Liberty Hall - Dublin

Liberty Hall - Dublin

This is a 24 minute documentary on the Dublin building Liberty Hall.

The home of the Irish Transport & Workers Union (ITGWU

) now SIPTU.

It was broadcast on RTE1 on the 11th of May 2009.

made by Paddy Cahill.

"Oh! then tell me Sean O'Farrell
where the gathering is to be?""At the oul spot by the river that's
well known to you and me ...."

This beautiful verse from "Rising of the moon" by John Keegan Casey, to commemorate the rebellion of 1798, may have inspired Sean O'Casey to lovingly refer to Liberty Hall the headquarters of the Irish Transport & General Workers Union, as "the oul spot on the river".

Irish Labour & Working Class History Web Site

http://irishlabour.com/

The old Northumberland Hotel (Duke of Northumberland was former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) in Beresford Place, Dublin was acquired by the ITGWU in 1911 and in 1914 purchased for the sum of £3,500, renaming it Liberty Hall.

In 1916, the Irish Proclamation of Independence was printed (by Christopher Brady) in the basement and James Connolly led the Irish Citizen Army and volunteers from the Hall to commence the Easter Rising of 1916.

The British gunship Helga moored in the Liffey reduced the Hall to ruins.

By the 1950's Liberty Hall had become so neglected that it was agreed to established a fund to build a new Liberty Hall.

The New Liberty Hall opened on May Day 1965.

Bert Edwards - Fiery Fighter

Bert Edwards

Fiery Fighter

Daily Worker 11th March 1961

The other evening a vigorous little man walked out of a trade union office in London's Tottenham Court Road and made for the Tube.

Most nights for a number of years he had taken the same road with a jaunty air and lively step, but on this occasion he was sad and his movements were heavy. His services as fulltime officer of his union had just ended.

Any worker finishing over 40 years activity in the Labour movement could expect to look forward to a rest.

But not Bert Edwards, Though 65 and just retired from the position as London organiser of the National Union of Vehicle Builders, he says : " I am carrying on in the movement." Delegate to the union's area and national conferences, a member of its Parliamentary panel and of the London Labour Party's standing orders committee, are a few jobs he has on hand.

Bert'sadult life has been dedicated to his union and to Socialism, adversity strengthening his resolve and study of working-class literature increasing his capacity to spread understanding of the struggle necessary to change society.

Blessed with physical fitness, he can tackle the toughest jobs. In the Army he held Western Command's feather weight and lightweight boxing titles simultaneously.

Sporting prowess must be in the Edwards blood as two sons are now First Division Speed-way riders.

A proud boast of Bert is that, nearly half a century ago, he supported the activities of a great Englishman, Tom Mann, and an equally great Irishman, Jim Larkin, two prominent working - class leaders and Socialists of their day.

He is proud, too, of his father's influence on him. He was president of the Liverpool branch of the Boilermakers' Society way back in 1900. Over the stove in the Edwardses' kitchen was this motto:

" A union man you cannot be, no matter how you try.
Unless you think in terms of WE and not in terms of I"

Shop steward, union executive officer, branch president and secretary, Bert showed later that he had grasped the meaning of that simple slogan.

Always a keen politician, this fiery democrat was once a Harrow councillor and a Middlesex county councillor.

He left local politics when elected to the union's district committee.

Encouragement and assistance was never wanting from his wife, Fiona, youngest daughter of Jim Connolly, the great Irish Socialist fighter.

Possessing so handsome a background of honest struggle for the Labour movement, it is natural to find Bert Edwards, who seconded the resolution at last year's T.U.C. opposing nuclear rearmament of Western Germany, resisting Right Wing sabotage of the Scarborough Labour Party conference decisions on defence and nuclear weapons.

Two vital principles, he says, are involved: nuclear weapons can never make Britain safe, and decisions democratically reached at conference should be as binding on Gaitskell and his pals as on any member of the party.

From the day in 1911 when he was beaten up during a transport workers' demonstration in Liverpool (so vicious were the police that the day became known as Bloody Sunday), Bert has never been a palace politician or a drawing-room trade unionist.

He knows the road to Socialism lies not in pretty words and slick promises but in strength forged by the firmest unity of all sections of the working people.

Irish Rugby - Don't Mention The 1916 Uprising

IRISH RUGBY AND THE 1916 EASTER UPRISING

In Ireland those who fought for independence during the 1916 Easter uprising are mythologised, Indeed it is said that if everyone who claimed to be in Dublin G.P.O (General Post Office) on the day of the Rising, had actually done so, they could not all have fitted inside.

However, one group of Irishmen who were defiantly not inside the Post Office on the day of the rising, were The Irish Rugby Corps.

The Irish Rugby Football Corps (Ireland had been home national rugby champions 1914) had been established just two weeks after World War One had been declared, as part of the Irish Association of Volunteer Training Corps.

It was organised on a similar bases to the English and Scottish Football, Sporting "Pals" Battalions. Frank Browning President Irish Rugby Football Union clubs became the driving forces behind the Corps issuing a circular to Dublin Rugby Clubs in 1914 encouraging members to join up.



Almost 200 enlisted at Lansdowne Road, in D company of the 7th Battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers, those older or "unfit" were sent to Dublin to establish a "home guard".

Both groups would come to a unhappy end. For those who were declared "fit" and enlisted ended up in the "hell" that was Gallipoli and those that remained behind, literally walked into the Easter Rising.

Francis "Chicken" Henry Browning had been President of the Irish Rugby Football Union clubs since 1912 and became the The Irish Rugby Union Football Corps Lieutenant-Col.

Frank Henry Browning, had been born in Dublin on 23rd June 1868. He had been a first class cricket player, having played for Marlborough, Ireland and he was also a member of MCC, In 1889 according to Wisden he made over 2000 runs. Browning had also been a keen rugby player, playing half back for Trinity, Wanderers and Ireland.

The Irish Rugby Union Football Corps, Commander was H.J. Miller, Second in Command R. McDillion, Platoon Commanders E.A. MacNair, W.G.F Allen, A.S.M. Imrie and J.W. Frith.

On the day of the rising 24th April 1916, the Irish Rugby Union Football Corps headed by Browning had returned to Dublin from a route march and drill practice with drums beating and standards held a loft and marched straight into the maelstrom that was the Rising, totally unaware of the momentous events that were unfurling around them. The Corps in civilian clothes with arm-bands were carrying rifles but not ammunition; in the ensuing encounter with the "Rebels" seven members of the Corps were wounded, four fatally. Browning was shot in Haddington Road, (Beggars Bush) and died of his wounds two days later 26th April 1916.

Browning was therefore the only first class cricketer to be killed during the War for Independence and only member of the MCC to have been involved in the 1916 Easter Rising.

Francis Henry Browning is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery, South Dublin. A headstone was erected by the Irish Rugby Football Union Volunteer Corps in memory of "an honourable comrade and true and distinguished sportsman."


NOTES:

Minute Book 1914-1917 of the Irish Rugby Football Union Volunteer Corps is still in existence.

Francis Browning lived at 17 Herbert Park, Dublin.

Madge Davison - Civil Rights

Madge Davison - NICRA
1950-1991

Madge Davison was born 13th June 1950 and raised in the strong Protestant working class community in the Shore Road area of North Belfast, where her family lived in Pittsburg Street. Madge remained proud of her Presbyterian background and their role in the "United irishmen".

She left school at the age of seventeen and started work as a secretary in the Falls Flax Spinning Mill on the Falls Road and soon joined the Communist Youth League.


In 1970 she took place in the breaking of the Falls curfew, when several hundred women marched in protest at being held within the area by the British Army.By the 1970's she had started working as full time organiser for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA).


Many of her comrades in the Communist Party of Ireland who struggled to bridge the religious divide and build working class solidarity. People like Betty Sinclair President of Belfast Trades Union Council (see posting) Barry and Terry Bruton, Jimmy and Edwina Stewart, Joe Deighan, Andy Barr, Lynda Walker, Margaret Bruton, Noel Harris, Joe Bowers and many more....

Madge took part in the civil rights demonstration on Bloody Sunday in Derry, 1972 (she can be seen in television film, standing on the running-board of the lorry). Along with others she helped to organise the protest march in Newry the following week, and subsequently she organised the placing of a memorial in Derry to those who were killed.


Leader of the Connolly Youth Movement, she led the 11 4 Irish delegates at the 10th World Festival of Youth in Berlin in August 1973

She lead the tributes to Irish Communist and International Brigade leader Frank Ryan in Dresden

When her work with the NICRA finished she began to study law. She obtained a first-class honours degree from Queen’s University and became a barrister. She was respected in the profession for her ability to combine hard work with a down-to-earth approach to the law; her legal colleagues agree that she stood out as an exceptional barrister and gave much of herself to her work, standing out as a gifted advocate for human rights.

In January 1991 Madge was tragically diagnosed with cancer. She died on 27 January 1991, at the early age of forty-one, leaving behind her husband and comrade John Hobbs and two beloved young children.

Madge Davison was an outstanding communist, outstanding orator, and excellent organiser. During her short life she took part in many struggles and activities. She taught typing in Twinbrook, taught law in the Falls Women’s Centre, was an active member of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, an adviser to the Rape Crisis Centre (Belfast), and a member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Rights Movement.

source: Communist Party of Ireland

WE SHALL OVERCOME !

We shall overcome became the anthem of the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland.

It was first sung at the end of the initial Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (estb January 1967) march from Coalisland to Dungannon, County Tyrone on Saturday 24th August 1968.

The person to orchestrated and lead the march in singing of this song was a protestant trade unionist and Chair of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, Elizabeth Sinclair.

According to Austin Currie book "All hell will break loose" Betty Sinclair, as Chairperson of NICRA, concluded(The meeting in Dungannon) by leading us in singing "We shall overcome", the first to my knowledge, that the American civil rights anthem had been sung on any public platform in Northern Ireland. it was significant that the editorial in the next days(actually 26th August 1968) Irish News was headed "We Shall Overcome"

We Shall Overcome, was a spiritual song dating back to around 1903, had been made popular by the Folk artist Pete Seeger and was soon adopted by the Afro-American civil rights movement in America in the mid 1960's.

Local Uxbridge Labour MP John Ryan was heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement and attended the next (second) Northern Ireland Civil Rights march in Derry on October 5th 1968 and witnessed the brutal attack by the RUC.

We shall overcome We shall overcome We shall overcome some day

CHORUS:

Oh, deep in my heart I do believe We shall overcome some day

Elizabeth Sinclair (1910-1981)

Elizabeth or "Betty" Sinclair was born into a working-class family in the Ardoyne area of Belfast in 1910. Her father was a worker in the Harland and Wolff shipyard and a “Walkerist” (pro-unionist) socialist; her mother was a reeler in Ewart’s mill. After leaving school at the age of fifteen she became a millworker alongside her mother. As an active trade unionist she was elected on behalf of her union to the Belfast and District Trades Union Council, of which she was secretary from 1947 to 1975.

In 1931 she began to attend meetings of the Revolutionary Workers’ Group (forerunner of the CPI) and in 1932 she became a member.

The same year she played an active part in the leadership of the outdoor relief (unemployment assistance) strike and the demonstrations by tens of thousands of unemployed workers. Huge non-sectarian workers’ demonstrations shook the Unionist regime to its foundations. Demonstrations were banned and a curfew was declared. Two demonstrators were shot dead by the British army; another demonstrator who was arrested and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment died later from his mistreatment.

These were the first large-scale non-sectarian political demonstrations in the North, and the last until the advent of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in the 1960s (in which Betty Sinclair was also to play a leading part). Some of the strikers’ demands were met, after which the Stormont regime intensified its promotion of sectarian division.
From 1933 to 1935 she attended the Lenin School in Moscow. In 1940 she was arrested after the CPI paper Unity published an article allegedly sympathetic to the IRA, and she was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment. The same year she became a full-time party worker in Belfast. In the 1945 election for the Northern Ireland Parliament she stood as a CPI candidate and received 4,000 votes.

She was a founder-member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967 and its first chairperson but resigned from this position in 1969 after the organisation had been sabotaged by ultra-leftists and pushed into provocations that would result in further sectarian divisions.
After 1969 she travelled throughout eastern Europe and in the 1970s lived in Prague as the Irish representative on the international editorial board of World Marxist Review. She died in 1981 after a fire in her flat in east Belfast.

Betty Sinclair deserves so much more acknowledgement for her role in trying to combat sectarianism in Northern Ireland.

Thanks to the CPI for information on Betty Sinclair