# Any balanced history of the 1913 lockout?



## Brendan Burgess (31 Aug 2013)

I went to a talk by Kevin Myers on Jim Larkin on Thursday and he is  anti-Larkin in the same way that the rest of the country idolizes him. 

I don't know enough history to challenge him or support him. 

Is there any good balanced history of the period - not left wing propaganda but not right wing nonsense either? 

Myers'  main point was that Larkin had no interest whatsoever in collective  bargaining, his only objective was to bring down the capitalist system  through strikes.  Larkin had no interest in the appalling living  conditions in Dublin at the time.   Larkin was hated by the other trade  unionists, including James Connolly.

Union leaders took defamation cases against him and won. 

He was convicted of fraud. Not sure if I picked this up correctly. (Wikipedia is more balanced on this issue. "After trial and conviction for embezzlement in 1910, he was sentenced to prison for a year.[3] This was widely regarded as unjust, and the then Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, pardoned him after he had served three months in prison.")

 When Larkin stood for election to  the Dáil in 1927 he got around 8% of the vote in a North Dublin  inner city constituency, so he wasn't very popular with the people  either.  - Just checked this on Wikipedia and he was elected to the Dáil with 12,000 votes for the Irish Workers League.


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Aug 2013)

The Wikipedia article seems quite factual and backs up much of what Myers said

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Larkin

It doesn't deal with Larkin's motivation though.


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## Deiseblue (31 Aug 2013)

Lockout Dublin 1913 by Padraig Yeates is pretty much the definitive account - positively reviewed by the Irish media.


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Aug 2013)

Pity I didn't know that on Thursday. He was speaking after Myers but I hadn't planned to hang around for it. 

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Aug 2013)

Thanks Deise, but I would hardly think he is going to do a balanced account with this background from the publishers of his book on 1913



> *Pádraig Yeates is a journalist, publicist and trade union activist.*
> 
> 
> He is a distinguished social and labour historian and the author of Lockout, the standard work on the great 1913 labour dispute.


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## Deiseblue (31 Aug 2013)

Bit of a leap there Brendan , simply because Mr. Yeates is a trade unionist does not necessarily mean that he cannot write a balanced account of the lockout .

Perhaps the best way to judge is to read his book ?


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Aug 2013)

Hi Deise

He is coming from a particular viewpoint where Jim Larkin is seen as a hero by the trade union movement. 

So I would need to check him out in the same way as I wouldn't take what Kevin Myers said. 

I would like to see something written by an historian. 

Brendan


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## Deiseblue (1 Sep 2013)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Deise
> 
> He is coming from a particular viewpoint where Jim Larkin is seen as a hero by the trade union movement.
> 
> ...



Brendan , I'm very surprised at you !

Sure , the author is a Trade Unionist but you have simply dismissed him as being biased on that basis alone .

Perhaps for a more balanced view you should read the book or perhaps you do not care to do so based on preconceptions ?


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## Duke of Marmalade (1 Sep 2013)

_Boss_, _Strumpet City_ is a good read.  I know its fiction but one does get a sense of the situation.  For example on that embezzlement charge he was collecting in Cork for Dublin strikers and passed the money straight through to them.  The   boss of the TUC in England didn't like him at all and got him on the technicality that he should have routed the collections through head office.  He got one year's hard Labour quashed after a month when it was realised how unjust it was.

He was undoubtedly interested in overturning the whole social order and his methods such as sympathy strikes have, I think, long since been banned.  But I don't see much point in hunting down his personal motivation.  Was Mother Therese solely interested in the poor, or was she booking a seat upstairs?


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## Brendan Burgess (1 Sep 2013)

Deiseblue said:


> Perhaps for a more balanced view you should read the book or perhaps you do not care to do so based on preconceptions ?



Hi Deise

I would prefer to read a book by someone who has not got a particular angle on the story.  A historian rather than a Trade Unionist or a book written by an IBEC employee for that matter. 

Brendan


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## Sunny (1 Sep 2013)

Deiseblue said:


> Lockout Dublin 1913 by Padraig Yeates is pretty much the definitive account - positively reviewed by the Irish media.



Who says it is the definitive account??  Pretty strong statement


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## Deiseblue (1 Sep 2013)

Until the August 2013 book on the Lockout by John Newsinger Mr. Yeates ( a quick google suggests that it is roundly accepted that Mr. Yeates is a respected historian ) book on the lockout was the only detailed account.

I have read Mr. Yeates book & I found it extremely instructive & frank in it's descriptions of Unions & their leaders - flaws & all , but then again if people are not prepared to read the book then really it's not something that can be debated !

I have not read Mr. Newsinger's book as yet but hope to do so in the coming weeks - I should warn those of a nervous disposition that Mr. Newsinger is a Marxist !


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## Sunny (1 Sep 2013)

Deiseblue said:


> Until the August 2013 book on the Lockout by John Newsinger Mr. Yeates ( a quick google suggests that it is roundly accepted that Mr. Yeates is a respected historian ) book on the lockout was the only detailed account.
> 
> I have read Mr. Yeates book & I found it extremely instructive & frank in it's descriptions of Unions & their leaders - flaws & all , but then again if people are not prepared to read the book then really it's not something that can be debated !
> 
> I have not read Mr. Newsinger's book as yet but hope to do so in the coming weeks - I should warn those of a nervous disposition that Mr. Newsinger is a Marxist !



No one is saying people shouldn't read the book. Simply pointing out that saying that one book is the definitive account on a subject is a bit much. So anyone that writes another book on the subject is wrong or at least not as factually correct.


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## Purple (2 Sep 2013)

Deiseblue said:


> Brendan , I'm very surprised at you !
> 
> Sure , the author is a Trade Unionist but you have simply dismissed him as being biased on that basis alone .
> 
> Perhaps for a more balanced view you should read the book or perhaps you do not care to do so based on preconceptions ?



I think the fact that you are recommending the book and saying it is balanced tells us that it is sympathetic to the socialist agenda.
If I’d recommended the book it would be safe to say that it would be of the opposite bent.

My mother’s family was heavily involved in the lock-out and her uncle was a founding member of the trade union movement in this country. His memoires were published a few years back, the launch was in Liberty Hall. My mother edited the whole thing together from his diaries. Needless to say I haven’t read it


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## Deiseblue (2 Sep 2013)

Like Brendan & Sunny , all I can say to you all is read it & get back to me !

Until then debate/analysis on the book & why I recommended same is impossible .

This rush to imply that the book in question is biased without reading same  is very strange - really it's not that expensive & only runs to a few hundred pages.

I think this particular topic has run it's course & as such I'm now signing off.


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## RainyDay (2 Sep 2013)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I would prefer to read a book by someone who has not got a particular angle on the story.  A historian rather than a Trade Unionist or a book written by an IBEC employee for that matter.



Just make sure you avoid any book written by a money-grabbing accountants. All those accountants are the same, money-grabbing, tight-fisted, penny-pinching etc etc etc....


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## DB74 (2 Sep 2013)

Deiseblue said:


> I think this particular topic has run it's course & as such I'm now signing off.



Well it is 4pm


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## Purple (2 Sep 2013)

DB74 said:


> Well it is 4pm



Lol


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## Sunny (2 Sep 2013)

DB74 said:


> Well it is 4pm



Sorry Deiseblue but that is funny! 

Anyway you will be glad to know I got a copy of that book so will let you know what I think.


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## RainyDay (2 Sep 2013)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> Was Mother Therese solely interested in the poor, or was she booking a seat upstairs?



Or perhaps the tea-towel wearer was just making sure that she didn't become one of the poor herself;

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...esa-may-not-have-been-so-saintly-8518993.html


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## Liamos (3 Sep 2013)

RainyDay said:


> Or perhaps the tea-towel wearer was just making sure that she didn't become one of the poor herself;
> 
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...esa-may-not-have-been-so-saintly-8518993.html



Yeah, she was always swanning around in her limo, staying in five star hotels and wearing those versace dresses! It's so obvious.


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## Purple (3 Sep 2013)

Liamos said:


> Yeah, she was always swanning around in her limo, staying in five star hotels and wearing those versace dresses! It's so obvious.



The questions raised are legitimate. Her care for the sick has been questioned for decades as some former workers at her missions left because of what they considered a fatalistic philosophy of letting people die with dignity instead of making them better.
When we deify someone or something we remove critical appraisal from the public dialogue. That has happened in this country many times be it the RC Church or public figures. Nobody is perfect and all sides spin the truth in order to promote their agenda and/or ideals. 
The same applies to the 1913 lock-out; we view it in terms of the good guys and the bad guys with altruistic motives on one side and selfish and greedy motives on the other. The truth is rarely that simple.


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## Brendan Burgess (3 Sep 2013)

DB74 said:


> Well it is 4pm



 

Did we ever set up that Post of the Month award?


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## Deiseblue (4 Sep 2013)

Had to smile myself , confident of how wide of the mark the comment was !

Thankfully due to the influence of my Trade Union & the largesse of my previous employer I was able to retire from the burden of employment at an unfeasably early age some 6 years ago.

4 O'Clock generally finds me in the convivial company of ex colleagues in our club.


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## Purple (4 Sep 2013)

Deiseblue said:


> Had to smile myself , confident of how wide of the mark the comment was !
> 
> Thankfully due to the influence of my Trade Union & the largesse of my previous employer I was able to retire from the burden of employment at an unfeasably early age some 6 years ago.
> 
> 4 O'Clock generally finds me in the convivial company of ex colleagues in our club.



I hope that's a working man's club!


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## Deiseblue (4 Sep 2013)

Purple said:


> I hope that's a working man's club!



But of course


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## Brendan Burgess (6 Sep 2013)

This is more like it. 

_Martin Murphy wasn't the villain_ of folklore's tales

By Michael Dwyer a member of the highly self-respected  Edmund Burke Institute


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## Duke of Marmalade (7 Sep 2013)

Interesting stuff.  

Wait till 2016.  Jayz the wallowing in that myth is going to be suffocating.  The fact is that the men of 1916 did not have the support of the people.  Much is made of the fact that the Brits overreacted in executing the leaders.  I dunno.  It was an opportunistic attack at the heart of the empire when it itself was facing a deadly threat.  We see how countries must and will react when, as in Egypt, they are faced with chaos.  Executing the leaders of an armed and unpopular insurrection might have turned out to be bad judgement but the jury is out so far as I am concerned as to whether it was quite the day of infamy that all shades of current Irish political opinion apparently hold it to be.


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## Purple (9 Sep 2013)

Brendan Burgess said:


> This is more like it.
> 
> _Martin Murphy wasn't the villain_ of folklore's tales
> 
> By Michael Dwyer a member of the highly self-respected  Edmund Burke Institute



Martin Murphy was a Catholic and a business owner so it suited both sides for him to be a bad guy. It's a pity we didn't have a few more people like him.
I have great respect for the early Labour movement but I have no time for Jim Larkin. I do have a lot of respect for his son, who did more for the working poor than his father ever did.


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## dereko1969 (9 Sep 2013)

Brendan Burgess said:


> This is more like it.
> 
> _Martin Murphy wasn't the villain_ of folklore's tales
> 
> By Michael Dwyer a member of the highly *self-respected *Edmund Burke Institute


 
Was that a typo or taking the pish out of them?

Should probably be the latter having read their description of their viewpoint which includes an ad for a book on Hayek.

"*However market based politics have yet to strike deep roots in Ireland. With rare exceptions the conversion of Irish lawmakers to the market is shallow. Too few Irish politicians and opinion formers have any theoretical grasp of the philosophic and economic grasp of the case for markets."*

I wouldn't exactly go looking to them for a fair and balanced view of the labour market and workers rights!

Though, in fairness, having read the article he does make some valid points (whilst giving Murphy a pass on being a slum landlord!).


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## Purple (9 Sep 2013)

dereko1969 said:


> Though, in fairness, having read the article he does make some valid points (whilst giving Murphy a pass on being a slum landlord!).



Someone had to own the tenement buildings. The issue is how that landlord treated their tenants, and that has to be seen within the norms of the day.

If the country had been run on the communist ideals of Larkin and Connolly we could have ended up like North Korea.

It’s only in fiction that there are neat lines between the good guys and the bad guys. The truth is more subtle and nuanced.


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## Crugers (9 Sep 2013)

Purple said:


> ... we could have ended up like North Korea..





Purple said:


> ...The truth is more subtle and nuanced...


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## T McGibney (9 Sep 2013)

> _"However market based politics have yet to strike deep roots in Ireland. With rare exceptions the conversion of Irish lawmakers to the market is shallow. Too few Irish politicians and opinion formers have any theoretical grasp of the philosophic and economic grasp of the case for markets."
> _



Whatever your own perspective or views on economics, the truth of the above statement is incontestable.


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## Purple (9 Sep 2013)

Crugers said:


>



That's why there was an if in there


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## Brendan Burgess (9 Sep 2013)

dereko1969 said:


> Was that a typo or taking the pish out of them?
> 
> Should probably be the latter having read their description of their viewpoint which includes an ad for a book on Hayek.
> 
> .



It was indeed the latter. If I may say so myself, I thought it was a good one!


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## Ceist Beag (10 Sep 2013)

There's a pretty good overview of the period   if you haven't read it yet Brendan.


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## Purple (10 Sep 2013)

Excellent link.


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## dereko1969 (10 Sep 2013)

Purple said:


> Someone had to own the tenement buildings. The issue is how that landlord treated their tenants, and that has to be seen within the norms of the day.
> 
> If the country had been run on the communist ideals of Larkin and Connolly we could have ended up like North Korea.
> 
> It’s only in fiction that there are neat lines between the good guys and the bad guys. The truth is more subtle and nuanced.


 
From the very interesting link just provided:
*Housing conditions were deplorable. Overcrowding was a serious problem, and bred disease and infection. Malnutrition was common. The death rate in Dublin (27.6 per 1000) was bad as Calcutta, and the city’s slums were amongst the worst in the world. Over 20,000 families lived in one-room dwellings. There were often more than ten families in town houses that were built for one upper-class family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These houses became dilapidated when wealthy elites left them and moved to the suburbs. The houses were often taken over by landlords who rented them out, room by room, to poor families, and they quickly became slums. There was little privacy. Facilities for cooking, cleaning, and washing were wholly inadequate. Sanitary conditions were worse. Many tenement buildings shared one lavatory in a yard.*

I'm really surprised and disappointed that you think this type of treatment of tenants is justifiable in the context of the "norms" of the time, "everyone else was doing it, so why not me" does not seem to me to be the right way to treat people, or perhaps I'm picking you up wrong.


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## DB74 (10 Sep 2013)

Yes - very good read actually

Does anyone know if RTE are planning to show Strumpet City at all over the next few months - it would seem like the ideal time to rebroadcast the show


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## Purple (10 Sep 2013)

dereko1969 said:


> From the very interesting link just provided:
> *Housing conditions were deplorable. Overcrowding was a serious problem, and bred disease and infection. Malnutrition was common. The death rate in Dublin (27.6 per 1000) was bad as Calcutta, and the city’s slums were amongst the worst in the world. Over 20,000 families lived in one-room dwellings. There were often more than ten families in town houses that were built for one upper-class family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These houses became dilapidated when wealthy elites left them and moved to the suburbs. The houses were often taken over by landlords who rented them out, room by room, to poor families, and they quickly became slums. There was little privacy. Facilities for cooking, cleaning, and washing were wholly inadequate. Sanitary conditions were worse. Many tenement buildings shared one lavatory in a yard.*
> 
> I'm really surprised and disappointed that you think this type of treatment of tenants is justifiable in the context of the "norms" of the time, "everyone else was doing it, so why not me" does not seem to me to be the right way to treat people, or perhaps I'm picking you up wrong.



From the same link;



> Murphy had the reputation of being a good employer who gave his workers fair wages. However, he would not tolerate dissension and refused to employ anyone who was a member of the ITGWU. He was well-known for his personal charity. One woman wrote in 1913:
> 
> 
> Mr Murphy is a just and kind employer. Outsiders know little of his real goodness—I experienced it myself when my husband died after a long and expensive illness. The first letter I received was from Mr Murphy enclosing a cheque for £30—‘as my needs might be pressing’—and just asking me to say a prayer for the soul of his son who died a year before my husband, although he had never laid eyes on me or my children.
> ...



Nobody would suggest that what was going on was right but the state was responsible for the appalling conditions that so many people lived in. No individual, no matter how powerful, was going to change things on their own.
The problem was poverty and inequality and overcrowding was a symptom of that problem. Due to historical reasons Ireland was very underdeveloped industrially so urban poverty was systemic and there was no easy solution. 
That doesn't excuse it but lets not pretend that it was created by the business owners in Dublin, or that it was unique to Dublin or Ireland. 

There were many business owners who were very charitable but it should be remembered that businesses didn't pay any corporation tax back then.


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## Purple (10 Sep 2013)

A criticism of the generally excellent UCC Multitext piece on the lockout is that it implies that  only became interested in the poor of Dublin after the lockout.
In reality her work predates Larkin and the ITGWU. She did as much for the poor in Dublin as anyone and more than most but because she was the Viceroy's wife it didn't suit our post-independence view of ourselves to highlight that the "Brits" weren't all bad guys.


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## Brendan Burgess (11 Sep 2013)

There is a supplment in today's Irish Times.

On the front page, it noted the contributors as Michael D Higgins, Des Geraghty and Padraig Yeates , but in fact there are far more contributors, not just those from a trade union, Labour Party background. 

I haven't read it yet, but I have bought it.


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