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Book Review
| John Newsinger, Rebel City: Larkin, Connolly and the Dublin Labour Movement, Merlin Press, London, 2004. pp. x + 182. £14.95 paper (Australian agent: Eleanor Brasch Enterprises, PO Box 586, Artarmon, NSW 2064).
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| For Australians of a certain age and disposition Irish history matters. A few years ago I spent a day or two in the Irish National Archives in Dublin reading the letters written to the authorities at Dublin Castle by the famed Irish rebel of 1798, Michael Dwyer, during to his incarceration at Kilmainham Gaol. Unsurprisingly, the 'Wicklow Chief' was not a happy vegemite, especially when it transpired that he was to be transported to the hell-hole at Botany Bay rather than America, as had been negotiated. A trip to Kilmainham Gaol seemed appropriate. By this time the daylight was fading. It was a dour winter afternoon, enhancing the gaol's solemnity and intimidating appearance. (This is the gaol used in the film of Michael Collins, a truly terrifying place!) |
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It transpired that the Celtic tiger economy had even embraced Kilmainham Gaol. With villains now housed elsewhere, the gaol boasts an excellent museum. This features a display of famous former inmates, including Michael Dwyer, though the rebels of the Easter uprising of 1916 take pride of place. A cheerful tour guide, who claimed to be descendant of Dwyer, conducted a small group around, his commentary reflecting a strong nationalist line. It was all rather awe-inspiring. As we stood on the spot in the gaol's courtyard where James Connolly died — shot by firing squad, strapped to his chair because he was too badly wounded to stand up — I felt tears streaming down my face. |
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Equally fascinating was the racial composition of the group of about 15 tourists I had joined. All were Australians, left-wing Australians, aged between 25 and 50-ish. They'd come independently, from various places around Australia. Having a reviving Guinness with one couple afterwards, it seemed that Kilmainham and the stories of 1916 — visiting the Rebellion sites, the General Post Office, the Four Courts — was what had brought them to Dublin. While Ireland is very well set up in terms of tourism and this was surely an unusual group of visitors, I wonder if anyone could have anticipated that Irish rebel history would have exerted such a strong pull on Australians. |
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I tell this story, with apologies, because it shaped my response to John Newsinger's Rebel City. In Australian eyes, Irish nationalism dominates the scene. We tend to know very little about the Irish labour movement in the same period. |
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Rebel City goes a long way towards redressing this situation. Lively and argumentative, Newsinger's book makes a valuable contribution towards assessing the intersections between the Irish nationalist and the labour causes during both the 1916 Rebellion and the 1913 Dublin lock-out, the most significant struggle in Irish labour history. For six months 400 employers led by tramway entrepreneur William Martin Murphy locked out 20,000 workers. Led by the inspirational Jim Larkin, and organised into the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), the dispute became a spectacular flowering of working-class solidarity. By 1913 the union had 30,000 members and its newspaper, the Irish Worker, sold 20,000 copies a week. It took a determined employer offensive, the importation of scabs, a campaign of 'police terror', clerical condemnation and a crass sell-out by the British Trade Union Congress before the workers returned to work, defeated after six months. |
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In a sense Newsinger revisits the customary theme of Irish nationalist and labour history- spectacular failure. He sheds new light on how the rebel nationalist and labour causes connected, or more precisely how they did not. While Jim Larkin saw these struggles as inseparable, his colleagues on both sides were more insular. Among the factors explaining the failure of the ITGWU in 1913, Newsinger suggests that the refusal of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) to take sides was crucial. Despite the support of individual republicans like Sean O'Casey, the IRB saw the ITGWU's success as an embarrassment. For many republicans the lock-out was a sectional dispute that paled in comparison with the broader struggle for national liberation. |
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In part II of his book Newsinger revisits the equally sanguine history of the nationalist cause in 1916. In large part, Newsinger argues, the Easter uprising failed because the rebel leaders failed to carry the working class with them. This might seems glib but Newsinger argues the case persuasively. The War of Independence was more of the same. With one great leader (Larkin) in the United States and the other (Connolly) dead, the increasingly conservative Irish trade union leadership was reluctant to harness the revived strength of the workers. |
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Though less hagiographic than a recent play by James Plunkett, The Risen People, the great hero of Newsinger's book is Jim Larkin. Conversely, Rebel City's account of Jim Connolly is less positive. Not only was Connolly guilty of the spectacular misjudgement that British capitalists would not condone damaging property, he also made no attempt to enlist the support of the reviving ITGWU and its 5,000 members by calling a general strike. The rising was premature. According to Newsinger, Connolly increasingly saw himself as a nationalist rather than a socialist. He was even pro-German, perhaps because he felt that Germany was the closest European nation to achieving socialism. |
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One senses that Rebel City is likely to cause spirited debate in Irish historical and political circles, particularly among those who deify Connolly. Newsinger writes in a partisan way. The British trade union leaders who sold out the Irish workers in 1913–14 come in for heavy criticism. They were 'indeed four of the greatest traitors in the history of the British trade union movement'. Poor old Jimmy Thomas is described as 'one of the best trade union leaders that the British capitalist class has ever had and there is plenty of competition' (p. 99). |
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Newsinger's polemical style may not be to everyone's liking but Rebel City is a scholarly and impressive contribution to the extensive literature on Irish nationalism and the Irish labour movement. Through Merlin Press' efficient antipodean distribution network, it is available in Australia. |
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| University of Western Sydney |
ANDREW MOORE | |
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