Remember Limerick 1919! A rallying cry for workers
AS THE centenary of the Limerick Soviet looms, Limerick Council of Trade Unions suggest that “at a time when the political, business and financial gurus of our nation are proving, in the most spectacular fashion, their inability to provide us with a stable, sane and rational society”, trade unionists should remember when Limerick’s workers “took control of the city and ran it so effectively” and the “people’s needs were put before profit and real democracy flourished if only for a short while”.
While making global headlines at the time, the Soviet has since became part of the exclusion of workers’ role in Ireland’s revolutionary period. Many events were conveniently forgotten and still struggle for appropriate recognition in the catalogue of commemorations in the Decade of Centenaries, notably the general strikes against conscription and for the release of political prisoners; the Munitions of War and Motor Permits Strikes; and the rash of factory occupations and soviets in Munster.
By the time the new states were created in 1922, governments in both jurisdictions were preparing to marginalise workers’ interests and to forget the labour movement’s contribution to the achievement of partial independence.
It was not until SIPTU activist Joe Harrington’s mayoralty in 1999 that a plaque commemorating the Soviet was unveiled on Thomond Bridge in Limerick city.
From January 1919, the War of Independence became a guerrilla conflict between the IRA and British government.
In Limerick, 28-year-old Robert Byrne, who had worked as a telegraphist from 1916, was active in the Association of Irish Post Office Clerks — today’s Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) — and a Trades Council delegate.
In December 1918, he became Adjutant, Second Battalion, Limerick Brigade, IRA. He was arrested in January 1919 for attending the funeral of Limerick Volunteer John Daly and dismissed from the Post Office.
Limerick Trades Council mounted protests against the harsh treatment of prisoners and Byrne went on hunger strike. By 8th March, he was confined under RIC guard in St Camillus’s (Limerick Workhouse) Hospital.
On Sunday, 6th April, the IRA attempted to rescue Byrne, Constable Martin O’Brien being killed in the resultant affray and Byrne wounded, bleeding to death later that day near Meelick where a memorial was unveiled to his memory in 2015. Thousands attended Byrne’s funeral.
On 9th April, in response to these events, the British Army’s Brigadier Griffin declared Limerick city and surrounds a ‘Special Military Area’. RIC permits were demanded from anyone wishing to leave or enter the city from Monday, 14th April and heavily-armed troops occupied the city.
On Sunday, 13th April, Limerick Trades and Labour Council called a general strike and ordered non-co-operation with the authorities.
A Committee — styling itself ‘Soviet’ in recognition of the Russian Revolution of 1917, widely welcomed by Irish workers — ran the city, facilitating commerce by printing their own money, controlling food prices, publishing a news sheet, and maintaining civil order.
Ultimate success depended on solidarity action throughout the country, but national leaders — within Labour and Republican circles — while expressing sympathy with Limerick, were unwilling to sanction practical solidarity.
With monies low and confusion among an isolated leadership, the Catholic Bishop of Limerick, Denis Hallinan, and Mayor, businessman Alphonsus ‘Phons’ O’Mara, met with strike and military leaders and negotiated a conclusion to events on 24th April. It was a fudge. Martial law remained but was not strictly enforced until finally lifted in early May.
For trade unionists today, the Limerick Soviet of 1919 can “be a cautionary tale and a rallying cry”. For some, it was “basically an emotional and spontaneous protest on essentially nationalist and humanitarian grounds, rather than any- thing based on socialist or even trade union aims”. For others, it was “a microcosm of how the Irish struggle for freedom could succeed” where, as Connolly prophesised, the working class would be the only class to deliver it.
With Brexit uncertainties and discussion of the British border in Ireland developing — not to mention austerity, housing and health crises, migration and global environmental issues — workers, as in Limerick in 1919, should actively consider the form of society best suited to the common good.
In agitating for such a society, they will quickly discover the same ambivalence and opposition that those in Limerick were faced with.
The Limerick Soviet should nevertheless be celebrated as part of workers’ heritage and the lessons from its collapse learned, after all the point of history is — to paraphrase Karl Marx — not merely to interpret it but to change it.
