James Larkin
James Larkin (* 28. January 1874 in Liverpool , † the thirtieth January 1947 in Dublin ) . Ir Seamas Ó Lorcáin , nicknamed Big Jim , was a socialist activist and leader of the Irish trade union Union. It was in January 1874 English born Liverpool. His parents were Irish . He grew up in poverty, had only a poor education and started his working life with various jobs as a child. He later moved to Ireland and founded the Irish Transport and General Workers 'Union , the Irish Labor Party and the Workers' Union of Ireland . Most famous was his role in the great Dublin general strike in 1913. Larkin was also one of the founding members of the Republican-Socialist Irish Citizen Army , along with James Connolly , which played an important role in the 1916 Easter Rising .
The beginnings
Larkin's family lived in a Liverpool slum for the first few years of his life . At the age of seven he attended school in the morning and worked in the afternoon to support the family income - a common practice in working-class families at the time. At the age of 14, after the death of his father, he got an apprenticeship in the company where his father had already worked, but after 2 years he was fired. He remained unemployed for a while and ended up working as a seaman and dock worker. In 1903 he was a port foreman, and on September 8 of the same year he married Elizabeth Brown.
Larkin developed an interest in socialism as early as 1893 and became a member of the Independent Labor Party . In 1905 he was one of the few foremen who took part in the strike at Liverpool harbor. He was then elected to the strike committee, and although he lost his job in the port as a result, his demeanor had impressed the National Dock Laborers' Union (NDLU) so much that he was temporarily hired as an organizer. He later got a permanent job with the "Union", which sent him to Scotland in 1906 , where he successfully organized workers in Preston and Glasgow .
Preparation of the Irish labor movement 1907–1914
In January 1907, Larkin took on his first Union assignment in Ireland when he successfully recruited and organized urban dockworkers for the NDLU in Belfast . When the employers refused the wage demands, the workers went on strike in June 1907. Hauliers and workers from coal factories soon followed. But the latter's strike was settled within a month. Here, too, Larkin managed to unite Protestant and Catholic workers, but the strike ended in November with no significant success. During this time, tension arose over the leadership position within the strike between Larkin and NDLU chief executive James Sexton , whose role in taking over the negotiations and resulting catastrophic settlement for the last of the strikers led to a permanent rift between the two.
In 1908 Larkin moved to the southern part of the island, where he organized workers in Dublin , Cork and Waterford with considerable success. When he took part in a discussion against the instructions of the NDLU in Dublin, he was expelled from the NDLU. Later the "Union" sued him for distributing Union funds to workers from Cork in an unofficial strike. After the hearing and the pronouncement of the verdict in 1910, he spent 3 months in prison - a verdict that was largely viewed as unjust.
After his expulsion from the NDLU, Larkin founded the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) in late December 1908 . This association still exists today under the name The Services Industrial Professional & Technical Union (SIPTU). While the groups from the NDLU in Dublin, Cork, Dundalk, Waterford and the Catholic workers in Belfast quickly joined the newly founded "Union", the groups from Derry , Drogheda and the Protestants in Belfast stayed with the British Association. In early 1909 Larkin moved to Dublin, which became the headquarters of ITGWU and the focus of its future activities in Ireland.
In collaboration with James Connolly, Larkin succeeded in founding the Irish Labor Party in 1912 . In the same year he was elected to the Dublin Corporation , the then parliament of the city. However, he lost his seat there a month later because of his previous conviction.
Dublin Lockout, 1913
- Main article: Dublin Lockout
In early 1913, Larkin had some success in industrial disputes in Dublin by frequently calling for strikes and boycotts of goods. Two leading companies in particular, which had remained without unions because they had put their employees under pressure, came into Larkin's focus: Guinness and the Dublin United Tramway Company .
The resulting dispute turned out to be some of the most serious in Irish history. The seven month lockout punished tens of thousands of Dublin workers and employers. Larkin has been scapegoated by the three top-selling William Martin Murphy- owned newspapers Irish Independent , Sunday Independent and Evening Herald . Other ITGWU leaders of the time included James Connolly and William X. O'Brien , while influential figures such as Patrick Pearse , Countess Markievicz and William Butler Yeats supported workers in the otherwise anti-Larkin newspapers.
The "lockout" was only resolved in early 1914, when Larkin and Connolly's call for supportive strikes in Great Britain was rejected by the British TUC. Although the actions of the ITGWU and the smaller UBLU did not result in better pay and working conditions, they were the turning point in the history of Irish workers. The principle of unity and solidarity among the workers was created.
Larkin in America, 1914-1923
A few months after the general strike ended, Larkin moved to the United States to recover from the rigors of the strike and raise new funds for the Union. His departure caused consternation among many Union activists. In the USA he became a founding member of the Communist Party of the USA . Because of this membership, his radical socialist publications and the ruling "red terror" (of communism ) in the States, he was arrested in 1920 for "criminal anarchy " and sentenced to 5–10 years in Sing Sing . In 1923 he was pardoned and later deported by New York Governor Alfred E. Smith .
Return to Ireland and communist activities
On his return to Ireland in April 1923, Larkin was received like a hero. He immediately began a journey through the country and met with members of the Trade Union in order to end the Irish Civil War to advertise (Irish Civil War). Despite his best efforts, Larkin found himself at odds with William O'Brien, who in his absence had become the leading figure of the ITGWU, the Irish Labor Party and the Trade Union Congress. Larkin was still the managing director of ITGWU, and the bitter dispute between the two would last for over twenty years.
In September 1923, Larkin founded the Irish Worker League (IWL), which was shortly thereafter viewed by the Comintern as an Irish part of the communist movement. In 1924 Larkin joined the Comintern Congress and was elected to the Executive Committee. Nevertheless, the IWL was not organized like a political party and never had any great political success. The greatest achievement of the first year was the creation of a monetary fund for Republican prisoners of the Irish Civil War.
While Larkin was attending the Comintern Congress in Moscow in 1924, there was a break between the two wings of the ITGWU in Dublin. Larkin's supporters left ITGWU under the leadership of his brother Peter and founded the Workers' Union of Ireland (WUI). This new group grew very quickly at first, gaining the loyalty of two-thirds of the Dublin members of the ITGWU and a smaller number of rural members. The WUI joined the pro-Soviet Red International of Labor Unions . But, like the IWL in the past, the growth of the WUI was also severely slowed down by Larkin's chaotic and dictatorial approach.
In January 1925, the Comintern sent the British communist activist Bob Stewart to Ireland to work with Larkin to found a communist party. A formal founding conference of the Irish Worker League to play the party's role was scheduled for May but ended in fiasco when organizers learned at the last minute that Larkin did not want to attend. With the feeling that they would not be able to pass without him, they canceled the meeting that was to take place in the Mansion House in Dublin at short notice.
In the September 1927 election, Larkin was elected in North Dublin. This was the only time a communist was elected to the Dáil Éireann (Irish House of Commons). He was unable to take his seat due to a defamation suit brought by William O'Brien, whose fine Larkin refused to pay.
In the early 1930s, Larkin turned away from the Soviet Union . In the 1932 elections he ran unsuccessfully as a communist; In 1933 he called himself an "independent worker". During this time he also tried to get closer to the Catholic Church. In 1936 he again gained a seat in the Dublin Parliament, the Dublin Corporation , and in the elections the following year also a seat in the Irish House of Commons, which he lost again in 1938. During this period, the Workers' Union of Ireland followed the general movement of unions and was recognized by the Dublin Confederation in 1936.
Return to the Labor Party
When a new trade union law was introduced into parliament by the government in 1941, it was seen as a threat by the smaller unions, inspired by an internal proposal by William O'Brien to restructure the Trade Union. Larkin and the WUI played leading roles in the unsuccessful fight against this law. After the law came into force, he and his supporters asked to join the Labor Party, where many members now viewed them with greater sympathy. In return, O'Brien spun the ITGWU out of the Labor Party and founded the rival National Labor Party , denouncing what he believed to be Communist influence in the opposing party. Larkin served from 1943 to 1944 as a Labor Party deputy in Dáil Éireann, the Irish House of Commons.
James Larkin died in his sleep on January 30, 1947. The funeral mass was held by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid . Thousands lined the streets of the city when the hearse drove to the Glasnevin Cemetery , where u. a. also many Irish freedom fighters are buried.
In addition to the statue of "Big Jim" on O'Connell Street, there is now a street in Clontarf named after him. Larkin is the subject of poems by Frank O'Connor and Lola Ridge . His persona can be found in plays by Daniel Corkery , George William Russell , and Sean O'Casey . He is also a heroic supporting character in James Plunkett 's novel Strumpet City .
Literature (all in English)
- James Larkin , Emmet O'Connor, Cork University Press, Cork, 2002 ISBN 1-85918-339-5
- James Larkin, Irish labor leader 1876-1947 , E. Larkin, London, 1977
- James Larkin: Lion of the Fold , ed.Dónal Nevin, Dublin, 1998
- Lockout: Dublin 1913 , Pádraig Yeates, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 2000 ISBN 0-7171-2899-7
- The Rise of the Irish Trade Unions , Andrew Boyd, Anvil Books, Dublin, 1985 ISBN 0-900068-21-3
- Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers' Republic since 1916 , Mike Milotte, Dublin, 1984
- Thomas Johnson, 1872--1963 , John Anthony Gaughan, Kingdom Books, Dublin, 1980, ISBN 0-9506015-3-5
See also
This text is based on a translation of the article James Larkin from the English Wikipedia, version of July 3, 2005.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Larkin, James |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Big Jim |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | socialist activist and leader of the Irish Trade Union Union |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 28, 1874 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Liverpool |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 30, 1947 |
| Place of death | Dublin |