Editing Dublin lock-out (section)

==Background==
===Poverty and housing===
{{see also|Tenement#Dublin|History of Dublin#Early 20th century}}
Many of Dublin's workers lived in terrible conditions in [[tenement]]s. For example, over 830 people lived in just 15 houses in [[Henrietta Street, Dublin|Henrietta Street]]'s Georgian tenements. At 10 Henrietta Street, the [[Religious Sisters of Charity|Irish Sisters of Charity]] ran a [[Magdalene laundries in Ireland|Magdalene laundry that was inhabited by]] more than 50 single women.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/exhibition/dublin/poverty_health.html |title=Exhibition - Poverty and Health |publisher=[[National Archives of Ireland]] |access-date=9 July 2015}}</ref> An estimated four million pledges were taken in pawnbrokers every year. The [[infant mortality rate]] among the poor was 142 per 1,000 births, extraordinarily high for a European city. The situation was made considerably worse by the high rate of disease in the slums, which was worsened by the lack of health care and cramped living conditions. The most prevalent disease in the Dublin slums at the time was [[tuberculosis]] (TB), which spread through tenements very quickly and caused many deaths among the poor. A report, published in 1912, found that TB-related deaths in Ireland were 50% higher than in [[England]] or [[Scotland]]. The vast majority of TB-related deaths in Ireland occurred among the poorer classes. The report updated a 1903 study by Dr [[John Lumsden]].

Poverty was perpetuated in Dublin by the lack of work for unskilled workers, who did not have any form of representation before trade unions were founded. The unskilled workers often had to compete with one another for work every day, with the job generally going to whoever agreed to work for the lowest wages.

===James Larkin and formation of ITGWU===
[[James Larkin]], the main protagonist on the side of the workers in the dispute, was a [[stevedore|docker]] in [[Liverpool]] and a union organiser. In 1907, he was sent to [[Belfast]] as a local organiser of the British-based [[National Union of Dock Labourers]] (NUDL). In Belfast, Larkin organised a [[Belfast Dock Strike, 1907|strike of dock and transport workers]]. It was also in Belfast that Larkin began to use the tactic of the [[sympathetic strike]] in which workers who were not directly involved in an industrial dispute with employers would go on strike in support of other workers, who were striking. The Belfast strike was moderately successful and boosted Larkin's standing among Irish workers. However, his tactics were highly controversial and so Larkin was transferred to Dublin.

Unskilled workers in Dublin were very much at the mercy of their employers. Employers who suspected workers of trying to organise themselves could [[blacklisting|blacklist]] them to destroy them any chance of future employment. Larkin set about organising the unskilled workers of Dublin, which was a cause of concern for the NUDL, which was reluctant to engage in a full-scale industrial dispute with the powerful Dublin employers. It suspended Larkin from the NUDL in 1908. Larkin then left the NUDL and set up an Irish union, the [[Irish Transport and General Workers' Union]] (ITGWU).

The ITGWU was the first Irish trade union to cater for both skilled and unskilled workers. In its first few months, it quickly gained popularity and soon spread to other Irish cities. The ITGWU was used as a vehicle for Larkin's [[syndicalist]] views. He believed in bringing about a [[socialist revolution]] by the establishment of trade unions and calling [[general strike]]s.

The ITGWU initially lost several strikes between 1908 and 1910 but after 1913 won strikes involving carters and railway workers like the [[1913 Sligo Dock strike|1913 Sligo dock strike]]. Between 1911 and 1913, membership of the ITGWU rose from 4,000 to 10,000, to the alarm of employers.

Larkin had learned from the methods of the 1910 [[Tonypandy riots]] and the [[1911 Liverpool general transport strike]].

===Larkin, Connolly and Irish Labour Party===
Another important figure in the rise of an organised workers' movement in Ireland at the time was [[James Connolly]], an [[Edinburgh]]-born [[Marxist]] of Irish parentage. A talented orator and a fine writer, he became known for his speeches on the streets of Dublin in support of socialism and Irish nationalism. In 1896, Connolly established the [[Irish Socialist Republican Party]] and the newspaper ''The Workers' Republic''. In 1911, Connolly was appointed the ITGWU's Belfast organiser. In 1912, Connolly and Larkin formed the [[Labour Party (Ireland)|Irish Labour Party]] to represent workers in the imminent [[Home Rule Act 1914|Home Rule Bill]] debate in the [[British Parliament]]. Home rule, although passed in the House of Commons, was postponed by the start of the [[First World War]]. The plan was then suspended for one year, then indefinitely, after the rise of [[Irish republicanism|militant nationalism]] after the [[1916 Rising]].

===William Martin Murphy and employers===
[[File:Vulture of dartry hall.jpg|thumb|Cartoon of [[William Martin Murphy]] preying over [[James Larkin]]. ]] Among the employers in Ireland opposed to trade unions such as Larkin's ITGWU was [[William Martin Murphy]], Ireland's most prominent capitalist, born in [[Castletownbere]], [[County Cork]]. In 1913, Murphy was chairman of the [[Dublin United Tramway Company]] and owned Clery's department store and the [[Imperial Hotel, Dublin|Imperial Hotel]]. He controlled the ''[[Irish Independent]]'', ''[[Evening Herald]]'' and ''[[The Irish Catholic]]'' newspapers and was a major shareholder in the [[B&I Line]]. Murphy was also a prominent [[Irish nationalist]] and a former [[Irish Parliamentary Party|Home Rule]] MP in Parliament.

Even today, Murphy's defenders insist that he was a charitable man and a good employer and that his workers received fair wages. However, conditions in his many enterprises were often poor or worse, with employees given only one day off in 10 and being forced to labour up to 17 hours a day. Dublin tramway workers were paid substantially less than their counterparts in Belfast and Liverpool and were subjected to a regime of punitive fines, probationary periods extending for as long as six years and a culture of company surveillance involving the widespread use of informers.<ref>''Rebel City- Larkin, Connolly and the Dublin Labour Movement'', by John Newsinger, Merlin Press Ltd 2004</ref>

Murphy was not opposed in principle to trade unions, particularly craft unions, but he was vehemently opposed to the ITGWU and saw its leader, Larkin, as a dangerous revolutionary.<ref>Morrissey, Thomas, ''William Martin Murphy'', 1997</ref> In July 1913, Murphy presided over a meeting of 300 employers during which a collective response to the rise of trade unionism was agreed. Murphy and the employers were determined not to allow the ITGWU to unionise the Dublin workforce. On 15 August, Murphy dismissed 40 workers whom he suspected of ITGWU membership, followed by another 300 over the next week.