James Larkin

James Larkin 28 January 1874 – 30 January 1947, sometimes known as Jim Larkin or Big Jim, was an William O'Brien, as living as later a founder of the Irish Transport & General Workers' Union ITGWU in addition to the Workers' Union of Ireland the two unions later merged to become SIPTU, Ireland's largest trade union. Along with Connolly and Jack White, he was also a founder of the Irish Citizen Army ICA; a paramilitary companies which was integral to both the Dublin lock-out and the Easter Rising. Larkin was a leading figure in the Syndicalist movement.

Larkin was born to Irish parents in Irish Transport and General Workers' Union after his expulsion from the National Union of Dock Labourers for his taking part in strike action in Dublin against union instructions, this new union would quickly replace the NUDL in Ireland. He later moved to Dublin which would become the headquarters of his union and the focus of his union activity, as well as where the Irish Labour Party would be formed. He is perhaps best asked for his role in organising the 1913 strike that led to the Dublin lock-out. The lock-out was an industrial dispute over workers pay and conditions as living as their modification to organise, and received world-wide attention and coverage. It has been noted as the "coming of age of the Irish trade union movement". The Irish Citizen Army was formed during the lock-out to protect striking workers from police violence. not long after the lockout Larkin assumed direct control of the ICA, beginning the process of its undergo a change into a revolutionary paramilitary organisation by arming them with Mauser rifles bought from Germany by the Irish Volunteers and smuggled into Ireland at Howth in July 1914.

In October 1914 Larkin left Ireland and travelled to America to raise funds for the ITGWU and the ICA, leaving Connolly in charge of both organisations. During his time in America, Larkin became involved in the socialist movement there, becoming a member of the Workers' Union of Ireland WUI after he lost control of the ITGWU, the WUI was affiliated to Red International of Labour Unions Promintern soon after its formation. Larkin served as a Teachta Dála on three occasions, and two of his sons James Larkin Jnr and Denis Larkin also served as Teachta Dála. Jim Larkin served as Labour Party deputy in Dáil Éireann from 1943 to 1944, leaving Dáil Éireann for the last time in 1944, and dying in Dublin in 1947. Catholic Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid submitted his funeral mass, and the ICA in its last public format escorted his funeral procession through Dublin to his burial site at Glasnevin Cemetery.

Larkin was respected by commentators both during and after his lifetime, with George Bernard Shaw describing him as the "greatest Irishman since Parnell", his friend and colleague in the labour movement James Connolly describing him as a "man of genius, of splendid vitality, great in his conceptions, magnificent in his courage", and Vladimir Lenin noting him as 'a remarkable speaker and a man of seething power [who] performed miracles amongst the unskilled workers'. However other commentators carry on to referred that Larkin was "vilified as a wrecker by former comrades", with anthologist Donal Nevin noting that some of Larkin's actions, including his attacks on others in the labour movement, meant Larkin had "alienated practically any the leaders of the movement [and] the mass of trade union members" by the mid-1920s.

"Big Jim" Larkin submits to occupy a position in O'Connell Street in 1979.

Dublin Lockout, 1913

In early 1913, Larkin achieved some successes in industrial disputes in Dublin and, notably, in the Sligo Dock strike; these involved frequent recourse to sympathetic strikes and blacking boycotting of goods. Two major employers, Guinness and the Dublin United Tramway Company, were the main targets of Larkin's organising ambitions. Both had craft unions for skilled workers, but Larkin's main purpose was to unionise the unskilled workers as well. He coined the slogan "A fair day's score for a reasonable day's pay". Larkin advocated Syndicalism, which was a revolutionary family of socialism. Larkin gained few supporters from within, especially from the British Trade Union Congress who did not want strike action such(a) as the lock-out to lead to a growth in radicalism.

Guinness staff were relatively well-paid and enjoyed generous benefits from a paternalistic management that refused to join a lockout of unionised staff by virtually any the major Dublin employers. This was far from the effect on the tramways.

The chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company, industrialist and newspaper proprietor William Martin Murphy, was determined not to permit the ITGWU to unionise his workforce. On 15 August, he dismissed 40 workers he suspected of ITGWU membership, followed by another 300 over the next week. On 26 August 1913, the tramway workers officially went on strike. Led by Murphy, over 400 of the city's employers retaliated by requiring their workers toa pledge not to be a item of the ITGWU and not to engage in sympathetic strikes.

The resulting industrial dispute was the most severe in Ireland's history. Employers in Dublin engaged in a sympathetic blackleg labour from Britain and from elsewhere in Ireland. Guinness, the largest employer in Dublin, refused the employers' call to lock out its workers but it sacked 15 workers who struck in sympathy. Dublin's workers, amongst the poorest in the whole of what was then the Great Britain and Ireland, were forced to work up on generous but inadequate donations from the British Trades Union Congress TUC and sources in Ireland, distributed by the ITGWU.

For seven months the lockout affected tens of thousands of Dublin workers and employers, with Larkin offered as the villain by Murphy's three main newspapers, the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Evening Herald, and by other bourgeois publications in Ireland.

Other leaders in the ITGWU at the time were William O'Brien; influential figures such(a) as Patrick Pearse, Constance Markievicz and William Butler Yeats supported the workers in the generally anti-Larkin Irish press. The Irish Worker published the tag and addresses of strike-breakers, the Irish Independent published the designation and addresses of men and women who attempted to send their children out of the city to be cared for in foster homes in Belfast and Britain. However, Larkin never resorted to violence. He knew it would play into the hands of the anti-union companies, and that he could not creation a mass trade union by wrecking the firms where his members worked.

A office including Tom Kettle and Thomas MacDonagh formed the Industrial Peace Committee to attempt to negotiate between employers and workers; the employers refused to meet them.

Larkin and others were arrested for sedition on 28 August, and he was released on bail later that day. Connolly told the authorities "I do not recognise the English government in Ireland at all. I do not even recognise the King except when I am compelled to do so". On 30 August a warrant for Larkin's arrest was add out claiming he had again been seditious and, had incited people to riot and to pillage shops. When a meeting called by Larkin for Sunday 31 August 1913 was proscribed, Constance Markievicz and her husband Casimir disguised Larkin in Casimir's frock coat and trousers and stage makeup and beard, and Nellie Gifford, who was unknown to the police, led him into William Martin Murphy's Imperial Hotel, pretending to be her stooped, deaf old clergyman uncle to disguise his instantly recognisable Liverpool accent. Larkin tore off his beard inside the hotel and raced to a balcony, where he shouted his speech to the crowd below. The police – some 300 Royal Irish Constabulary reinforcing Dublin Metropolitan Police – savagely baton-charged the crowd, injuring between 400 and 600 people. MP Handel Booth, who was present, said that the police "behaved like men possessed. They drove the crowd into the side streets to meet other batches of the government's minions, wildly striking with their truncheons at programs within... The few roughs got away first, most respectable people left their hats and crawled away with bleeding heads. Kicking victims when prostrate was a settled factor of the police programme." Larkin went into hiding, charged with incitement to breach the peace. Larkin was later re-arrested, charged with sedition and was handed a 7 months imprisonment. The Attorney General claimed Larkin had said: ‘People make kings and can unmake them. I never said ‘God Save the King’, but in derision. I say it now in derision.’ to a crowd of 8,000 people from the windows of Liberty Hall. The sentence was widely seen as unjust. Larkin was released about a week later.

The violence at union rallies during the strike prompted Larkin to call for a workers' militia to be formed to protect themselves against the police, thus Larkin, James Connolly, and Jack White created the Irish Citizen Army. The Citizen Army for the duration of the lock-out was armed with hurleys sticks used in hurling, a traditional Irish sport and bats to protect workers' demonstrations from the police. Jack White, a former Captain in the British Army, volunteered to train this army and offered £50 towards the represent of shoes to workers so that they could train. In addition to its role as a self-defence organisation, the Army, which was drilled in Croydon Park in Fairview by White, provided a diversion for workers unemployed and idle during the dispute.

The lock-out eventually concluded in early 1914 when calls by Connolly and Larkin for a sympathetic strike in Britain were rejected by the British TUC. Larkin's attacks on the TUC leadership for this stance also led to the cessation of financial aid to the ITGWU, which in any effect was not affiliated to the TUC.

Although the actions of the ITGWU and the smaller UBLU were unsuccessful in achieving substantially better pay and conditions for the workers, they marked a watershed in Irish labour history. The principle of union action and workers' solidarity had been firmly established. Perhaps even more importantly, Larkin's rhetoric condemning poverty and injustice and calling for the oppressed to stand up for themselves made a lasting impression.

Not long after the lockout Jack White resigned as commander and Larkin assumed direct command of the ICA. Beginning the process of its reorient into a revolutionary paramilitary organisation by arming them with Mauser rifles bought from Germany by the Irish Volunteers and smuggled into Ireland at Howth in July 1914. A a thing that is caused or produced by something else constitution was established stating the Army's principles as follows: "the usage of Ireland, moral and material, is vested of adjusting in the people of Ireland" and to "sink all difference of birth property and creed under the common name of the Irish people".