seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Belfast


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The Great Dublin Lockout

great-dublin-lockout

The Great Dublin Lockout, a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers, begins in Dublin on August 26, 1913, and lasts until January 18, 1914. It is often viewed as the most severe and significant industrial dispute in Irish history.

Irish workers live in terrible conditions in tenements. The infant mortality rate among the poor is 142 per 1,000 births, extraordinarily high for a European city. Poverty is perpetuated in Dublin by the lack of work for unskilled workers, who lack any form of representation before trade unions are founded.

James Larkin, the main protagonist on the side of the workers in the dispute, is a docker in Liverpool and a union organiser. In 1907 he is sent to Belfast as local organiser of the British-based National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL). His tactic of the sympathetic strike is deemed highly controversial and as a result Larkin is transferred to Dublin.

Larkin sets about organising the unskilled workers of Dublin, which is a cause of concern for the NUDL, who are reluctant to engage in a full-scale industrial dispute with the powerful Dublin employers. They suspended Larkin from the NUDL in 1908. Larkin then leaves the NUDL and sets up the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU), the first Irish trade union to cater for both skilled and unskilled workers.

Another important figure in the rise of an organised workers’ movement in Ireland at this time is James Connolly, an Edinburgh-born Marxist of Irish parentage. In 1911, Connolly is appointed the ITGWU’s Belfast organiser. In 1912, Connolly and Larkin form the Irish Labour Party to represent workers in the imminent Home Rule Bill debate in Parliament.

Foremost among employers opposed to trade unionism in Ireland is William Martin Murphy, Ireland’s most prominent capitalist, born in Castletownbere, County Cork. In 1913, Murphy is chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company and owns Clery’s department store. Murphy is vehemently opposed to trade unions, which he sees as an attempt to interfere with his business. In particular, he is opposed to Larkin, whom he sees as a dangerous revolutionary.

The resulting industrial dispute is the most severe in Ireland’s history. Employers in Dublin lock out their workers and employ blackleg labour from Britain and elsewhere in Ireland. Dublin’s workers apply for help and are sent £150,000 by the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) and other sources in Ireland, doled out dutifully by the ITGWU.

The “Kiddies’ Scheme,” allowing for the starving children of Irish strikers to be temporarily looked after by British trade unionists, is blocked by the Roman Catholic Church and especially the Ancient Order of Hibernians, who claim that Catholic children will be subject to Protestant or atheist influences when in Britain. The Church supports the employers during the dispute, condemning Larkin as a socialist revolutionary.

Guinness, the largest employer and biggest exporter in Dublin, refuses to lock out its workforce. It has a policy against sympathetic strikes and expects its workers, whose conditions are far better than the norm in Ireland, not to strike in sympathy. Six who do strike are dismissed.

Strikers use mass pickets and intimidation against strike breakers, who are also violent towards strikers. The Dublin Metropolitan Police baton charge worker’s rallies, including a rally on Sackville Street which results in two deaths and over 300 injuries. James Connolly, Larkin, and ex-British Army Captain Jack White form a worker’s militia, the Irish Citizen Army, to protect workers’ demonstrations.

For seven months, the lockout affects tens of thousands of Dublin families. The lock-out eventually concludes in January 1914, when the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Britain rejects Larkin and Connolly’s request for a sympathetic strike. Most workers, many of whom are on the brink of starvation, go back to work and sign pledges not to join a union. The ITGWU is badly damaged by its defeat in the Lockout and is further hit by the departure of Larkin to the United States in 1914 and the execution of Connolly, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916.

Although the actions of the ITGWU are unsuccessful in achieving substantially better pay and conditions for workers, they mark a watershed in Irish labour history. The principle of union action and workers’ solidarity has been firmly established. No future employer would ever try to “break” a union in the way that Murphy attempted with the ITGWU.


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Death of Paddy Devlin, Northern Ireland Labour Activist

paddy-devlin

Paddy Devlin, Irish social democrat and Labour activist, former Stormont Member of Parliament (MP), a founder of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and member of the 1974 Power Sharing Executive, dies in Belfast’s Mater Hospital on August 15, 1999, after a long illness.

Devlin is born into a highly political household in the Pound Loney in the Lower Falls of West Belfast on March 8, 1925, and lives in the city for almost all his life. His early activism is confined to Fianna Éireann and then the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and as a result he is interned in Crumlin Road Gaol during the World War II. He leaves the republican movement upon his release.

After the war, and in search of work, he spends some time in Portsmouth working as a scaffolder and in Coventry working in the car industry. In Coventry he becomes interested in Labour and trade union politics and briefly joins the British Labour Party.

Returning to Belfast in 1948 Devlin helps establish the Irish Labour Party there after the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) splits on the issue of partition. He later beats Gerry Fitt to win a seat on the city council. Later Catholic Action claims the Irish Labour Party is infested with communists and ensures the party is effectively wiped-out causing Devlin to lose his seat.

In the mid 1960s Devlin joins the revived NILP and beats Harry Diamond for the Falls seat in Stormont. Devlin then goes on, with Fitt, John Hume, Austin Currie, and others to found the SDLP in 1970. He is later involved, at the request of William Whitelaw, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in ensuring safe passage for Gerry Adams for talks with the British government in 1973. He is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973 and Minister of Health and Social Services in the power-sharing Executive from January 1, 1974, to May 28, 1974.

In 1978 Devlin establishes the United Labour Party, which aims to be a broad-based Labour formation in Northern Ireland. He stands under its label for the European Parliament in 1979 but polls just 6,122 first preferences (1.1% of those cast) and thereby loses his deposit.

In 1987 Devlin, together with remnants of the NILP and others, establishes Labour ’87 as another attempt at building a Labour Party in Northern Ireland by uniting the disparate groups supporting labour and socialist policies but it too meets with little or no success. In 1985 he loses his place on Belfast City council.

Devlin suffers from severe diabetes and throughout the 1990s suffers a series of ailments as his health and sight collapse.


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Bloody Friday in Belfast

bloody-friday-1972

At least twenty Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombs explode in Belfast on July 21, 1972, during the Troubles in what has become known as “Bloody Friday.” Most of the bombs are car bombs and most target infrastructure, especially the transport network. Nine people are killed, including two British soldiers and five civilians, while 130 are injured.

In late June and early July 1972, a British government delegation led by William Whitelaw holds secret talks with the Provisional IRA leadership. As part of the talks, the IRA agrees to a temporary ceasefire beginning on June 26. The IRA leaders seek a peace settlement that includes a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland by 1975 and the release of republican prisoners. However, the British refuse and the talks break down. The ceasefire comes to an end on July 9.

Bloody Friday is the IRA’s response to the breakdown of the talks. According to the IRA’s Chief of Staff, Seán Mac Stíofáin, the main goal of the bombing operation is to wreak financial harm. It is a “message to the British government that the IRA could and would make a commercial desert of the city unless its demands were met.” Some also see it as a reprisal for Bloody Sunday in Derry six months earlier. The attack is carried out by the IRA’s Belfast Brigade and the main organiser is Brendan Hughes, the brigade’s Officer Commanding.

The bombings occur during an 80-minute period on the afternoon of Friday, July 21. At least 24 bombs are planted. At least 20 explode and the rest fail to detonate or are defused. At the height of the bombing, the middle of Belfast “resembled a city under artillery fire; clouds of suffocating smoke enveloped buildings as one explosion followed another, almost drowning out the hysterical screams of panicked shoppers.” According to The Guardian, “for much of the afternoon, Belfast was reduced to near total chaos and panic. Thousands streamed out of the stricken city…and huge traffic jams built up. All bus services were cancelled, and on some roads, hitchhikers frantically trying to get away lined the pavements.”

Nine people are killed and 130 are injured, some of them horrifically mutilated. Of those injured, 77 are women and children. All of the deaths are caused by two of the bombs – at Oxford Street bus depot and at Cavehill Road. The Oxford Street bomb kills two British soldiers and four Ulsterbus employees. One employee is a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) reservist, one is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary, and the other two are civilians. The Cavehill Road bomb kills three civilians.

The IRA’s Belfast Brigade claims responsibility for the bombings and says that it had given warnings to the security forces before the bombs exploded. It says that the Public Protection Agency, the Samaritans and the press “were informed of bomb positions at least 30 minutes to one hour before each explosion.” Mac Stíofáin says, “It required only one man with a loud hailer to clear each target area in no time” and alleged that the warnings for the two bombs that claim lives are deliberately ignored by the British for “strategic policy reasons.”


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The Springhill Massacre

springhill-massacre

The Springhill Massacre, a shooting incident which claims five lives in the Springhill estate in west Belfast, takes place on July 9, 1972. Three civilians, including a Catholic priest, and two members of Fianna Éireann are shot dead by British Army snipers firing from a timber yard.

The Northern Ireland Troubles have been raging for three years and hundreds have already been killed by the two warring factions in Northern Ireland, unionists, including Ulster loyalists and the British Army, and Irish republicans wanting unification with the Republic of Ireland. Violence has been taking place all day and the five dead are part of ten people killed on that day.

According to a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) statement on July 10, British Army snipers take up sniping positions in Corry’s timber yard and reinforced them with sandbags. Two cars pull into Springhill and the snipers fire two shots at them. One of the cars flees while the other drives a short distance and stops. The occupants get out and the snipers open fire again, seriously wounding one with a shot in the back of the head. A resident rushes to help the injured man but is immediately shot in the arm. This man’s brother and a friend run to the downed occupant, but both are shot by the snipers. At some point during this time a 13-year-old girl is fatally shot by the snipers. The parish priest, waving a white cloth, and a passer-by rush to her but a sniper kills both with a single bullet that passes through both their heads. All of the victims are unarmed.

The British Army disputes the IRA’s version of events and claims its troops were fired on first by the IRA, ending a temporary IRA ceasefire. A British Army spokesman states, “There has been a heavy exchange of fire between the IRA and troops. Some of the dead and wounded were undoubtedly caught in the crossfire.” On July 10, the British Army claims that it has killed terrorists. An open verdict is recorded at the inquest into the events.

No British soldier has been held accountable for these murders.


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Birth of Francis Fowke, Engineer & Architect

francis-fowke

Francis Fowke, engineer, architect, and a Captain in the Corps of Royal Engineers, is born in Ballysillan, Belfast, on July 7, 1823. Most of his architectural work is executed in the Renaissance style, although he makes use of relatively new technologies to create iron framed buildings, with large open galleries and spaces.

Fowke studies at The Royal School Dungannon, County Tyrone, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He obtains a commission in the Royal Engineers and serves with distinction in Bermuda and Paris. On his return to England, he is appointed architect and engineer in charge of the construction of several government buildings.

Among his projects are the Prince Consort’s Library in Aldershot, the Royal Albert Hall and parts of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Royal Museum in Edinburgh, and the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. He is also responsible for planning the 1862 International Exhibition in London. The Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851 being a hard act to follow, the International Exhibition building is described as “a wretched shed” by The Art Journal. Parliament declines the Government’s proposal to purchase the building. The materials are sold and used for the construction of Alexandra Palace.

Before his sudden death from a burst blood vessel on December 4, 1865, Fowke wins the competition for the design of the Natural History Museum, although he does not live to see it executed. His renaissance designs for the museum are altered and realised in the 1870s by Alfred Waterhouse, on the site of Fowke’s Exhibition building.

Francis Fowke is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

A medal is issued by the Royal Engineers in 1865, as a memorial prize for architectural works carried out by members of the corps. With the demise of great architectural works, the prize has transformed into the prize awarded to the top student on the Royal Engineers Clerks of Works course.


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Birth of Katie Taylor, Olympic Boxing Champion

katie-taylor

Katie Taylor, Irish sportswoman who has represented Ireland in both boxing and association football, is born in Bray, County Wicklow, on July 2, 1986. As of this writing, she is the Irish, European, World, and Olympic boxing champion in the 60 kg division. Regarded as the outstanding Irish athlete of her generation, she is the flag bearer for Ireland at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony before going on to win an Olympic gold medal in the lightweight division.

Taylor first begins boxing in 1998 at the age of eleven. Her father coaches her and her two older brothers, Lee and Peter, at St. Fergal’s Boxing Club, which operates out of a former boathouse in Bray. At 15, she fights the first officially sanctioned female boxing match in Ireland at the National Stadium and defeats Alanna Audley from Belfast.

Between 1999 and 2005 Taylor attends St. Kilian’s Community School in Bray with her three older siblings. In addition to boxing and playing association football, Taylor also plays Gaelic football and camogie with her local GAA clubs, Bray Emmets and Fergal Ógs. Several American colleges reportedly offer her athletic scholarships while she is still a pupil at St. Killian’s. She opts, however, to attend University College Dublin. Although UCD is well known for sports scholarships, Taylor qualifies via her Leaving Cert results. As her sporting career begins to take off, however, she chooses not to complete her studies at UCD.

Taylor qualifies for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the first time women’s boxing has been considered for inclusion. Crowds gather on the streets of her hometown to watch her progress on giant screens erected especially for the occasion.

Taylor’s first appearance at the 2012 Summer Olympics comes on August 6, after a first-round bye. She achieves an impressive 26-15 victory over Great Britain‘s Natasha Jonas, booking her place in the semi-final and guaranteeing her, at least, an Olympic bronze medal.

In the semi-final on August 8, 2012, she proves far too good for Tajikistan‘s Mavzuna Chorieva and wins in a 17-9 victory, booking her place in the final and guaranteeing her of at least a silver medal.

Taylor defeats Russia‘s Sofya Ochigava in the final bout by 10-8 on August 9, 2012, winning the Olympic gold medal and becoming the first ever Olympic female lightweight champion.

On her return to Dublin with the rest of the Olympic squad she gets into the cockpit of the plane and leans out the window waving an Irish flag.


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Formation of the Independent Orange Order

independent-orange-orderThe Independent Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organisation, is formed in Belfast on June 11, 1903 by Thomas Sloan and others associated with the Belfast Protestant Association, who have been expelled from the Orange Order because they voice opposition to it being used for party political ends by Ulster Unionists. Originally it is associated with the labour movement, but it soon realigns itself with traditional unionist politics.

It takes its name in memory of King William of Orange of the house of Orange who fights at the Battle of the Boyne, brings about the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights giving the Westminster parliament ultimate power of the country rather than the Monarch. The Independent Order is small compared to the main organisation with 1,500 to 2,000 members. It is largely based around north County Antrim in Northern Ireland but has lodges around the world, including England, Scotland, and Australia. Its annual main Twelfth of July demonstration is held in a north Antrim town or village.

The first notable effect after the formation of the Independent Order is a more liberal interpretation of the rules of the “Old Order.” In the early years of the Institution, many suffer the full wrath of the “powers that be,” who are opposed to any splitting of the Orange Order. Jobs are lost, homes are burned, and their headquarters in Belfast is bombed.

Independent Orangeism today maintains that it is essential for the Orange Institution to be kept free from politics and to guard the principles of Reformation Protestantism. They often express alarm when they believe these principles are endangered by conciliatory politicians. They are opposed to ecumenism and, while being opposed to Orangeism being linked to the Ulster Unionist Party, they are not apolitical and tend to work alongside unionist politicians and parties.

The Institution also promotes Ulster Protestant history and proclaims the principle of “Liberty of Conscience.” They declare their right to think and act independently without direction from political or clerical masters, they seek to strengthen the position of Orangeism, and they often warn of the danger of the development of a social and cultural Orangeism devoid of Protestant principle.


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Patrick Magee Found Guilty of Grand Brighton Hotel Bombing

patrick-joseph-magee

Patrick Joseph Magee of Belfast is found guilty on June 10, 1986, of planting a bomb at the Grand Brighton Hotel in 1984 which kills five people but misses its primary target, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The bombing is testament to the ingenuity of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its bomb makers.

The 30-pound bomb is planted behind a bath in a room on the sixth floor more than three weeks prior to the Prime Minister’s visit. Timed to go off on the final day of the conference, it explodes in the early morning hours of October 12, 1984 and nearly wipes out most of Thatcher’s cabinet, killing five prominent Conservatives and injuring thirty-four.

The bomb destroys a bathroom that Mrs. Thatcher had been in just a few minutes earlier.

Magee stays in the hotel four weeks previously under the false name of Roy Walsh, during the weekend of September 14-17, 1984. He plants the bomb, which includes a long-delay timer, in the bathroom wall of his room, number 629. Magee becomes the primary suspect when forensic officers find his palm print on a hotel registration card following the blast.

Magee is arrested in the Queen’s Park area of Glasgow on June 22, 1985 with other members of an active service unit, including Martina Anderson, while planning other bombings.

Sentenced to a minimum 35 years in jail, he is released from prison in 1999 as part of the Good Friday Agreement early release program. Magee is one of many on both sides of the conflict whose release raises differing emotions.

In one of the more compelling twists associated with the Northern Ireland troubles, Magee works diligently since his release to ease tensions in Northern Ireland and develops a strong working relationship with Jo Berry, daughter of Sir Anthony Berry MP who was killed in the Grand Brighton Hotel blast. They first meet publicly in November 2000 in an effort at achieving reconciliation. They have met publicly on more than one hundred occasions since that date.


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Barry McGuigan Wins the World Featherweight Boxing Title

barry-mcguigan

Finbar Patrick McGuigan, known as Barry McGuigan and nicknamed The Clones Cyclone, wins the World Boxing Association featherweight title on June 8, 1985, defeating Eusebio Pedroza in a unanimous 15-round decision at Loftus Road soccer stadium in London.

Barry McGuigan, the son of singer Pat McGuigan, is born in Clones, County Monaghan. He represents Northern Ireland in the Commonwealth Games at Edmonton in 1978 and represents Ireland at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

After a successful juvenile boxing career, McGuigan begins his professional boxing career on May 10, 1981, beating Selwyn Bell by knockout in two rounds in Dublin. He wins four out of five additional bouts in 1981. In 1982, McGuigan wins eight fights, seven by knockout, although one of these almost destroys his career and his life. Opposed by Young Ali, on June 14, 1982, McGuigan wins by a knockout in six rounds. Ali falls into a coma and dies five months later.

In 1985, McGuigan meets former world featherweight champion Juan Laporte and wins a 10-round decision. Following one more win, he finally gets his world title attempt when the long reigning WBA featherweight champion, Eusebio Pedroza of Panama, comes to London to put his title on the line at Loftus Road soccer stadium. McGuigan becomes the champion by dropping Pedroza in the seventh round and winning a unanimous fifteen-round decision in a fight refereed by hall of fame referee Stanley Christodoulou. McGuigan and his wife are feted in a public reception through the streets of Belfast that attracts several hundred thousand spectators. Later that year, he is named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, becoming the first person not born in the United Kingdom to win the award.

McGuigan twice successfully defends his title, first against American Bernard Taylor, who is stopped in nine  rounds, and then against Dominican Danilo Cabrera in a controversial knock out in fourteen rounds. The fight is stopped after Cabrera bends over to pick up his mouthpiece after losing it, a practice that is allowed in many countries but not in Ireland. Cabrera is not aware of this, and the fight is stopped.

McGuigan’s next defence takes place in Las Vegas in June 1986, where he faces the relatively unknown Steve Cruz of Texas, in a gruelling 15-round title bout under a blazing sun. McGuigan holds a lead halfway through, but suffers dehydration due to the extreme heat and wilts near the end, being dropped in the tenth and fifteenth rounds. He eventually loses the world title, which he never reclaims, in a close decision. After the fight McGuigan requires hospitalisation because of his dehydrated state.

McGuigan retires after the fight but returns to the ring between 1988 and 1989, beating former world title challengers Nicky Perez and Francisco Tomas da Cruz, as well as contender Julio César Miranda, before losing to former EBU featherweight champ and future WBC and WBA super featherweight challenger Jim McDonnell by a technical knockout. After the McDonnell fight he permanently retires from boxing. His record is 32 wins and 3 losses, with 28 knockouts. In January 2005, McGuigan is elected into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

McGuigan founds and is the current President of the Professional Boxing Association (PBA). He is also the CEO and founder of Cyclone Promotions.


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German Bombing of North Strand, Dublin

north-strand-bombing

Four German bombs are dropped on north Dublin at approximately 2:00 AM on May 31, 1941. One bomb falls in the Ballybough area, demolishing the two houses at 43 and 44 Summerhill Park, injuring many but with no loss of life. A second bomb falls at the Dog Pond pumping works near the zoo in Phoenix Park, again with no casualties but damaging Áras an Uachtaráin, the official residence of the Irish President. A third bomb makes a large crater in the North Circular Road near Summerhill, again causing no injuries. A fourth bomb falls in North Strand destroying seventeen houses and severely damaging about fifty others, the worst damage occurring in the area between Seville Place and Newcomen Bridge. The raid claims the lives of 28 people, injures 90, destroys or damages approximately 300 houses, and leaves 400 people homeless.

The first bombing of Dublin during World War II occurs early on the morning of January 2, 1941, when German bombs are dropped on the Terenure area of south Dublin. This is followed, early on the following morning of January 3, 1941, by further German bombing of houses on Donore Terrace in the South Circular Road area of south Dublin. A number of people are injured, but no one is killed in these bombings.

After the war, what becomes West Germany accepts responsibility for the raid, and by 1958 it has paid compensation of £327,000. Over 2,000 claims for compensation are processed by the Irish government, eventually costing £344,000. East Germany and Austria, which are both part of Nazi Germany in 1941, make no contribution. The amounts are fixed after the 1953 London Agreement on German External Debts, allowing maximum compensation.

Several reasons for the raid have been asserted over time. German Radio, operated by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, broadcasts that “it is impossible that the Germans bombed Dublin intentionally.” Irish airspace has been violated repeatedly, and both Allied and German airmen are being interned at the Curragh Camp. A possible cause is a navigational error or a mistaken target, as one of the pathfinders on the raid later recounts. Numerous large cities in the United Kingdom are targeted for bombing, including Belfast, which like Dublin, is across the Irish Sea from Great Britain. War-time Germany’s acceptance of responsibility and post-war Germany’s payment of compensation are cited as further indications that the causation is error on the part of the Luftwaffe pilots.

Another possible reason is that in April 1941, Germany has launched the Belfast blitz, which results in Belfast being heavily bombed. In response, Ireland sends rescue, fire, and emergency personnel to Belfast to assist the city. Éamon de Valera, the Taoiseach, formally protests the bombing to the German government, as well as making his famous “they are our people” speech. Some contend that the raid serves as a warning to Ireland to keep out of the war. This contention is given added credibility when Colonel Edward Flynn, second cousin of Ireland’s Minister for Coordination of Defensive Measures, recalls that Lord Haw Haw has warned Ireland that Dublin’s Amiens Street Railway Station, where a stream of refugees from Belfast is arriving, will be bombed. The station, now called Connolly Station, stands a few hundred metres from North Strand Road, where the bombing damage is heaviest. Flynn similarly contends that the German bombing of Dundalk on July 4 is also a pre-warning by Lord Haw Haw as a punishment for Dundalk being the point of shipment of Irish cattle sold to the United Kingdom.