National - Event Notice
Thursday January 01 1970

New Labour History book to be launched tonight

national | history and heritage | event notice

Wednesday May 21, 2008 11:24

by labour history buff

A new collection of essays on Irish labour history - edited by Francis Devine, Fintan Lane and Niamh Puirseil - will be launched Liberty Hall, Dublin, tonight. The event, which will be addressed by Des Geraghy, is open to all with an interest in labour history.

The reception takes place at 7pm, Weds, 21 May (i.e. tonight) in Liberty Hall.

Essays in Irish Labour History is a tribute to the late Professor John W Boyle, University of Guelph, Canada and a leading practitioner of Irish labour history, and his late wife Elizabeth.

Boyle's specialism was in nineteenth century labour history, with a particular emphasis on Dublin and Belfast, cities to which he had academic and personal attachments, and these interests are well reflected in this book. The history of labour in Ulster is especially well covered, as is that of Protestant workers throughout the island. The collection also includes substantial scholarly articles that reflect ongoing research and areas that have thus far been neglected, such as time-work discipline in nineteenth century Ireland and the impact of religion on the Irish Labour Party, 1922-73. The range of topics is broad and includes an obituary essay on the Boyles and an interrogation of Irish historiography and the working class.

Contributors include Niamh Puirseil, Fintan Lane, Emmet O'Connor, John Cunningham, Henry Patterson, Brian Hanley and many others.

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Comments (8 of 8)

Essays

by CÓB

Wed May 21, 2008 11:48

I've been searching for a while for the contents of this book. Does anyone know the list of essays that it will encompass?

The contents

by update

Wed May 21, 2008 11:56

Here's a full list of contents. It's in bookshops already btw.

1. A gentle flowering: Elizabeth and John W. Boyle, historians and labour activists
Francis Devine

2. Envisaging labour history: some reflections on Irish historiography and the working class
Fintan Lane

3. Popular protest and a 'moral economy' in provincial Ireland in the early nineteenth century
John Cunningham

4. ‘Remembering who we are’: identity and class in Protestant Dublin and Belfast, 1870–1970
Martin Maguire

5. The Dublin building trades lockout of 1896
Charles Callan

6. Outwork, truck and the lady inspector: Lucy Deane in Londonderry and Donegal, 1897
K.J. James

7. Striking for the right to be late at work: workers’ resistance to employers’ time-discipline in Lurgan power-loom factories, 1899–1914
Mats Greiff

8. The Belfast shipyards and the industrial working class
John Lynch

9. Sheep in wolves’ clothing: Labour and politics in Belfast, 1881–1914
Emmet O’Connor

10. The IRA and trade unionism, 1922–70
Brian Hanley

11. Catholic Stakhanovites? Religion and the Irish Labour Party, 1922–73
Niamh Puirséil

12. Writers of the Left: politics and culture in Ireland during the 1930s
Paul O’Brien

13. Money matters and working women in Ireland of the 1940s and 1950s
Elizabeth Kiely and Maire Leane

14. The decline of the collaborators: the Ulster Unionist Labour Association and post-war unionist politics
Henry Patterson

some chapter headings from a hiistory of the Labour Party since 1973

by updater

Wed May 21, 2008 14:27

1. Tax Amnesties and how we rewarded our friends in big business. Dick Spring reflects from the Golf Course.

2. The 1980's- a period of Labour cutbacks in the Health Service. Justin Keating.

3. Censorship and Sacking- how Labour looked after freedom of speech and put the fear of god into RTE- Conor Cruise O'Brien.

4. A quick guide to selling out- The Labour Party's history of propping up right-wing governments in Ireland- John Bruton, with help from Albert Reynolds.

4. Keeping a pet socialist- a lighthearted look at tokenism by Michael D Higgins

(that's enogh satire- indymedia editor)

Hmmmmm

by Bridgie. - None

Wed May 21, 2008 16:31

I wonder if the previous poster is having trouble distinguishing between a 'History of the Labour Party' and 'A Labour History'.

Double hmmmmmm...

by The Insider

Thu May 22, 2008 10:40

Obviously the Labour Party policy of abolishing university fees failed to have much of an impact on Updater's ed-u-ma-cation.

Good book, look forward to reading it.

good launch too

by me

Thu May 22, 2008 11:15

Good launch in Liberty Hall, though the place was coming down with ex-sticks now Labour Party as if they were never in anything else. A good night for the family of John W. Boyle I think.

Ex-Sticks?

by Russell 'Stringer' Bell

Thu May 22, 2008 18:18

I didn't notice too many ex-Sticks and the ones that were there are not members of the Labour Party. A launch of a book on Irish labour history would be a strange place if there were not any Sticks present since they were a big part of the labour movement in the 1970s and 80s. There were also members of the CP, Sinn Fein and the SWP present as well as a lot of people who are not members of anything. There was also free wine which attracts many, including possibly 'ME' and his sour puss.

political allegiances

by not an 'ex-stickie'

Thu May 22, 2008 18:29

There were a few former stickies there, but so? As the comment above says, it would be weird if there wasn't! One of the editors is a member of the Labour Party and another is a member of the Irish Socialist Network.

Anyway, it was a very good night and all sorts attended. Plenty of wine and no shortage of song afterwards when the music kicked off.

And the book is half-bad either :)

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New Labour History book to be launched tonight

Comments (8 of 8)