Trade Unionist Tadhg Barry
(1880-1921) Tadhg Barry
Tadhg’s days at Eglinton Asylum had instilled in him an ardent belief in the importance of trade unionism for the working class. He was a strong advocate of separate Irish trade unions and the organisation of all workers, especially labourers. The foundation of the ITGWU in January 1909 seemed to provide the model for the future. However, the union’s Cork branch was strangled at birth, the victim of a prolonged lockout later that year which led to its collapse.
It was re-established in 1913 and, within a few eventful years, had grown into a major national force. Tadhg was one of the chief architects of this growth, which was replicated nationally. At the height of the 1913-14 Dublin lockout, the ITGWU had 30,000 members across Ireland. By 1916, however, membership was just 5,000, the result of its ignominious defeat at the hands of William Martin Murphy and the Dublin employers. But the First World War inadvertently revived the union’s fortunes from 1917. To keep the production of armaments going, the British government outlawed strikes and lockouts and introduced compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes. The new structures practically guaranteed
A souvenir photograph of the delegates attending the Irish Trade Union Congress 1920 annual conference at Cork City Hall. Tadhg Barry is sitting in the front row, fifth from the left. (SIPTU)
workers a wage increase should they demand one, encouraging them to join a union. Mass inflation, the result of food shortages caused by the sinking of mercantile ships in the Irish Sea, provided another incentive to get a union card. The results were spectacular: ITGWU membership had jumped to a remarkable 130,000 by 1920. One of the main reasons for the ITGWU’s expansion was its success in organising farm labourers, the first time any union in Ireland had done so effectively. Tadhg was at the heart of this revolution. Following his release from Gloucester prison in March 1919, the ITGWU appointed him full-time organiser of agricultural labourers. It was indeed a full-time job! Between mid-1918 and late 1919
alone, over 50,000 farm labourers joined the Transport Union; in 1919-20, they became the biggest bloc of the biggest union in the country. Their recruitment most vividly illustrates syndicalism’s influence over the ITGWU during this period. Syndicalism is a brand of revolutionary socialism that advocates the organisation of all workers into a single union, the One Big Union, with which the working class can overthrow capitalism. Tadhg threw himself into securing wage increases and better conditions for the farm labourers, one of the most exploited and neglected groups in the country. Across Co. Cork, he led several stoppages that yielded major concessions for them. Farmers looked on with horror as their labourers waved red flags, sang socialist songs and hoisted banners containing revolutionary slogans denouncing capitalism. In early 1920, Tadhg was elected secretary of the Cork No.1 (James Connolly Memorial) branch. That August, Cork hosted the annual conference of the Irish Trades Union Congress, where Tadhg was an ITGWU delegate (as he had been the year prior). The Black and Tans took the opportunity to ransack the ITGWU’s offices on Camden Quay. Three months later, they set the offices alight in a move that presaged the Burning of Cork. Despite the dangerous circumstances, Tadhg continued to conduct his union work with commitment, bravery and efficiency. His last branch AGM took place on 23 January 1921 in Father Matthew Hall. In his annual report, he told members that their union had ‘brought on it the ire of those who wish to have us mere hewers of wood and drawers of water forever under the heels of a capitalistic foreign government.’ ‘When all the workers are in One Big Union’, he declared, ‘we shall be nearer the workers’ republic.’ He was re-elected branch secretary for 1921, but fate was about to prevent him from continuing in the role.
A contemporary banner by the SIPTU Cork No. 4 branch commemorating Tadhg Barry. The image in the centre is of ‘Bloody Sunday’ 1913, when the police attacked a public meeting of workers on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) in Dublin during the early stages of the 1913 lockout. (SIPTU)
A select group of local and national trade unionists, all delegates to the 1920 ITUC annual conference in Cork, visiting Connolly Hall, the ITGWU’s Cork offices on Camden Quay, after the Black and Tans raided and ransacked them. The photograph was originally published in the Cork Examiner (now the Irish Examiner ) on 2 August 1920. Tadhg Barry is standing, second from right. (Irish Newspaper Archives)
The Cork branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union at its 1921 AGM, held on 23 January at Fr. Matthew Hall, just eight days before Tadhg’s final arrest. Tadhg Barry is seated fifth from the left. (Courtesy of Donal Ó Drisceoil).
G
Powered by FlippingBook