The Lock-out, Dublin 1913

The Lock-Out - Dublin 1913

“In recent years Dublin has been happy in having no history, and its chronicles for the last quarter of a century have been fortunately filled with no more notable items than those which testify to the improvement in the appearance of its thoroughfares.”

So wrote C. Litton Falkiner M.A., M.R.I.A. in his “Sketch of the History of Dublin” (1908). It is a sentiment which can be found in several of the books I’ve included. These authors honestly believed that the rebellious history of Ireland had come to an end and that a golden era was at hand - one in which Ireland and Britain united would prosper together.

Nothing, however, was as it seemed and the astute Sir Charles Cameron, though quite content with the status quo, gives an inkling that change was in the air. (See “How Dublin might have had a Winter Garden”)

Just five years after Falkiner wrote that there was “no history” the labour movement in Dublin engaged in head-on confrontation with the employers - often simplified in the persons of James ‘Big Jim’ Larkin, founder and leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), and William Martin Murphy, the main force behind the Dublin Employers Federation Ltd.

Larkin wrote in September 1913: “I am engaged in holy work. Of course, I cannot now get employers to see things from my point of view, but they should try to realise my work. I have worked hard from an early age … I have made the best of my opportunities.”

And Murphy wrote at the same time: “I am not the leader of the employers, although I have been called the leader. I seem to have gained a good deal of notoriety, but I have had greatness thrust upon me.”

The ITGWU, formed in 1909, had 10,000 members. The employers, hit by strike after strike across the city had tried to handle them individually, but by 1911 Murphy had had enough and formed a federation to break the ITGWU once and for all.

Murphy refused to recognise the ITGWU, would not talk with anyone who was a member, and, in July 1913, called a meeting of his employees in the Tramways Company where he bluntly told them that, while they could form a Union of their own, they could not join the ITGWU.

On August 21st about 100 of the workers in the Tramways Company received their dismissal notice: “As the Directors of the Tramways Company understand that you are a member of the ITGWU whose methods are disorganising the trade and business of the city, they do not further require your service.”

For Larkin there could only be one reply but he bided his time for five days and the start of one of the busiest times of the year, the Dublin Horse Show. At 10 a.m. the following Tuesday trams around the city stopped and drivers and conductors walked from them. Around 700 of the 1,700 employed by the company were involved.

That evening Larkin addressed the ITGWU tram workers at Liberty Hall: “This is not a strike, it is a lock-out of the men who have been tyrannically treated by a most unscrupulous scoundrel. … We will demonstrate in O’Connell Street. It is our street as well as William Martin Murphy’s. We are fighting for bread and butter. We will have our meetings in the street and if any one of our men fall, there must be justice. By the living God, if they want war, they can have it.”

The Irish Times reported on the 26th “It was a shock to most people this morning to go out to Ballsbridge, to see the greatest show on earth, to find the tramway system tied up. Tramcars on all lines were brought in as far as College Green and there deserted.”

Tension was high in the city and there were skirmishes between the strikers and those who had continued to work.

On Saturday night police baton-charged strikers leaving James Nolan fatally wounded.

By this time Larkin was on bail - he and four others having been arrested on charges of libel and conspiracy.

Larkin had announced that he would speak to a meeting in O’Connell Street on Sunday, August 28th, but the meeting was promptly banned. He made it clear that he would make an appearance.

And he did. Heavily disguised, he spoke briefly from a balcony window in the Imperial Hotel (owned by William Martin Murphy), before being arrested. In the ensuing riot, police again baton charged the crowd (there were also riots at Gardiner Street, Sheriff Street, North Wall, Henry Street, Mary Street, south Wall, and from Christchurch to Inchicore).

The funeral of James Nolan was held on Wednesday, September 3rd. Larkin was being held in Mountjoy Jail, and the British Labour leader, Keir Hardie, spoke in his place, urging the strikers to stand firm and indicating that the British trade unions would back them.

Meanwhile, William Martin Murphy issued a statement on behalf of over 400 employers. It stated firmly that anyone failing to carry out the lawful orders of the employers would be instantly dismissed. It also pledged that no ITGWU member would ever be employed.

The employers also issued a statement for all workers to sign:- “I hereby undertake to carry out all instructions given to me by or on behalf of my employers, and further, I agree to immediately resign my membership of the ITGWU (if a member) and I further undertake that I will not join or in any way support this union.”

The lock-out intensified and the British trade unions, meeting in Manchester promised to supply food to the Irish strikers. The first food ship, “The Hare”, arrived on September 28th, with 60,000 “family boxes”

Larkin, released from jail, was in England attempting to get the British unions to agree to a general stoppage of work there. This, however, was a step too far for the British unions.

In October starvation was becoming very real and it was proposed that some of the children of the strikers would be sent to England. Larkin backed the idea, but it was strongly opposed by the Archbishop of Dublin, William J. Walsh.

In a letter to the newspapers he wrote:- “I can only put it to them that they can no longer be worthy of the name of Catholic mothers if they so far forget that duty as to send away their little children to be cared for in a strange land, without security of any kind that those to whom the children are to be handed over are Catholics, or indeed are persons of any faith at all.

There were scuffles at the docks as parents brought their children and Larkin, faced with public hostility to the plan, had to back down.

On October 28th, Larkin was sentenced to seven months in prison and James Connolly took over the running of the strike. Larkin was released on November 13th and left for England again where he held a series of “Fiery Cross” torch-lit meetings. Again his hopes of a general stoppage in Britain were dashed.

By January the situation had become hopeless. The ITGWU leadership met on the 18th and advised members to return to work - without signing the employers’ document if they could.

At the start of February the Builders Labourers Union gave up and agreed to sign the document. The strike was at an end and workers drifted back across the city.

But, while the employers claimed victory, the ITGWU continued to recruit and again became the largest union in Dublin.

(Larkin left Ireland and remained in America until 1923 while William Martin Murphy died in 1919.)

Though the lock-out was over it was to have a profound effect on the coming years, not least because of the Irish Citizens Army which had been formed by James Connolly as the strikers’ defence force.

(This is the first of a series of articles in which a general overview of Dublin history from 1900 to 2000 will be provided)

General Contents. .