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Tag Archives: Irish Trades Union Congress


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Birth of Thomas Johnson, Politician & Trade Unionist

Thomas Ryder Johnson, Irish Labour Party politician and trade unionist who serves as Leader of the Opposition from 1922 to 1927 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1917 to 1927, is born on May 17, 1872, in Liverpool, England. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin County from 1922 to 1927. He is a Senator for the Labour Panel from 1928 to 1934.

Johnson works on the docks for an Irish fish merchant, spending much of his time in Dunmore East and Kinsale. It is this way that he picks up ideas about socialism and Irish nationalism, joining a Liverpool branch of the Independent Labour Party in 1893. In 1900 he starts work as a commercial traveller, then moves in 1903 with his family to Belfast where he becomes involved in trade union and labour politics.

In 1907 Johnson helps James Larkin organise a strike in the port, but has to watch in dismay as the strike, which begins with remarkable solidarity between labour, Orange, and nationalist supporters, collapses in sectarian rioting. At various times he is the president, treasurer and secretary of the Irish Trades Union Congress (ITUC) which is, at the time, also the Labour Party in Ireland, until officially founded in 1912 by James Connolly and James Larkin. Johnson becomes Vice-president of the ITUC in 1913, and President in 1915.

Johnson sympathizes with the Irish Volunteers, many of whom are sacked from their jobs, for illegal activities. During the Easter Rising, he notes in his diary that people in Ireland paid little heed to the fate of the defeated revolutionaries. He succeeds as leader of the Labour Party from 1917, when the party does not contest the 1918 Irish general election. When the British government tries to enforce conscription in Ireland in 1918, he leads a successful strike in conjunction with other members of the Irish anti-conscription movement.

Johnson is later elected a TD for Dublin County to the Third Dáil at the 1922 Irish general election and remains leader of the Labour Party until 1927. As such, he is Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil of the Irish Free State, as the anti-treaty faction of Sinn Féin refuses to recognise the Dáil as constituted. He issues a statement of support for the Government of the 4th Dáil when the Irish Army Mutiny threatens civilian control in March 1924.

Johnson is the only Leader of the Labour Party who serves as Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil. He loses his Dáil seat at the September 1927 Irish general election, and the following year he is elected to Seanad Éireann, where he serves until the Seanad’s abolition in 1936.

In 1896 he meets Marie Tregay, then a teacher in St. Multose’s National school, outside Kinsale. A native of Cornwall, she has advanced political views. They marry in 1898 in Liverpool. Their only son, Frederick Johnson, is born in 1899, and becomes a well-known actor. Johnson dies on January 17, 1963, at 49 Mount Prospect Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin.

Each summer, Labour Youth holds the “Tom Johnson Summer School” to host panel discussions, debates and workshops.


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Death of Helena Moloney, Feminist & Labour Activist

helena-moloneyHelena Mary Molony, prominent Irish republican, feminist and labour activist, dies in Dublin on January 28, 1967. She fights in the 1916 Easter Rising and later becomes the second woman president of the Irish Trades Union Congress (ITUC).

Molony is born in Dublin on January 15, 1883, to Michael Molony, a grocer, and Catherine McGrath. Her mother dies early in her life. Her father later remarries, but both became alcoholics, something which influences her years later.

In 1903, inspired by a pro-nationalist speech given by Maud Gonne, Molony joins Inghinidhe na hÉireann and begins a lifelong commitment to the nationalist cause. In 1908 she becomes the editor of the organisation’s monthly newspaper, Bean na hÉireann (Woman of Ireland). The newspaper brings together a nationalist group – Constance Markievicz designs the title page and writes the gardening column, Sydney Gifford writes for the paper and is on its production team and contributors include Eva Gore-Booth, Susan L. Mitchell, and Katharine Tynan, as well as Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, George William Russell, Roger Casement, Arthur Griffith and James Stephens.

Molony is central to the school meals activism of the movement. With Maud Gonne, Marie Perolz and others, she organises the supply of daily school meals to children in impoverished areas, and pressures Dublin Corporation and other bodies to provide proper meals to the starved children of Dublin city.

Molony also has a career as an actress, and is a member of the Abbey Theatre. However her primary commitment is to her political work. She is a strong political influence, credited with bringing many into the movement, including Constance Markievicz and Dr. Kathleen Lynn.

As a labour activist, Molony is a close colleague of Markievicz and of James Connolly. In November 1915 Connolly appoints her secretary of the Irish Women Workers’ Union, in succession to Delia Larkin. This union had been formed during the strike at Jacob’s Biscuit Factory that was part of the 1913 Dublin lock-out. She manages the union’s shirt factory in Liberty Hall, founded to give employment to the strikers put out of work and blacklisted after the strike. She is friendly with the family of Thomas MacDonagh and his wife, Muriel, and is the godmother of their daughter Barbara, whose godfather is Patrick Pearse.

Fianna Éireann, the cadet body of the Irish Volunteers, is founded by Constance Markievicz in Molony’s home at 34 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, on August 16, 1909. Markievicz works closely with Molony and Bulmer Hobson in organising the fledgling Fianna. It is during this period of working together in building the Fianna that Molony and Hobson grow close and became romantically linked. However, the relationship does not last.

Molony is a prominent member of Cumann na mBan, the republican women’s paramilitary organisation formed in April 1914 as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers. Members of Cumann na mBan train alongside the men of the Irish Volunteers in preparation for the armed rebellion against the English forces in Ireland.

During the 1916 Easter Rising, Molony is one of the Citizen Army soldiers who attacks Dublin Castle. During the defence of City Hall, her commanding officer, Sean Connolly, is killed and she is captured and imprisoned until December 1916.

After the Irish Civil War, Molony becomes the second female president of the Irish Trades Union Congress. She remains active in the republican cause during the 1930s, particularly with the Women’s Prisoner’s Defense League and the People’s Rights Association.

Molony retires from public life in 1946, but continued to work for women’s labour rights. She dies in Dublin on January 28, 1967.


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Formation of the Irish Citizen Army

The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) is formed on November 23, 1913, at the height of the Dublin Lockout. Its purpose is to enable the locked-out men to defend themselves in clashes with the Dublin Metropolitan Police and to counteract the demoralizing effects of unemployment by providing discipline, cohesion and purpose. The idea of forming a force apparently is first formally proposed in 1913 by Captain James Robert “Jack” White, an ex-army officer from County Antrim, who had been educated at Winchester College and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. During a speech in August, James Larkin had already suggested that the workers form a force. He publicly repeats this instruction on November 13. James Connolly likewise urges the men to train “as they are doing in Ulster.” Two weeks later drilling begins. According to the ICA constitution, its members are to “work for an Irish republic and for the emancipation of labour.” Larkin is anxious that those who enlist should not only espouse these principles but also be members of unions recognised by the Irish Trades Union Congress.

Despite competition from the Irish Volunteers, which launches on November 25, 1913, ICA membership quickly surpasses 1,000. However, after the dispute is over in January 1914 and the men return to work, the “army” all but disappears. But it is Connolly above all who, after his appointment as its commandant and as leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, rescues it from terminal decline and welds it into a potent force and potential weapon for his own use. He determines its structure, vets its officers and imposes a rigid discipline. He also demands an ideological commitment to revolution and the goal of an independent Irish socialist republic. The force’s guiding principle is that “the ownership of Ireland, moral and material, is vested by right in the people of Ireland.” Its membership remains small but it is otherwise superior to the much larger Irish Volunteers in its unity of purpose, lack of factional and ideological division and in the quality of its training.

After the outbreak of World War I, Connolly has become increasingly committed to fomenting an insurrection in Ireland. This is reflected in his military preparations with the ICA. He uses its headquarters, Liberty Hall, as his base. Fearing he might act on his own, and recognising the merits of collaboration, the Irish Republican Brotherhood Military Council informs him of their own clandestine plans for a rising and an agreement is reached.

During Easter week of 1916, 219 ICA men fight alongside over 1,300 from the Irish Volunteers. As the appointed leader of both forces in Dublin, Connolly skillfully ensures that the ideological and social divisions and personality clashes, which have hitherto blighted their relationship, are largely overcome. ICA forces are mainly concentrated at the General Post Office (GPO), the College of Surgeons and Dublin’s City Hall. They win volunteer admiration for their professionalism, dedication, and ruthlessness. Two of their leaders are subsequently executed – Connolly and Michael Mallin, the ICA Chief of Staff. Constance Markievicz, Mallin`s second-in command, is reprieved. Others are imprisoned or interned. The ICA is not revived after the insurrection. The new leadership of the ITGWU focuses instead on building up the union, safeguarding members’ wages and improving working conditions.