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Posts Tagged ‘Siptu’

“The Brain of Every Riot and Disturbance”

Posted in Miscellaneous, Politics, Social History, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

“For many years past, Liberty Hall has been a thorn in the side of the Dublin Police and the Irish Government. It was the centre of social anarchy, the brain of every riot and disturbance.” The Irish Times. (pg 191, Easter 1916, Townshend)

Neither Kenny nor Gilmore.

Reading through Charles Townshend’s excellent book “Easter 1916,” I picked out the above quote about Liberty Hall and thought to myself, how times really have changed. While DFallon’s recent post on Hawkin’s House challenged the myth, some still call it Dublin’s ugliest building, while others hold it in reverence. Although in this climate, the plans to see it torn down are unlikely, SIPTU have been talking about redeveloping as recently as last August. Personally I’d hate to see it removed, not because of it’s architectural significance or visually appealing exterior (or lack thereof,) but because of the historical relevance of the site and the significant difference it would make to Dublin’s skyline if it was replaced.

"And the banner read..." Originally posted here by DFallon

With the next government looking likely to be made up of a collaboration between Labour and Fine Gael, the current occupants of Liberty Hall, (SIPTU, who to be honest have been about as Anarchic as Tory Boy,) look fully set to have one foot in Leinster House. Not discounting the fact that due to Social Partnership, they have been bedfellows with the Government for over a decade, for the next four years or so, the party they have official ties with are to share power with a party whose roots are seeped in the fascist tradition. Dark days indeed.

"Vote Labour," Reclaim the Streets, 2002

I dread to think that in the next couple of weeks, a new banner will appear on the side of Liberty Hall, calling on the people of Ireland to vote Labour. Lets just hope it isn’t accompanied with an image of Joan “Joe Higgins eats babies” Burton. “The brain of every riot and disturbance” indeed.

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Irish Workers Group- Class Struggle (1988 Dublin Fire Brigade Dispute)

Posted in Dublin History, Social History, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 21, 2010| 9 Comments »

Front page article End Army Scabbery reproduced in full below introduction.

A nice find this, a copy of Class Struggle (the paper of the Irish Workers Group) from 1988, during the Dublin Fire Brigade strike. Up top there is an ad for a public meeting on the subject of ‘Gorbachev and the Irish Left’ and those wishing to subscribe to the paper are told to address their envelopes to a certain ‘J.Larkin’. The paper also features a lengthy piece on the situation in Palestine at the time.

The Irish Workers Group (Workers Power) emerged out of the Socialist Workers Movement in the 1970s.

” It was formed as a separate organisation after being expelled from that group in 1976. It affiliated to the League for the Fifth International (L5I). By the 2000s, it had ceased producing Class Struggle, its publication, instead distributing the publications of the Workers Power group in Britain. The group was active in several places in Ireland, notably Dublin, Derry and Galway, and, amongst others, published a book on James Connolly”
(sourced from Wikipedia)

This newspaper was handed to my father on route to a Union meeting in Liberty Hall during the dispute. I’ve always been intrigued by the strike for a variety of reasons. While troubles raged in the North for example, firemen from Derry stood outside Dublin firestations with signs proclaiming ‘Londonderry FBU Support Dublin Firefighters’. Despite media smear campaigns, the workers managed to hold some degree of popular support, and perhaps nothing was more poignant than the sight of relatives of Stardust fire victims supporting the Brigades workforce.

(Article from front page, on Fire Brigade strike)

End Army Scabbery!

Union officialdom gave lavish notice to the state before the fire strike to enable them to organise a complete alternative service for the capital. Hundreds of soldiers driving Civil Defence tenders and ambulances are now engaged in the most systematic military scabbing operation since the lengthy bus strike of five years ago.

Union officialdom in fact relies on the state to do precisely this so as to take the cutting edge off the workers’ own direct action, exhausting the strikes and making sellouts and compromises eaiser for them to engineer in their private negotiations. But the issue is too important to be left at this. Every time the state is let get away with army strike-breaking, a nail is hammered into the coffin for the organised working class.

The savage attacks of the ruling class that lie ahead in the increasingly unstabble conditions of capitalism demand that we begin to act now with the sharpest possible response to neutralise the strike breaking capacity of the state whose ultimate logic can carry it into armed assaults and internment of workers in severe cases.

Resolutions and public statements must be issued from every level of the trade union movement, attacking the army action and demanding all out union action to stop it. Anti working class actions of the kind by the bosses state have a significance vastly greater than the breaking of one particular strike. They add up to a question of life and death in the long run for the fighting ability of our class against capitalism, and they demand a militant class wide fight up to the level of indefinite general strike if neccessary.

Victory to the Firefighters!

For A National Firefighters Strike!

All Local Authority Workers Out Now In Support!

For National Trade Union Action To Break The Army Scabbery!

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