Public Meeting - The 1913 Lockout
cork |
rights, freedoms and repression |
press release 
Tuesday August 27, 2013 13:44
by Jim O'Connell - People Before Profit Alliance
100 years after the Dublin Lockout... The Fight Continues
Public Meeting
With Paul O'Brien
Author and Social Activist
1913 Lockout Public Meeting in Cork
While the Dublin Lockout of 1913 has been seen as a labour dispute primarily associated with that city, it had huge implications for the organising of skilled and unskilled workers throughout Ireland.
Union organiser James Connolly spoke at meetings in Cork and Kerry in the same year, helping to unionise urban workers, farm labourers and household servants, and the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union went on recruit members throughout the country.
The principal actor on the employers’ side was William Martin Murphy, originally from Bantry, County Cork. Murphy owned the tram companies of Dublin as well as the Irish Independent newspaper. He had been a Nationalist MP, but supported the anti-Parnellite faction and a later attempt to become elected again by standing in Kerry South in 1895 failed.
When union organiser James Larkin promoted union membership among Dublin’s unskilled as well as skilled workers, Murphy in turn organised up to 300 employers against the development. The huge army of unskilled workers had to compete among each other for scarce employment opportunities, with the result that those who offered to work for least pay got jobs. These workers lived in slums, where disease and poverty was endemic.
The employers locked the workers out of their premises, and a stand-off between unionised workers and the employers lasted for seven months.
The workers’ plight was later immortalised in James Plunkett’s novel Strumpet City, later a celebrated RTE series.
On Wednesday 28th August, People Before Profit will present a talk by Paul O’Brien, “100 Years: The Dublin Lockout 1913” at Isaac’s Hotel, MacCurtain Street at 8PM
Paul O’Brien is a long standing member of People Before Profit in Dublin. He has published widely on history, politics. He is the author of the pamphlet The 1913 Lockout and the book Shelley and Revolutionary Ireland and is currently writing a political biography of playwright Sean O’Casey.
CONTACT DETAILS: Jim O’Connell 086 3556482 (People Before Profit, Cork)