Any balanced history of the 1913 lockout?

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.
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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.
 
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!
 
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.
 
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
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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.
 
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
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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!).
 
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!).
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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.
 

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

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

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.
 
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
 

From the same link;


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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