Hope this is useful for you Ciarán

1. Background
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2.  Not enough available Coal & iron
 Population getting smaller since the famine
 Few people were willing to invest money in
Irish industry.
 Goods were cheaper from abroad.
 Irish industry failed to modernise or get new
technology
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3.  2nd half of 19th century
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4.  ArthurGuinness, Porter exported throughout
the world, 2,000 workers.
 Jameson distillers. Whiskey.
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5.  Employment was casual
 Little industrial work
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6.  Coal & iron available from England.
 People moving into the city provided labour.
 People willing to invest in industry
 Free trade between UK & Ireland helped
import of raw materials and export of
finished goods.
 Industries willing to use new technologies
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7.  Flax, Belfast. Derry
 1900 60,000 workers
 Shirt making in Derry 1900- 20,000.
 Harsh conditions but had more than one
wage
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8.  1870-1914 biggest shipbuilding centre in the
world
 Harland & Wolf used latest technology
 Built Titanic
 12,000 workers
 Workman, Clarke 3000
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10.  Skilledworkers & tradesmen got higher pay
and protected by guilds
 Because there were so many workers pay was
low.
 Employed on a day to day basis – carters,
Dockers.
 No work for women or children.
 Up to 1914 20,000 families lived in one room
tenements
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13.  Wage just enough to pay rent and food
 Unsanitary conditions TB
 Highest death rate for children of any city in
Europe at the time
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17.  Membership of union rose from 4,000 in 1911 to
10,000 by 1913 because of James Larkin and
Connolly.
 James Larkin 1907 sent to Belfast as leader of
British-based National Union of Dock Labourers.
 Sympathetic strike. Others workers would strike
in support.
 Larkin was transferred to Dublin.
 1900- 40,000 male manual workers, 10,000
skilled, 7,000 Dockers or carters, 23,000 casual
labourers.
 Those suspected of organising were blacklisted.
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18.  Larkin was suspended from the British Dockers
(cost them too much money) Union and set up
the Irish Transport and General Workers Union
(ITGWU).
 ITGWU Spread From Dublin to Belfast, Cork
Limerick. Looked after both skilled and unskilled
members.
 Lost a number of strikes. Larkin imprisoned in
1910 after a strike in Cork.
 1911 Larkin organised a number of successful
strikes with carters and railway workers.
 Believed Home rule was coming 1912 Connolly &
Larkin form The Labour party to represent
workers views.
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19.  1911 4,000 members 1913 10,000
 Employers worried because of the growth of
the union
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21.  1911 employers form Dublin Employers
association.
 Leader Martin Murphy successful catholic
businessman from Binary
 Had been HR mp at Westminster.
 1913 chairman of United Tramway Company
 Owned Cleary's department store, and
controlled Irish Independent newspaper.
 Opposed trade unions getting in way of
employer employee relations.
 Saw Larkin as a dangerous revolutionary
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22.  19thJuly 6 ITGWU members sacked.
Sympathetic strike in support of Independent
workers
 Sacked 40 men and 20 boys in Irish
Independent who refused to renounce the
union. Picket placed on papers offices and
newsboys refuse to sell the Independent.
Workers in Eason's refused to distribute the
paper.
 Tramway workers refuse to handle the
Independent 200 sacked.
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23.  Larkin calls a general strike for 26 August to
coincide with the Dublin Horse Show, the
tramways’ busiest time of the year.
 ITGWU could not reach workers in Dublin and
they did not strike.
 Only 200 out of 659 men strike.
 Murphy finds enough supervisors and non
union men to keep the daytime service
running.
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25.  Larkin and other union leaders arrested after
violence between strikers and strike
breakers. Larkin let out on bail Connolly and
others remained in prison.
 ITGWU planned meeting banned, but Larkin
says it will go ahead
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26.  Larkin in disguise sneaks into the imperial.
 Police go berserk and baton anyone on their way
into the Hotel most of the 500 injured are
churchgoers or middle class and non union
 The proposed meeting in Sackville street
changed by William Obrien to the outskirts of
the city to avoid violence.
 Larkin arrested and sent to jail
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27.  Those returning from O’Brien's march attack the
police.
 Wave of sympathy due to police baton charges
and invasion of flat complex called corporation
buildings .
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29.  July 1913 Murphy at the head of a meeting
of 300 employers decides to force their
workers to sign the following
‘I hereby undertake to carry out all instruction
given me by or on behalf of my employers,
and further, I agree to resign immediately my
membership of the Irish transport and
General Workers’ union, and I further
undertake that I will not join or in any way
support the Union.
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30.  Over the next two weeks workers in one industry
would refuse to handle goods from a firm on
strike would be locked out by their employer.
 Jacobs locked out 2,000 workers stating that
“ We have no difficulty with our workers
belonging to a trade union conducted on
ordinary lines but we must in future refuse to
give employment to any member of the Irish
Transport Union, an organisation which has
been conducted with so much tyranny and
injustice! The vast majority of out women and
girls as well as a large number of the men
came to work as usual and it is a source of
much regret that their employment will be
temporarily interfered with”
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31.  Throughout September the strike spreads by
October 20,000 men and women are on strike
or are locked out.
 100,000 people are affected.
 Supply of fuel and food disrupted
 Prises rise.
 Well off as well as poor affected
 ITGWU members work in the soup kitchens in
Liberty Hall
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32.  Horrified at the poverty and low wages.
 Saw this attack on Irish unions as an attack on all
unions throughout the UK.
 The British Trade Union Congress organised aid.
Sent a ship ‘The Hare’ to Dublin loaded with
food. 9000 parcels distributed.
 Steady stream of clothes, food and money .
 1913-1914 -£100,000 sent by TUC to Dublin.
 Murphy’s paper mock Larkin for his dependence
on charity.
 The TUC were moderate socialists and wanted
the strike to end, saw strike action as a last
resort.
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33.  Liberals wanted to get everybody back to
work. They depended on the Home rule party
to keep in power.
 Redmond and John Dillon did not like Larkin
but they hated Murphy they had an old
quarrel with him going back to the Parnell
divorce case and he attacked them
constantly in his papers.
 Dillon and Redmond were more concerned
Home Rule and the Unionist opposition to it
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34.  Askwith enquiry
 Both sides could cross examine each other
 Workers put forward a good case shoed how low the wages
were in Ireland compared with Britain, and how bad living
conditions were.
 They didn’t demand too much, Larkin offered to end the
sympathetic strike if the sacked workers were reinstated,
recognise the ITGWU.
 Askwith condemned both sympathetic strikes and the
employers demand that the workers leave the ITGWU. Also
proposed conciliation committees be set up to settle
disputes.
 Trade Union agrees employers don't and look unreasonable
loosing them support.
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35.  Planned to send children of strikers to
England but this was blocked by Archbishop
Walsh and the Catholic church leading to a
public outcry against this and it had to be
abandoned
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36.  Use lorries to bring coal into the city. This is
so successful it continues after the strikes
end and carters loose their jobs.
 Use free labour i.e. those people from
outside the city who are not in the union
 Uses the British employers ‘The shipping
Federation’ to bring in 600 workers to unload
ships in Dublin Port.
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37.  Larkin closes the Dublin Port after the Shipping
Federation ships arrive.
 TUC against sympathetic strikes and refuse to
strike.
 Larkin demands a special meeting of TUC for 9
December goes on a tour to drum up support
attacks the TUC leaders, alienates the people
who had helped him and the meeting on the 9th
ends up with Larkin getting little support.
 British National Union of railwaymen orders its
members in Dublin port to resume work.
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38.  Amount of aid by British union decline they had
their own problems.
 Murphy sensing victory refuses to compromise.
 By Jan1914 it was clear the ITGWU had lost.
 Workers begin negotiate with their employers
about going back to work get. No increase in
pay, lucky ones get their jobs back. Others were
only allowed back if they left the ITGWU.
 2000 were not employed because employers
preferred to keep on the strike breakers. Some
of these were women in Jacobs
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39.  ITGWU decline
 Larkin worn out goes to USA in 1914
 Connolly takes over ITGU becomes leader of
citizens army
 1914 WWI starts
 1916 Connolly involved in Rising
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40.  Murphy won but at a dear price he became
one of the most hated figures in Irish History
because he starved workers into submission
 The workers lost the battle but won the war
no future employer would destroy a union in
such the brutal way Murphy did.
 The right of workers to organise themselves
into unions and to choose their leaders was
established
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