Paul Rouse: Debenhams workers and sport - who said sport and politics shouldn't mix?
UNITED THEY STAND: Madeline Whelan, Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, Dara Ó Cinnéide, Geraldine O' Regan and Carol Ann Bridgeman pictured at last week's launch of 'Tales From The Debenhams Picket Line.'
The ubiquity of modern sport means it is inevitably something that is deeply political.
Nothing that is as important to modern society as sport could possibly avoid having a political function.
Even the most fleeting study of the workings of modern sport reveals the extent to which the stadium and the pitch have room for much more than sport. Look at the presence of the poppy in England this month – and every November.
This is not a neutral remembrance of those who died in the Great War, as some wish to claim; it is sold by the Royal British Legion and its proceeds are used to support those who serve or have served in the British Armed Forces in all wars they fight and in remembrance of all wars that they have fought.
The merits of people providing such support are obviously a matter of personal judgement, but to argue that it is a non-political act is absurd. There is nothing more political than war.
Ambitions by states to project the nation and to promote unity and identity through sport are to be seen all around the world. From the desire of politicians to be associated with sporting success to the rituals of flag and anthem, there is no denying that politics is intimately connected with sport at the level of the nation state.
In general, states – rich and poor – also wish for their teams and their athletes to win. So Olympic medallists are paid cash bonuses, are honoured by their faces appearing on stamps and generally being afforded prestige.
A further aspect of the relationship between sport and politics can be seen through the history of political protest that routinely manifests itself across the sporting world.
This is a history that, recently, is most vividly illustrated by sports people taking the knee in the wake of Black Lives Matters protests. The persistence of racism as a stain on the modern world – and on modern sport – is the context and the point of the protest. It is a repeated reminder that discrimination is real and that it endures.
A different aspect of the relationship between sport and political protest is revealed this month with the publication of a book which details the story of the recent strikes around Ireland by Debenhams workers.
This was a strike that occurred when almost 1,000 workers – mainly women, some who had as long as 30 years’ service – were told by email that the 11 stores across Ireland where they worked for Debenhams were being closed down.
The story of that strike is covered in a book just published by Sue O’Connell and Fergus Dowd called ‘Tales From The Debenhams Picket Line’.
The Munster launch of the book saw the former Cork hurler Sean Óg Ó hAilpín and the former Kerry footballer, Dara Ó Cinnéide perform their duties wearing their county jerseys.
Debenhams had started back in 1778 in England and its long and extensive history saw its arrival in Ireland in 1996, as the Celtic Tiger roared. Its first shop was in the Jervis Centre in Dublin.
In 2006 it acquired Roches Stores, giving it a footprint across Ireland, notably in Cork. The presence of Debenhams department stores was now a formidable one in the Irish high street.
The financial crash and then the ongoing shift in retail driven by online shopping ultimately put Debenhams under pressure. The announcement that the stores would close and that workers would be made redundant was a while in the making, even if its denouement was brutal.
In 2020, when workers received a generic email at 11.59pm on the night of Thursday 9 April, telling them that their jobs were gone, they were advised to contact Citizens’ Advice Bureaus and were told that there would be no redundancy. The understanding was that Debenhams was to be liquidated.
The new book tells the story of what happened next. More precisely, it tells the stories of workers from Tralee, Cork, Limerick, and Dublin, where workers manned 11 picket lines for 406 days during the pandemic.
They received support from across society. Musicians such as The Proclaimers and Deacon Blue sent messages. And there was support, also, from across the world of sport.
One of the stories tells of the evening of December 13, 2020. The Limerick captain Declan Hannon was in an empty Croke Park, lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup. His victory speech filled an eerie darkness and, in a brilliant speech, among the words he spoke were: “I know some of you have lost your jobs.” This, of course, included the Debenhams’ workers. One of those workers was Paul Quinn.
He listened to his speech in a place called ‘The Hut’. This hut was not the pub in Phibsboro where Michael Cusack used to drink in the days after he founded the GAA.
Instead, it was a makeshift home that Quinn had made – measuring six feet by ten feet – after Debenhams had shut their store on O’Connell Street in Limerick.
Quinn was a Visual Display Assistant and was well used to enticing shoppers off the street with his window designs. He knew what he was doing – and knew how to do it well – when he decorated the hut in green and white for that All-Ireland Sunday.
Two days after the final, an offer was made after mediation to establish a retraining fund.
Money that was owed to the workers for redundancy was not to be paid. It was an offer so paltry it was described as “another stab in the back.” The situation did not improve but support remained.
Former Irish soccer star Paul McGrath visited the workers and a letter of support was sent by his former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson (as well as by former Irish President, Mary Robinson). There was support also from Peter Hooton, the lead singer from a Liverpool band called The Farm, who was central to the ‘Hillsborough Justice Campaign’.
A protest march to Dublin saw the Tralee workers dressed in Kerry jerseys. A green and gold Kerry GAA shirt in the same colours as Newton Heath, Manchester United’s original name was also signed and sent to the Duncan Edwards Museum in Dudley, England by the Tralee Debenhams’ workers.
Some 400 days on the picket lines saw workers in Dublin’s Henry Street store invited to Bohemians F.C. A shirt was presented to Jane Crowe and her co-worker Suzanne, and was then sent to be inducted into Duncan Edwards Museum. Jane continued to picket Debenhams with a banner that read: “The Undefeated Debenhams Workers” – as O’Connell and Dowd write, the workers are “still defiant, determined, and undefeated.”
When the pickets ended in May 2021, the resolution was ultimately unsatisfactory to the workers in that they did not receive their union-agreed redundancy, but at least it was a resolution. The picket had lasted for 406 days. One of the picketers, Suzanne Sherry, had commuted into Kildare to work in the Henry Street branch for 24 years. She reflected: “We felt so let down by the company we had been loyal to for 24 years. If you ask any staff member, across the 11 stores, most are upset at the lack of communication from Debenhams. Cynical and callous in its behaviour, the company used an international pandemic to abandon workers but also didn’t think we deserved an explanation or even an acknowledgment for our dedication and years of loyal service.
“The public were amazing and picketers across Ireland also received a huge amount of compassion and solidarity on social media. This lifted the spirits of the workers throughout the dispute and restored their dignity. We regularly received inspiring videos from celebrities, messages of genuine support from football clubs and fans, and true solidarity from people following our dispute.”
