Syndicalism in Ireland 1917-23

1. Lecture Five:
Syndicalism in Ireland, 1917-21

2. 1.Industrial agitation
2.1920 Local Elections
3.1920 Munitions Strike
4.1921 Treaty and Slide
to Civil War

3. 1. Industrial agitation
The Wages movement
Expansion of trade unionism in Ireland:
100,000 members in 1916
225,000 member in 1920
Growing awareness / class consciousness
Revival of pre-war Larkinite tactics
Adaptation of Connolly’s Industrial Unionism – OBU
- The promise that through industrial unionism Labour would ultimately
realise the Workers’ Republic
Congress transformed from ‘a bunch of trade unionis with no coherent
politics beyond a few labourist assumptions from Britain into,
potentially, an industrially and politically integrated movement,
geared to tackling reality.’ (O’Connor, p.95)

4. The Great War and Wages
- Seamen and dockers win pay advances in 1915
- Shipyards and railways taken over by government in 1916
- payment of war bonuses
- Building in Dublin revived 1917-18
- Statutory minimum wage rates in agriculture in 1917
- huge growth in trade union membership among farm labourers
- by August 1920, there were 19 trade boards covering 148,000
employees, majority in Ulster.
- Ulster the main beneficiary of war economy
- December 1916, railwaymen win wage dispute, first major victory since
September 1911.
- NUR membership grows from 5,000 to 17,000 in three months

5. The Great War and Wages
Winter 1916/17 – food and fuel shortages
- Labour movement embued with a social purpose, not just wages and
work conditions
- ITGWU main beneficiary of rural labour militancy
- By 1920, ITGWU has 60,000 members in agriculture, the bulk of these
in the twelve south-easterly ‘tillage counties.’
ITGWU grows from 5,000 members in 1916 to 120,000 members in 1920

7. 18 April 1918 – protests against
moves to impose conscription in
Ireland
23 April 1918 – general strike in
opposition to conscription
Ireland’s first general strike. Mostly
ignored in the North.

8. 23 April 1918 – general strike in opposition to conscription
Ireland’s first general strike. Mostly ignored in the North.
- Between 1917 and 1923, eleven new unions were founded by
breakaways away from the amalgamateds, and four of these adopted an
industrial union structure.
- the 1919 Land Campaign
- increase in general local strikes
- 12 taking place in 1919 alone
- Workplace seizures or soviets, almost all involving the ITGWU, emerged
from November 1918 onwards, substantially as strike tactics but
indicating too a political ambition.
- Most extensive seizures took place in May 1920, known as the
Knocklong Soviet

9. - On August 26th 1921, the bakery and mills in Bruree County Limerick were
occupied by its employees. All staff bar the manager and chief clerk joined the
occupation. They hoisted a red flag and declared the “Bruree Soviet Workers Mill”
was the property of workers and would sell its food cheap and reduce
“profiteering”. Union officials claimed the Soviet was able to drop prices, double
sales and increase wages

11. Limerick Soviet 14-27 April 1919
Robert Byrne, IRA member, on
hunger strike in Limerick
Failed attempt to free him leads to his
death
9 April – Limerick declared a
‘special military area’
13 April – local general strike called
14 April – a ‘soviet (self-governing
committee) declared in part of the
city
27 April – ‘soviet’ declared over

12. In the end the soviet was basically an
emotional and spontaneous protest on
essentially nationalist and
humanitarian grounds, rather than
anything based on socialist or even
trade union aims.”
Cahill, Forgotten Revolution, p.148.

14. - November 1918 – Labour party votes to stand aside in general election
- In the long term, the Congress decision to stand aside confirmed in left
thinking the presumed dichotomy of the social and national questions
- In the short term, it appeared to radicalize the leadership, who rifled
syndicalist arguments to rationalize their funk.
- November 1918 Congress also saw the change in name of Congress to
Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress
- 1919 – militant action sweeps across Europe in wake of the Great War
- Congress keeps to a wages movement campaign, despite the rhetoric
- January 1919 – Tom Johnson drafts the Democratic Programme,
adopted by Dáil Éireann as its social and economic policy, 21 Jan1919

16. Dáil Éireann - Volume 1 - 21 January, 1919 - DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMME.
we declare that the Nation's sovereignty extends not only to all men and women of the
Nation, but to all its material possessions, the Nation's soil and all its resources, all the
wealth and all the wealth-producing processes within the Nation, and with him we
reaffirm that all right to private property must be subordinated to the public right and
welfare.
It shall be the first duty of the Government of the Republic to make provision for the
physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children, to secure that no child shall
suffer hunger or cold from lack of food, clothing, or shelter, but that all shall be provided
with the means and facilities requisite for their proper education and training as Citizens
of a Free and Gaelic Ireland.
Likewise it shall be the duty of the Republic to take such measures as will safeguard the
health of the people and ensure the physical as well as the moral well-being of the
Nation.
It shall be our duty to promote the development of the Nation's resources, to increase the
productivity of its soil, to exploit its mineral deposits, peat bogs, and fisheries, its
waterways and harbours, in the interests and for the benefit of the Irish people.
It shall also devolve upon the National Government to seck co-operation of the
Governments of other countries in determining a standard of Social and Industrial
Legislation with a view to a general and lasting improvement in the conditions under

17. 12 April 1920 – General strike called in support of hunger strikers – effective
everywhere except Ulster
- Throughout the national revolution, Congress policy scarcely noted that sixcounty colleagues were primarily concrened not with Ireland’s constitutional
status but with preventing themselves from being corralled into a sectarian state,
and Congress did nothing to maintain the left political unity achieved by
Connolly in 1912.

18. 2. 1920 local elections
But what are the workers themselves going to do? Are they always going
to leave the rights of labour to be looked after by the enemies and false
friends of labour? Will they always allow themselves to be bribed and
bamboozled by the very employers and allies and hangers-on of
employers against whom they have to fight such a stern and unremitting
battle through their trade unions? For all the fraud and flapdoodle and
foolery of political agitation, there can be no lasting concealment of the
fundamental fact that there are only two parties – the party of the
workers and the party of the shirkers, of those who use the means of
producing wealth and those who own them, of labour and of labour’s
enemies. So it follows that if labour ever hopes to claim its rights, ever
aspires to create a new and juster (sic) social order, it must be prepared
to fight – and fight alone.
New Way, April 1918.

19. - 329 seats won by Labour in January
1920 local elections - seats won by
councillors willing to take the Labour
party pledge and vote with their
fellow party members on the
respective councils
- I, the undersigned, agree, if elected
a member of the [local] council, that I
will be bound by the decisions of the
[local] trades and labour council, and
will sit, act, and vote with the other
labour representatives on the council
as a Labour party in the carrying out
of these decisions. I pledge myself to
resign my seat if called upon to do so
by a special meeting of the [local]
trades’ council, called for the purpose
of considering my conduct as a labour
representative.’

20. Labour Party programme:
-The party called for ‘good houses for the workers: not a mere shelter where the worker’s
family is crowded like cattle in a byre, but a home, comfortable, convenient and roomy.’
- It wanted low rents, and additional housing built immediately: the alternative offered
was for the councils to ‘take possession of the unused house room of the wealthy.’
- It wanted councils to ensure milk supply for children and mothers, and all children
attending school would have periodical medical examinations and necessary treatment,
paid for by the councils.
- Scholarships for technical schools, colleges and universities, as well as grants for
‘specific working-class educational efforts’ would be provided, along with school libraries
and popular lectures in topics such as economics and history.
- Councils would combine together to undertake public works such as the provision of
house-building material, coal supply, and the ‘promotion of electric power schemes by
the utilization of peat bogs, coal deposits, [and] water power.’

21. Sinn Féin programme:
- To secure the expenditure of the rates raised in Ireland, inside Ireland.
- To secure efficiency and purity of administration.
- To establish and enforce the principle of free and open competition for public
appointments.
- To carry through an efficient public health policy.
- To make the public boards the local units for putting into operation the policy of
national development decreed by Dáil Éireann for the industrial and commercial
expansion of our country,
- and to secure their co-operation in the work of the Commission of Inquiry into our
national resources

22. 3. 1920 Munitions Strike

23. In the eyes of the Irish NUR, the munitions strike was anti-Prussianism applied to Ireland.
During the war, Britain and its democratic tradition was held up as the direct antithesis to the
militaristic and disciplinary outlook of Prussia.
In the immediate post-war period, Britain was often accused of slipping into Prussianism, of
becoming a military nation, and of undermining the civilisation it had supposedly fought so
hard to defend.

24. In the eyes of the Irish NUR, the munitions strike was anti-Prussianism applied to Ireland.
During the war, Britain and its democratic tradition was held up as the direct antithesis to the
militaristic and disciplinary outlook of Prussia.
In the immediate post-war period, Britain was often accused of slipping into Prussianism, of
becoming a military nation, and of undermining the civilisation it had supposedly fought so
hard to defend.
British support for Poland’s war against Russia – in the form of both troops and munitions –
was cited as one example of this new militarism. It gave rise to the ‘Hands off Russia’
campaign, and in 1920 a sympathetic British labour movement called for a boycott of all
munitions destined for Russia.

25. In the eyes of the Irish NUR, the munitions strike was anti-Prussianism applied to Ireland.
During the war, Britain and its democratic tradition was held up as the direct antithesis to the
militaristic and disciplinary outlook of Prussia.
In the immediate post-war period, Britain was often accused of slipping into Prussianism, of
becoming a military nation, and of undermining the civilisation it had supposedly fought so
hard to defend.
British support for Poland’s war against Russia – in the form of both troops and munitions –
was cited as one example of this new militarism. It gave rise to the ‘Hands off Russia’
campaign, and in 1920 a sympathetic British labour movement called for a boycott of all
munitions destined for Russia.
This call, which came out of the refusal by London dockers to supply the ss Jolly George with
Polish military supplies, was adapted by Irish NUR members, who argued that ‘if munitions
were not to be handled by British workers to prevent them being taken out to Poland for the
purpose of sacrificing lives in that country, they, in Ireland, also claimed the right that
munitions were not to be distributed about this country to sacrifice lives here.’

26. In the eyes of the Irish NUR, the munitions strike was anti-Prussianism applied to Ireland.
During the war, Britain and its democratic tradition was held up as the direct antithesis to the
militaristic and disciplinary outlook of Prussia.
In the immediate post-war period, Britain was often accused of slipping into Prussianism, of
becoming a military nation, and of undermining the civilisation it had supposedly fought so
hard to defend.
British support for Poland’s war against Russia – in the form of both troops and munitions –
was cited as one example of this new militarism. It gave rise to the ‘Hands off Russia’
campaign, and in 1920 a sympathetic British labour movement called for a boycott of all
munitions destined for Russia.
This call, which came out of the refusal by London dockers to supply the ss Jolly George with
Polish military supplies, was adapted by Irish NUR members, who argued that ‘if munitions
were not to be handled by British workers to prevent them being taken out to Poland for the
purpose of sacrificing lives in that country, they, in Ireland, also claimed the right that
munitions were not to be distributed about this country to sacrifice lives here.’
It was an analysis that the British labour movement either had not considered, or had chosen
to ignore: either way, that movement, and in particular the NUR, was now faced with a strike
that placed it in direct confrontation with the government over an issue of domestic, not
foreign, policy.

27. NUR Executive:
It instructed the membership [20 May] ‘to refuse to handle any material which is intended
to assist Poland against the Russian people,’ and had been issued in support of the London
dockers who had refused to load munitions aboard the ss Jolly George. The executive also
passed a motion that called on the Triple Alliance to meet in order to discuss the situation in
Ireland and ‘the continued unnecessary bloodshed. MRC, NUR archive, ‘reports and
proceedings for the year 1920,’
20 May 1920
Richard Hennessy:
the railwaymen ‘were prepared to carry everything except the munitions… they wanted the
country pulled together and to settle down to a form of sane government. That would never
occur until the military retired from the government of this country’
23 May 1920

28. the NUR executive called a conference of its Irish branches to discuss the issue, as well as a
meeting between the British and Irish TUCs ‘to fully consider the Irish question with a view of
finding a bridge between the Irish people and the government.’
The executive also asked the North Wall men to return to work in order to allow the British
labour movement to act on their behalf.
the NUR North Wall branch held a meeting in Oriel House, Westland Row. It was led by the
branch chairman, Mr. O’Brien, and the men adopted a resolution:
“[To refuse] to handle any munitions of war (with the exception of foodstuffs) for the
army of occupation in Ireland; calling on the executive to withdraw the army, and on
[our] comrades across the water to support us in this fight against Prussianism; and also
on the members of the sailors and firemen’s union to refuse to do any work belonging
to the dockers while these men are on strike.”
26 May 1920

30. 4. Treaty and slide into Civil War