1913 Dublin Lockout: Strikes in Ireland: Larkin, Connolly

Employment in the early 1900’s in Ireland was hard, dangerous and very badly paid.

That is if the lower class could even get a job.

They had very little or no rights at all. Getting a job and the opportunities for single women were even worse.

In Ulster the Linen Factories were the main employer of women and children. They were only paid twelve shillings a week compared to the men who received double that amount.

In Dublin over three thousand women worked at Jacobs Biscuit factory.

There had been strikes in the north of the country which had improved wages but this did not apply to most of Ireland and Dublin. Most men in Dublin had to work a seventy hour week for only fourteen shillings a week.

The women had to work on average ninety hours a week for around six or seven shillings a week. These were the very poor conditions that the workers in Dublin were suffering every day.

Those who did have permanent jobs in the factories all over Ireland had to endure very bad working conditions with strict rules designed to exploit the workers.

They had no workers rights at all.

The bosses used any excuse to fine them for breaking the rules, therefore reducing their already low wages even more.

In 1910 in Belfast the working conditions were becoming unbearable. The owners of the factories believed that as employers they had the right to dictate the conditions their workers had to endure.

They posted a list of new rules which if not adhered to, would result in fines or dismissal. These included, talking, singing, laughing or adjusting their hair during working hours.

James Connolly told the women to stick together. So they went to work singing songs and breaking the rules en masse. The employers gave in and relaxed the rules.

Dublin was a large manufacturing city, and had few permanent jobs on offer.

Cheap casual labour was used. Getting work was hard enough but keeping that job was even harder.

Those wanting work on the docks were at the employers’ mercy. They had to turn up everyday hoping to be picked for work.

Most of them were paid in the pubs and if they were not seen to spend some of their money on drink they were not rehired the next day.

They had to get work to feed their families so they were trapped in the system.

On January 4^th 1909 James Larkin formed the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

Liberty Hall became the headquarters of the I.T.G.W.U. in 1911.

James Larkin edited the paper, The Irish Worker every week. He had gained 17 shillings for a sixty six hour week for agricultural workers.

Larkin had led them out on strike during harvest time and the farmers had given in rather than see their crops rot. He had also been successful with a strike at Jacobs Biscuit Factory.

When on 22^nd August 1911 over three thousand women packers walked out in support of the four hundred and seventy bakers who had went on strike the day before.

The strike was settled with James Larkin gaining better conditions and wages for the workers. Rosie Hackett, eighteen years old and Lily Kempson, fourteen years old were two of those workers.

James Connolly was born in 1868 into a very poor family of Irish immigrants in Cowgate, Edinburgh in Scotland. At fourteen years old he worked fourteen hours a day at a bakery.

He hated it that much that he often wished it would burn down. To escape the poverty he joined the First Battalion of the Kings Liverpool Regiment.

He was transferred to Dublin in October 1885. This is where he met Lillie, his future wife. In 1896 after leaving the army he got a job in Dublin organising the Socialist Club of Dublin.

Four years later in 1902 he emigrated to America but later returned to Ireland in 1910 to work as Organiser in Belfast for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union.

There were over four hundred thousand people living in Dublin in 1913.

Approximately eighty seven thousand lived in the tenement houses in the centre of Dublin city. Most of these tenements had one water tap located in the back yard which had to be used by all in the house, the single toilet was also in the yard for all to use.

Eighty per cent of those living in the city tenements lived with their families in one room. There was often adults and up to eight to ten children in each room with the rents as high as two to three shilling a week.

It was usual for around seventy to eighty people to be living in one tenement house. Even those who were lucky enough to have permanent work were struggling to provide for their families because of thelow wages and working conditions.

James Larkin was a powerful speaker and when he stood on a platform waving his outstretched arms about, people listened to him. He was gradually increasing the membership of the I.T.G.W.U. which grew from four thousand in 1911 to ten thousand in 1913.

William Martin Murphy was owner of Clery's department store and the Imperial Hotel. He also controlled the Irish Independent, Evening Herald and Irish Catholic newspapers. He told his workers on 19^th July 1913 that if they continued to be members of the union they would be fired.

He was ignored so on 21^stAugust he wrote this letter to just under two hundred workers in the parcels office of the Tramway Company. "As the directors understand that you are a member of the Irish Transport Union, whose methods are disorganising the trade and business of the city, they do not further require your services.

The parcels traffic will be temporarily suspended. If you are not a member of the Union when traffic is resumed your application for re-employment will be favourably considered”. So even those who were not in the Union were sacked. Five days later a strike began.

It was the first day of the Dublin Horse Show on August 26th, a very busy time in Dublin. That morning at ten o'clock nearly seven hundred of the tram drivers took out their union badges and pinned them onto their jackets.

Then they left the trams including the bemused passengers where they stood and walked off the job. The Union wanted the reinstatement of all parcels staff and the same hours and wages for the Dublin workers that those in Belfast received.

Two days later James Larkin and four others were arrested, charged with libel and conspiracy, then released on bail. Larkin organised a meeting for 31^st August^. It was banned. He hid at Surrey House, the home of Countess Markievicz during this time.

Thousands of locked out workers turned up for the meeting in Sackville Street, (now O’Connell Street.)

So did the police armed with batons. Rosie Hackett was there with the men and women from Jacobs Biscuit to support those locked out. At the Imperial Hotel a room was booked in the name of Reverend Donnelly and his niece.

The hotel is now part of Clery's in O’Connell Street. Larkin was heavily disguised in a long black robe and beard when he appeared on the balcony, but he only spoke a few words before the police grabbed him and he was arrested.

Fighting broke out between the crowds and the police. At that time in Dublin there were two police forces. The Dublin Metropolitan Police and the Royal Irish Constabulary. The R.I.C wore different uniforms than the D.M.P and were all armed with guns.

Both were in attendance in great numbers at the meeting. Forty five police and four hundred and thirty three men women and children were injured. James Nolan died from a fractured scull caused by a police Baton. Larkin was later released on bail.

42 Manor Street, Dublin 7. Dublin Metropolitan Police Station. 1913.

The station is just a few minutes walk from the city of Dublin. In 1913 there were thirty one members of the DMP stationed there. The other police force in Ireland at the time was the Royal Irish Constabulary. (RIC), who were an armed force and both groups were out in force on 31^st August 1913 in Dublin.

In 1913 James Larkin could not understand why the DMP helped to attack the people of Dublin on strike. During one of his speech he said, “If I was doing dirty work I would expect dirty pay. The men who are keeping the peace are getting bad hours and meagre pay. "

A Dublin Metropolitan Policeman had to work eight hour shifts seven days a week and also had to work night duty every second month. They received thirty shillings a week as constables, rising to thirty six shillings a week for a sergeant. In the same year a skilled artisan in the building trade received thirty six shillings a week for working only six days.

A few days later on Tuesday 2nd September at about 8-45 pm two houses in Church Street, Dublin 7 collapsed without warning.

The two tenement houses were four stories high with shops on the ground floor. There were ten families living in the sixteen rooms, over forty people at the time of the disaster.

Because of the cramped conditions it was normal at the time for the people to sit outside the hall doors and chat to the neighbours. When the houses fell down the rubble buried them. Seven people were killed and many more injured.

Rescuers spent all night getting them out. Mrs Maguire, who lived in one of the rooms, described what she saw. 'I was standing in the hallway of the house, looking at the children playing in the streets.

Other women were sitting on the kerb so as to be out in the fresh air. Suddenly I heard a terrible crash and shrieking. I ran, not knowing why, but hearing as I did a terrible noise of falling bricks. When I looked back, I saw that two houses had tumbled down.'

The next day on the 3^rd September Murphy and four hundred and four other employers issued a statement that no worker who belonged to the union could return to work and those who were still in their employment but members of the union would be sacked.

The workers would only be allowed to keep their jobs if they signed this document. "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 Irish Transport and General Workers Union (if a member) and I further undertake that I will not join or in any way support this union."

Workers all over Dublin refused to be bullied. Three workers at Jacobs’s factory wore their ITGWU badges a few days later at work. They were sacked when they refused to remove them and denounce their membership of the Union. Rosie Hackett was one of the leaders and organisers of this strike. In retaliation Jacobs locked out all their workers.

This was to be the pattern all over Dublin, with workers refusing to leave their Union, going on strike and the employers locking everyone out. Tens of thousands of men and women and their families were now without a job and any money to feed and look after their families. By September there were twenty four thousand workers who were locked out. They were finding it hard to survive.

The people of Dublin received sympathy and help from the Unions in England. On Saturday 27^th September 1913, a ship The Hare, arrived in Dublin. The first of many shipments of food sent to help the starving workers and their families.

There were sixty thousand boxes of food delivered. Money was also collected in England and Belfast. The headquarters of the Union at Liberty hall was now the centre for distribution of food and clothing for the strikers and their families.

James Larkin’s sister Delia had co founded the Irish Women’s Workers Union in 1911 and she now set about organising this task.

Also part of this volunteer workforce was Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and the women from the Irish Women's Franchise League. Also there were Helena Molony, Madeline ffrench Mullen, Fiona Plunkett, Margaret Skinnider, Charlotte Despard, Grace Neal and Dr Kathleen Lynn. Rosie Hackett and other women from Jacobs’s factory spent hours every day at Liberty Hall.

Constance Markievicz who was already well known to the poorer people in the slums of Dublin was appointed administrator of the kitchen supplies and could always be found at one of the large cauldrons stirring the soup with a wooden stick.

She had formed Na Fianna Eireann, the Irish Boy Scouts in 1909. They had been taught how to drill and march at her large grounds in Surrey House. She organised them during the Lockout into working parties and they helped the men who collected wood and water for the cooking pots.

Two other young girls also very much involved in the relief work at Liberty Hall were sixteen year-old Lily Kempson and eleven year old Molly O’Reilly. Molly had been attending Irish dancing classes at Liberty Hall for the previous two years.

She had become part of the group of children and young adults who attended social gatherings and meetings at Liberty Hall before this more serious event of the Lockout occurred. Now they were willing and enthusiastic to help in any way they could.

The funeral took place on 3rd September of James Nolan in Dublin. He had been attacked and killed on 31^st August during the Baton charge by the DMP and R.I.C. Over 30,000 people attended the service and James Connolly organised the men of the I.T.G.W.U.

They made a show of force, lining the streets in columns with pick axe handles, hurleys and other sticks as a show of defiance and strength. It worked. The police did not attempt to interfere with the service or any of the people who attended.

By the first week in October another six thousand had been locked out of their jobs.

Even the big Farming Employers sided with Murphy and instructed their workers to sign the document or be sacked. There were protests and violence all over Dublin. By this stage there were thirty two different unions involved in the strike.

Approximately twenty five thousand workers were locked out. Scab labour was brought in from England and this caused more anger and violence. The police were reported to be baton charging the protests and meetings and raiding the homes of those who dared challenge them.

More people were injured and a further two people were killed on the streets of Dublin. John Byrne was beaten to death by the R.I.C and a fourteen-year-old girl Alice Brady on the way home from Liberty Hall with a food parcel for her family was shot dead by a scab worker.

James Larkin was sentenced to seven months imprisonment on 28^th October but released on 13^th November. There was a regular meeting outside Liberty Hall and other protests around the city where ‘scab’ workers were carrying out the jobs of the strikers.

Many of the strikers were also arrested and imprisoned during the months of the Lockout including fourteen-year-old Lily Kempson, She received a sentence of two weeks for ‘trade union activities.’

Just before James Larkin was imprisoned at the end of October he told the people at the meeting outside Liberty Hall in Beresford Place that he and others were discussing a plan to organise a Citizen Army in order to protect them from the violence.

Just over two weeks later on 13^th November, the day of Larkin’s release from prison, James Connolly announced at another meeting outside Liberty Hall that the plans had been finalised.

He told the people that Captain Jack White was to take charge of the military organisation of the new Irish Citizens’ Army and asked for volunteers. In Croydon Park, Dublin on November 23rd 1913, the Irish Citizen Army had its first official meeting and over fifty men and women turned up to join.

Both James Connolly and James Larkin agreed that women would be welcome to join and would be treated equally.

This was very unusual at the time when women did not have the right to vote. So it was that in the Irish Citizen Army, men and women drilled and trained together.

It was Dr Kathleen Lynn who organised and gave the First Aid classes to the men and women. Some of the other women who joined that first day were Nellie Gifford, Madeleine Ffrench-Mullen, Constance Markievicz and Rosie Hackett.

As the strike continued for months the food ships from England were getting scarcer and the workers and the Leadership knew they could not hold out much longer. They were willing to compromise, but the employers did not want James Larkin to gain any power and refused to meet.

The government in Britain asked George Askwith to report on the situation in Dublin. He concluded that both sides were being unreasonable. He said the sympathy strikes which Larkin had encouraged were unfair to the employers who treated their workers decently.

But the document that the employers wanted the strikers to sign before they were allowed back to work was also unfair. They concluded that if they signed, they would give up all their rights and dignity, and he stated that no worker should have to do this.

The money and food stopped coming from Britain as the strike continued into the New Year, so on 18^th January 1914, the leaders of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union met in secret. They knew they could not win the battle and decided to advice their members to return to work.

Some of the workers were able to go back to work without signing the Employers Document.

Unfortunately a lot more had to sign. Three thousand men from the Builders Labourers Union had to sign the Employers Document, and promise not to join the Union again. After that, the strike was over, most of the other workers drifted back to work.

James Larkin made a speech on 30^th January saying 'We are beaten, we make no bones about it; but we are not too badly beaten still to fight.' James Connolly was devastated by the defeat. In February there were still over five thousand workers on strike but eventually they all gave in.

The workers of Jacobs Biscuit Factory were the last to return to work in March. Jacobs had identified the ringleaders and did not allow them to return. One of these was Rosie Hackett.

She got a job as a clerk with the Irish Women’s’ Workers Union which was situated at Liberty Hall. She retrained as a printer while there.

James Connolly took charge and became Secretary of the I.T.G.W.U. when James Larkin left for America a few months later.

And the Union survived. The workers, even those who were told never to join a Union again, slowly drifted back. The employers did not want any more trouble, so they did not sack the employees. So most of workers got their jobs back but at a very high price.

The 1913 Dublin Lockout was a failure.

For nine months there were strikes, starvation and death on the streets of Dublin. The bosses had won and getting a well paid job was now nearly impossible for the working classes.

Out of the 1913 Lockout struggle came The Irish Citizen Army

James Connolly became the leader of the Irish Citizen Army which had also kept its members once the strike was broken. On 22^nd March 1914 at a meeting in Liberty Hall it was decided to reorganise the Army on a more military basis. A Citizen Army uniform was created.

This was to consist of the distinctive hat with the badge of the ITGWU pinned to it. Three battalions were formed, the City Battalion, the North County Battalion and the South County Battalion.

Companies were set up in areas around Dublin with training was held twice a week in Croydon Park. Dr Kathleen Lynn received the rank of Captain and was appointed the Chief Medical Officer.

Countess Markievicz was given the rank of Lieutenant. On 6^th April 1914 the Dublin Trades Council officially recognised The Irish Citizen Army.

Two years later the Irish Citizen Army was to play a very signifigant part in Irish history.

© Copyright 2010. L.M.Reid