The Limerick Soviet of April 1919, a notable episode of the Irish revolution, is one of one of the best-known battles of Irish labour history. That it is so well-known is due in part to earlier editions of the pamphlet reviewed here, (and in substantial part also to the work of the late Jim Kemmy). Since it was first published on the 60th anniversary of the Soviet, the events described have been the subject of drama, of academic theses, and of a widely-reviewed book.[1]
The so-called ‘Soviet’ was the response of Limerick workers to the placing of their city under martial law, following the botched rescue of trade unionist and republican prisoner, Bertie Byrne. The irksome requirement to produce a pass – available from the British army on the recommendation of the police – on the way from their homes to their workplace, led employees of the Condensed Milk Company’s Lansdowne factory to down tools on Saturday 12 April 1919. On the following Monday morning, the Limerick Trades Council declared a general strike in the city.
The Trades Council’s call was followed by up to 15,000 workers, and its strike committee set about running the city — issuing permits for essential services (which did not include public houses), publishing regular notices and bulletins, arranging food rationing, and ultimately printing a local currency. The strike ‘against British militarism’ was supported by Sinn Fein and tolerated, for the time being, by local business and church leaders. Among Irish Unionists, as one might expect, there was instinctive opposition to the workers’ challenge to the British state, and it was one such — an Irish Times journalist — that was responsible for the designation ‘The Limerick Soviet’. The fame of the Soviet was spread by international journalists who were in the region to report on the efforts of a pioneering transAtlantic aviator.
O’Connor Lysaght traces the story of the two-week-long Soviet, which ended in a compromise settlement engineered by leaders of the Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress, while attending to the local, national and international context. In the best pamphleteering tradition, the tone throughout is polemical; with the episode being presented as a lost opportunity: 'Limerick does not need to apologise for its Soviet. It was the leadership of the working class movement that betrayed it. This ensured that the Limerick Soviet would not have the place in Irish history that its opposite number in St Petersburg had in the history of Russia’ (p.27).
With some minor amendments, the text is the same as the text of a quarter of a century ago. There is, unfortunately, a new cover, which compares poorly with its predecessor There is also a fresh introduction which rebukes historians, both ‘traditional’ and ‘revisionist’, for continuing to misrepresent ‘the socio-political nature of the revolutionary struggle after 1916’. The point is a valid one, but, arguably, given the changes in the world between 1979 and 2003, a more apposite introduction might have been devised for the benefit of new readers.
[1] Jim Kemmy’s writings on the subject included an article, ‘The Limerick Soviet’, Saothar 2, 1976. The events of April 1919 are the subject of a play by John Breen, A Flame in Spring (Belltable Arts Centre 1989) and feature in Pigtown by Mike Finn (Island Theatre Company, 1999) Liam Cahill’s book, Forgotten Revolution: Limerick Soviet 1919,(Dublin 1990) is now available on-line: <http://www.limericksoviet.com/>.
The so-called ‘Soviet’ was the response of Limerick workers to the placing of their city under martial law, following the botched rescue of trade unionist and republican prisoner, Bertie Byrne. The irksome requirement to produce a pass – available from the British army on the recommendation of the police – on the way from their homes to their workplace, led employees of the Condensed Milk Company’s Lansdowne factory to down tools on Saturday 12 April 1919. On the following Monday morning, the Limerick Trades Council declared a general strike in the city.
The Trades Council’s call was followed by up to 15,000 workers, and its strike committee set about running the city — issuing permits for essential services (which did not include public houses), publishing regular notices and bulletins, arranging food rationing, and ultimately printing a local currency. The strike ‘against British militarism’ was supported by Sinn Fein and tolerated, for the time being, by local business and church leaders. Among Irish Unionists, as one might expect, there was instinctive opposition to the workers’ challenge to the British state, and it was one such — an Irish Times journalist — that was responsible for the designation ‘The Limerick Soviet’. The fame of the Soviet was spread by international journalists who were in the region to report on the efforts of a pioneering transAtlantic aviator.
O’Connor Lysaght traces the story of the two-week-long Soviet, which ended in a compromise settlement engineered by leaders of the Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress, while attending to the local, national and international context. In the best pamphleteering tradition, the tone throughout is polemical; with the episode being presented as a lost opportunity: 'Limerick does not need to apologise for its Soviet. It was the leadership of the working class movement that betrayed it. This ensured that the Limerick Soviet would not have the place in Irish history that its opposite number in St Petersburg had in the history of Russia’ (p.27).
With some minor amendments, the text is the same as the text of a quarter of a century ago. There is, unfortunately, a new cover, which compares poorly with its predecessor There is also a fresh introduction which rebukes historians, both ‘traditional’ and ‘revisionist’, for continuing to misrepresent ‘the socio-political nature of the revolutionary struggle after 1916’. The point is a valid one, but, arguably, given the changes in the world between 1979 and 2003, a more apposite introduction might have been devised for the benefit of new readers.
[1] Jim Kemmy’s writings on the subject included an article, ‘The Limerick Soviet’, Saothar 2, 1976. The events of April 1919 are the subject of a play by John Breen, A Flame in Spring (Belltable Arts Centre 1989) and feature in Pigtown by Mike Finn (Island Theatre Company, 1999) Liam Cahill’s book, Forgotten Revolution: Limerick Soviet 1919,(Dublin 1990) is now available on-line: <http://www.limericksoviet.com/>.