1st May: Dublin Lockout 1913

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Apr 28, 2013, 8:14:32 AM4/28/13

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The Clé Club

Wednesday nights

Downstairs in the Stag’s Head

No 1 Dame Court

Dublin 2

Doors open 8.30pm

Subscription €5

1st May: Dublin Lockout 1913

Fir a tí: Francis Devine and Fergus Russell

The events centred around the Lock Out a century ago did not formally commence until August, but in the lead up to these historic events industrial relations had been growing in acrimony as workers around the country gained confidence in their own power. There had been major strikes involving the ITGWU in Sligo and among farm labourers in North County Dublin. May Day was celebrated and, increasingly, Irish workers opportunities to make demands for shorter working hours and improved conditions, highlight any contemporary struggles and, equally important as any local agenda, to agitate for the Workers’ Republic in solidarity with other nations’ workers around the world. This was reflected in the weekly Irish Worker which had a pronounced internationalism in its industrial, political and cultural content.

In celebrating May Day and recalling 1913, Fergus Russell and Francis Devine will perform some of the songs published a century ago by James Connolly, Jim Connell and A.P. Wilson, as well as lesser known but equally gifted song-writers. Those attending are invited to add their own labour songs, perhaps including classics that appeared in the Irish Worker such as James Oppenheimer’s Bread and Roses, Connolly’s Freedom’s Pioneers, the Chartist Ernest Jones’s The Song of the Poor, or any of Joe Hill’s songbook.