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The Irish Working Class and the War of Independence

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The Irish Working Class and the War of Independence The Irish Working Class and the War of Independence Conor Kostick of rural workers battled white armies of the FFF (Farmers Freedom Force). In the west, where great tracts of land were still owned by absentee landlords, the struggle took the form of small farmers breaking up the large estates or in some cases appropriating them collectively and working them as soviets.1 Yet, of course, it was in the urban centres that the working class displayed the great- ‘Workers Soviet Mills, We Make Bread Not Profits’ est militancy and in addition to an almost continuous sequence of strikes and local gen- eral strikes there were five crucial turning points in these revolutionary years created In the coming centenary commemora- by urban working class activity: firstly, a tions of the Easter Rising of 1916 there will general strike against conscription; secondly, be a great deal of enthusiasm for the efforts a general strike at the beginning of 1919 in of that generation to escape the British Em- Belfast; thirdly, the Limerick Soviet of April pire. Yet nearly all the public attention and 1919; fourthly, in April 1920 a soviet take- memorial events will be directed to discus- over of the major towns of Ireland for the re- sion of the role of the senior figures of the na- lease of hunger strikers; and fifthly, through- tional movement. One of the most neglected out 1920, the refusal of transport workers to groups in the social memory of these years move British troops or army equipment. was the working class. Yet it was working class action above all that stymied British On 16 April 1918, with the passage of authority in Ireland. In the revolutionary the Military Service Bill by 301 votes to period of 1918 to 1923, Irish workers made 103, conscription was brought to Ireland. an enormous contribution to the fact that The plans of the War Cabinet, however, Britain lost its ability to govern the country. failed disastrously and not one Irishman was More, they created moments in which an dragged off to the trenches. Instead, the is- alternative to partition emerged, moments sue of conscription was a tipping point. It where it seemed like Ireland might follow brought the country to its feet. And if read- Russia in becoming a republic governed by ers in the Republic today feel that the issue soviets. of the water charges is doing something sim- The argument that Ireland was too ru- ilar, you can imagine how the much more ral to have been able to experience a social life-and-death issue of conscription in 1918 revolution at this time - too dominated by galvanised the population. the church and the outlook of a conservative Crucially, workers entered the conflict peasantry - is refuted by a close look at the as a class and much to everyone’s aston- evidence. Near constant class warfare ex- ishment, including their own, proved them- isted on the land in these years. In the east, selves to be an enormously powerful force. where most of the land was held by large A general strike against conscription took farmers and worked by a rural proletariat, place on Tuesday 23 April 1918, with work there were the most extraordinary scenes all over the country suspended. A ban on and battles involving the derailing of trains, marches for the day from the British author- as rural workers fought for higher standards ities proved unenforceable and almost every of living. There were also scenes reminis- town, especially in the 26 Counties, had its cent of the Great War, in which red armies own march, usually organised by the local 1See Conor Kostick, Revolution in Ireland (Cork, 2009), pp. 118 – 124; Dan Bradley, Farm Labourers’ Irish Struggle 1900 - 1976 (Belfast, 1988). 18 Trades Council. The overall success of the fire, doing remarkably well, only to be forced day’s action was acknowledged by the Irish back with 5,500 casualties. The leaders of Times, which stated that ‘April 23rd will be Loyalism did their best to present the bat- chiefly remembered as the day on which Irish tle as a glorious moment in Ulster history, Labour realised its strength.’2 ‘the record of the Thirty-Sixth Division will The protest not only registered the mas- ever be the pride of Ulster’, said Winston sive opposition to conscription that existed Churchill. Rather, it was the heartbreak in Ireland, it precipitated an upsurge of of Ulster and no wonder when conscription popular activity both on the national and was introduced for the whole of Ireland that social question. Workers’ confidence took northern workers, including members of the a great leap from the success of the ac- UVF, attempted to join the opposition. In tion, which had drawn in hundreds of thou- Tyrone, UVF members even offered to be- sands of workers who had never been in- come members of the IRA in order to fight 4 volved in a strike before. The success of the conscription. strike against conscription brought a spurt The problem that these former loyal- of growth for the Irish Transport & General ists had is that southern labour leaders Workers Union in particular and a rise in had thrown their lot in with a specifically the combativeness of workers: the number catholic opposition to conscription. Tom of strikes doubled compared to the previous Johnson and William O’Brien, the key fig- year. The number of new branches regis- ures in the ILPTUC, were appointed to a tered for the Transport Union leapt from an ‘National Cabinet’ steering committee for average of two a month in 1917 to around the anti-conscription campaign. There they twenty a month for the second half of 1918.3 were joined by Arthur Griffith and Eámonn Having identified this moment as one in de Valera for Sinn Feín and John Dillon which Irish workers began a new phase of and Joseph Devlin for the Irish Parliamen- radical militancy, it is also important to tary Party. There too, they went along with identify too that at the very outset of a surge an appeal by the committee to the catholic in Irish working class militancy, the leaders bishops of Ireland, which resulted in a cler- of the Dublin-based trade unions adopted a ical manifesto against conscription to which disastrous political strategy that was in part Johnson and O’Brien put their names. responsible for allowing Unionism to succeed Where did this leave protestant work- in portioning Ireland. For the labour leaders ers who - in their thousands - were looking took the decision to participate in a catholic for an alternative to Orangeism and Union- and nationalist opposition to conscription, ism? Only with an opposition to conscrip- rather than lead the movement in a secular tion that seemed to point towards the es- direction that sought to include protestant tablishment of a catholic state over Ireland. workers. This approach by Ireland’s trade union lead- Northern workers who had been per- ers, of attempting to be the left flank of suaded to fight for King and Country had catholic nationalist Ireland, was also evi- by now experienced four years of war. Ter- dent in the 1918 elections. On that occa- rible years, which had marked every family. sion Labour stood aside in favour of Sinn The Battle of the Somme in July 1916 had Feín candidates. For historians of the So- been something of a turning point in terms cialist Party tradition, this moment was the of Loyalism. On 1 July 1916, the 36th (Ul- critical one for the entire future of the Irish ster) Division - formed largely out of mem- left in the revolutionary era. For them, the bers of the Ulster Volunteer Force - threw it- failure of Labour to win the electoral leader- self into German machine-gun and artillery ship of the country in 1918 marks the turn- 2Irish Times, 24 April 1918. 3William O’Brien papers, MS 15674 (1) ITGWU Branch returns. 4Nicholas Smyth, Bureau of Military History, WS 721, p. 3. See also Fergal McCluskey, The Irish Revolution 1912 – 23: Tyrone (Dublin, 2014), pp. 75 – 6. 5For example, Peter Hadden, Divide and Rule (Belfast, 1980), p. 88. 19 ing point of the Irish revolution.5 Certainly, an industrial soviet.’7 The Mayor of Belfast there was a problem, particularly for north- admitted ‘as far as the municipal undertak- ern trade unionists, if their colleagues in the ings were concerned [he was] entirely at the south were associating closely with Sinn Feín mercy of the strike committee.’8 A telegram rather than advocating independent working from the Belfast authorities confirmed the class demands. But the Socialist Party has situation, that small businesses were hav- always exaggerated the importance of elec- ing to contact the strike leaders, ‘The work- toral activity. The real turning points of the men [sic] have formed a ‘soviet’ committee, period were not electoral ones but the out- and this committee had received 47 appli- comes of the incredibly radical mass move- cations from small traders for permission ments of workers against opponents ranging to use light.’9 It is noteworthy that the from the British authorities to Irish employ- strike committee consisted of both protes- ers and landowners. tant and catholic trade unionists, with a catholic, Charles McKay, at the head of a The 1919 general strike in Belfast was strike in which protestant workers were the the next major intervention of Irish workers majority. in these years and it arose out of a crisis in the city at the end of the war. There un- The same Monday that the strike began, employment had risen sharply with the re- the British Government announced that it turn of thousands of soldiers.
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