Labour in waiting: the after-effects of the Dublin Lockout

In the short term, the Lockout was a pyrrhic victory for the employers. They did not abandon their central demand, the ban on Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) members, but only its inspirer, Murphy, and a few others enforced it. The union was weaker but it survived. Its example inspired workers to organise … Read more

Liberty Hall: 1960s eyesore or modernist icon?

Liberty Hall was the first high-rise building in Dublin. Upon its completion in 1964 it was the highest building in the state, bringing a new building type (the tall building) into Dublin’s street- and riverscape; it was hailed as ‘Ireland’s first sky-scraper’ and ‘Dublin’s crystal tower’. The original Liberty Hall, which served as the Northumberland … Read more

‘Bad, sad specimens of the human race’: nationalist opinion and the striking workers of 1913

Throughout the winter of 1913 the unskilled workers of Dublin were persistently labelled in print by respectable Catholic opinion as ‘scum’, ‘roughs’, ‘degenerates’ and ‘undesirables’. A brief review of provincial nationalist opinion reveals the profound antagonism towards the strikers’ plight and the visceral contempt for their very struggle to survive, indicative of the deep social … Read more