affecting other parts of Murphy's empire as well as those businesses supporting him. After discussion, the employer's federation then agreed to support the DUTC by locking out all employees who belonged to Larkin's Union and attempting to replace them with strike-breakers.

The caption to this cartoon published at the time points up the huge divisions between rich and poor.'Suggestions for today's after dinner debate : "Which is the worst crime To steal a loaf of bread or to starve a little child? " '

Yeat's poem 'September 1913' was first published in the Irish Times on September 8th 1913 with the title 'Romance In Ireland (On reading much of the correspondence against the Art Gallery)'. It was written during the the controversy about the proposal to build an art gallery designed by Sir Edward Lutyens on a bridge site across the Liffey to house the collection of French paintings that Sir Hugh Lane wished to present to the city. On 28 July 1913, the Dublin Trades Council passed a resolution, moved by Jim Larkin, in support of the bridge site.The proposal had been strongly opposed by William Martin Murphy. In a letter to his own newspaper, the Irish Independent (19 July) replying to what he termed ' an insolent letter' from Sir Hugh Lane, W M Murphy wrote: ' 'There has been much eloquence wasted on this subject over the last few days and all the old platitudes have been trotted out about the "priceless collection", the "envy of Europe", the "resort of pilgrims", the educational effect on the taste of the citizens, the answer to which may be summed up in the word - Fudge.' Doubtless Yeats also had in mind when he wrote 'September 1913', the lockout in Dublin which had commenced the previous month.In November, Yeats wrote in the Irish Worker about Dublin fanaticism in reference to the incidents that had taken place in the city when attempts were made to send hungry children from the the city slums to England to be looked after there while the lockout was on. The scheme was strongly opposed by the Archbishop of Dublin in a letter read out in all the Churches in the Archdiocese.There was turmoil at the railway stations, at the North Wall and at Kingstown Pier. Yeats wrote in the Irish Worker an impassioned protest which read in part: "I do not complain of Dublin's capacity for fanaticism whether in the priest or the layman, for you cannot have strong feeling without the capacity, but neither those who directed the police nor the editors of our newspapers can plead fanaticism. They are supposed to watch over our civil liberties, and I charge the Dublin Nationalist newspapers with deliberately arousing religious passion to break up the organisation of the working man with appealing to mob law day after day and I charge the Unionist Press of Dublin and those who directed the police, with conniving at this conspiracy and I ask The Irish Times why a few sentences at the end of an article, too late in the week to be of any service, has been the measure of it's love for civil liberty? There have been tumults every night at every Dublin railway station and I can only assume that the police authorities wished these tumults to continue. I want to know why the mob at the North wall and elsewhere were permitted to drag children from their parents arms ... I want to know by what right the police have refused to accept charges against rioters; I want to know who has ordered the abrogration of the most elementary rights of the citizen, and why the authorities who are bound to protect every man in doing that which he has a right to do have permitted the Ancient Order of Hibernians to beseige Dublin, taking possession of the railway stations like a foreign army." Yeats also wrote another poem on 16th september 1913 ,'To a friend whose work has come to nothing', (addressing Lady Gregory) "For how can you compete, Born honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Where neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbour's eyes?" The 'he' referred to in the third line is William Martin Murphy. In the poem composed on 29th September 1913, 'To a shade (Parnell)', Yeats refers to Murphy as 'an old foul mouth' : "Your enemy, an old foul mouth has set the pack upon him." The reference in the last line is to Sir Hugh Lane, the nephew of Lady Gregory.