Industrial action on Cork’s docks helped Jim Larkin's Irish trade union movement

Emmet O’Connor looks at the early 20th Century industrial action on Leeside’s docks that helped reboot the Irish trade union movement under Big Jim Larkin

Cork had a chequered place in Jim Larkin’s early career. It inspired some of the great developments associated with Larkinism, and presented Big Jim with a few headaches.

In 1908, Larkin organised Cork dockers and would later claim that the idea of the Citizen Army arose during the campaign, when dockers were equipped with red armlets and long staves.