This overview of Irish labour history serves both as an introduction for the general reader and as a synopsis for the specialist. Its basic concern is to outline the course of labour history, to illustrate the different phases of its chronology and to determine the forces behind its development. It also investigates some of the most persistent questions surrounding the history of labour in Ireland including why labour marginalized in disaffected 19th-century Ireland and why nationalism presented such a problem in the 20th century? This book looks at these, and other, issues in detail. Among these are the change in emphasis from craft unions to general unions in the early 20th century, the development of trade unions in the early 20th century and the relationship between trade unionism and nationalism. In particular this book broadens the definition of labour, arguing that the traditional focus on conventional trade unions is hopelessly inadequate. Instead, this book attempts to set the history of Irish labour in the context of mainstream political and economic trends.

A labour history of Ireland, 1824-1960

Business & Money

O'Connor, Emmet

Economics

Gill and Macmillan

By European standards, the left in Ireland has not been successful historically, yet its failure has concealed considerable achievement in the occasional great popular mobilisations of the past two centuries. In the process, virtually every shade of radical thought has found expression in Ireland at some point or other, and the country has produced a diverse and colourful range of social rebels. Studies in Irish radical leadership, an edited collection of nineteen biographies of labour leaders and radical activists, examines a sample of the men and women who made that history of protest. Looking over the shoulders of Connolly and Larkin, it provides fascinating insights into the careers and mentalities of Irish labour's second-string leaders. It ranges from the primitive rebels of the early nineteenth century to the parliamentarians of the late twentieth, and asks what kind of people they were, what motivated them, and what is leadership?

Studies in Irish radical leadership: Lives on the left

Biographies & Memoirs

CUNNINGHAM, John

Historical

Manchester University Press

James Larkin (1876-1947) retains a central position in the pantheon of the Irish labour movement. In the popular consciousness he is most commonly linked to his role in the epic 1913 Dublin Lockout and to his turbulent leadership of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. Less well known is his role within international communism and his attempts to establish a significant socialist presence in southern Ireland during the 1920s. In general, labour historians have been kind to Larkin and his style of leadership, which was often abrasive and dictatorial, has often been portrayed as a form of improvisation engendered by contemporary exigencies. In this important new biography of Larkin leading labour historian Emmet O'Connor radically reassesses the man and asks whether he should be viewed as a "hero" of the working class, or as a "wrecker" whose difficult personality was detrimental to both trade unionism and an emerging Irish communist movement. O'Connor uses new archival sources, including declassified Soviet Union and FBI files, to cast new light on Larkin and on his relations with international communism. He aims to uncover the motivation behind Larkin's public persona, and to assess the reality obscured by the myth.

James Larkin (Radical Irish Lives)

Cork University Press

In August 1922, at the height of the Civil War, when the Communist Party of Ireland could count on barely 50 activists, two agents of the Communist International held a secret meeting in Dublin with two IRA leaders. The four signed an agreement providing for the transformation of Sinn Fein into a socialist party. In return, Moscow was to assist with the supply of weapons to the IRA. The incident illustrates what made the Comintern a beacon of hope to beleaguered revolutionaries or an object of sometimes hysterical suspicion. From February 1918, when over 10,000 thronged central Dublin to acclaim the Bolshevik revolution, to July 1941, when the Party in Eire was dissolved by the votes of just 20 members, communists were involved with every radical movement, and demonised in every pulpit. Based on former Soviet archives, Reds and the Green shows why Irish Marxists and republicans turned repeatedly to Russia for support and inspiration, what Moscow wanted from Ireland, and how the Comintern was able to direct an Irish political party.

Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals, 1919-43

History

Europe

Univ College Dubli

In August 1922, two agents of the Communist International held a secret meeting in Dublin with two IRA leaders. The four signed an agreement providing for the transformation of Sinn Féin into a socialist party. In return, Moscow was to assist with the supply of weapons to the IRA. From February 1918, when over 10, 000 thronged central Dublin to acclaim the Bolshevik revolution, to July 1941, when the Party in Éire was dissolved by the votes of just 20 members, communists were involved with every radical movement, and demonised in every pulpit. Based on former Soviet archives, Reds and the Green shows why Irish Marxists and republicans turned repeatedly to Russia for support and inspiration and how the Comintern was able to direct an Irish political party.

s new edition of Emmet O'Connor's classic and pioneering work on Irish labor history, providing an introduction for the general reader and a synopsis for the specialist. The first edition, which covered 1824 to 1960, has been updated to the year 2000 with the inclusion of three new chapters on developments in the Republic and Northern Ireland. In addition to providing a challenging overview of labor's past, O'Connor addresses industrial relations and political issues of contemporary relevance. He has taken full account of new research on labor and argued that events in Ireland can only be understood in an international context.

A Labour History of Ireland 1824-2000

University College Dublin Press

The first full-length biography of early 20th century Irish Labour leader, Jim Larkin. Based on newly uncovered and extensive police records, FBI files, and archives of the Communist International in Moscow, O'Connor goes beyond the public figure of heroism to explore the hidden side of a very private person who kept his ambitions and personal demons behind a veil of silence. For all workers, and all employers, his name is synonymous with militancy and solidarity. And yet this `hero' succeeded in instigating a civil war in Dublin trade unionism, and in time came to be vilified as a `wrecker' by some of his former comrades. ""O'Connor's new biography explores the public and private sides of this enduring and divisive Irish legend.""--Irish Voice

Big Jim Larkin: Hero or Wrecker?

In the late 1930s, the Spanish Civil War was both a cause célèbre and a true international flashpoint, garnering support from thousands from Europe and the Americas who saw the fight as a crucial bulwark against the spread of global fascism. In this book, Barry McLoughlin and Emmet O'Connor offer the first history of the Irish role in the International Brigades, the famed military units who counted such notables as George Orwell, Simone Weil, and Ernest Hemingway among their ranks. "The Spanish Trenches are Here in Ireland" explores how the fight for democracy in Spain was more than just a foreign abstraction to the hundreds of Irishmen who joined the International Brigades: they saw it as an extension of the struggle for freedom they'd launched barely two decades earlier in their homeland. &#8203;Drawing on previously unseen Spanish archival sources and including a definitive list and short biographies for each Irish member of the International Brigades, McLoughlin and O'Connor offer a fascinating study of the political mindset of Ireland's supporters of the Spanish Republic at a revolutionary moment in both nations' histories.

In Spanish Trenches: The Mind and Deeds of the Irish Who Fought for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War

McLoughlin, Barry

Rotten Prod: The Unlikely Career of Dongaree Baird

Religion & Spirituality

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O'Connor, Emmet. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by O'Connor, Emmet

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O'Connor, Emmet. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A labour history of Ireland, 1824-1960

A labour history of Ireland, 1824-1960

Studies in Irish radical leadership: Lives on the left

James Larkin (Radical Irish Lives)

Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals, 1919-43

Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals, 1919-43

A Labour History of Ireland 1824-2000

Big Jim Larkin: Hero or Wrecker?

In Spanish Trenches: The Mind and Deeds of the Irish Who Fought for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War

Rotten Prod: The Unlikely Career of Dongaree Baird