Come Here To Me!

Dubliners await the arrival of the S.S Hare (Art project by Maser/Jr on The Sugar Club, Image: ‘MASER ART’)

On 27 September 1913, the S.S Hare arrived in Dublin from Salford, loaded with food and supplies intended to assist the families of those locked-out by William Martin Murphy and other Dublin employers.

The food ship provided desperately needed relief to many Dublin families, and the “60,000 packages of butter, sugar, jam, potatoes, fish and biscuits” were very welcome assistance. As Joseph O’Brien noted in the classic Dear,Dirty Dublin, this ship would be “the first of a dozen or so such T.U.C [Trade Union Congress] sponsored operations over the next four months.”

Dublin was a city of intense poverty even prior to the Lockout, as the precarious jobs situation ensured that for many families labour was often casual and irregular, thus creating uncertainty for families with regards income. Johnston Birchall, in his history of the Co-op movement in Britain, states rightly that Dublin was a city “that was already the poorest and most slum-ridden in the kingdom”, and with the dispute having begun in late August, by the end of September people were in dire need of assistance.

An undated image of the S.S Hare.

The Co-operative Wholesale Society in Britain celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in September 1913, and it was thanks to the sizeable financial backing of the Trade Union Congress, to the tune of £5,000, that it began the task of making up thirty thousand food parcels for the Dublin poor.

The S.S Hare was built in Glasgow in 1886, but was owned by George Lowen of Manchester at the time of the Dublin dispute. Ironically, the Hare was involved in a labour dispute of its own at the time, and as Padraig Yeates notes in his study of the Lockout, the Pomona Docks where the ship sat ready to sail to Dublin was entangled in a dispute involving the right to union recognition. The ship had just arrived from Dublin carrying a consignment of Guinness stout. Guinness feature in the story of the 1913 Lockout, as the company sent £500 to the employers’ fund during the dispute. While refusing to ‘lock out’ unionised workers initially, it did take action against certain workers who did engage in sympathetic strike action.

Incredibly, trade union leaders in Manchester convinced the men at the docks to break their own strike temporarily, and “a deal was struck: the ship would be released with its return consignment of empty Guinness tasks, provided it also took the food for the city’s strikers. By 5 p.m. on Friday the Hare had left Salford on its historic voyage.” Shortly after noon, she would arrive along the south wall of the River Liffey. Huge crowds had gathered by that point, believing the ship would arrive earlier, but weather conditions had delayed its journey. On board were leading British trade unionists, one of whom would inform the crowd that “we recognise that your fight is your fight and we are going to stand by you until it is won.”

William Martin Murphy’s Irish Independent reports on the Hare.

On the day following the arrival of the foodship, a disgusting report in the Sunday Independent attacked the “unfortunate dupes” of Larkinism who had gathered at the South Wall for the food distribution. The paper claimed that the scenes “sounded a note of degradation that must always ring in the ears of Dublin”, and went on to claim that the scenes made “a pitiable sight.” A journalist with The Irish Times noted that there were varying degrees of poverty evident in the crowd, ranging from “the wan dweller in some noisome tenement” to “the carter’s wide, who had a bonnet as well as a shawl.” Food was distributed to all who had union issued vouchers, and sadly many poor Dubliners who were not entitled to any assistance had come down to the ship too, perhaps in the expectation or hope there would be additional food.

The arrival of the Hare (Image:UCC Multitext)

Padraig Yeates has noted that this vital assistance was not alone important for those living in Dublin city centre, but those beyond the city, writing that:

It took until 8 p.m to unload the Hare and until 9 p.m to finish distribution at the South Wall. More workers’ families were supplied from carts that took consignments of food for distribution in Kingstown, Clondalkin, Swords, Lucan and other parts of County Dublin. By the end of the day nine thousand workers and their dependants had received provisions.

What became of the Hare? In December 1917, as the ship was sailing from Manchester to Dublin once more, it was torpedoed and sunk seven miles east of the Kish lighthouse. This attack was carried out by the German submarine, U62. Sadly, twelve lives were lost in this attack. Five of those killed were born in Dublin.