This year marks the 100th anniversary of the 1913 lockout when the bosses of Dublin tried to starve the working class of Dublin into submission and smash the emerging Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) led by Jim Larkin and James Connolly.
On this anniversary, the Socialist Party has organised a meeting to celebrate the courageous role played by working class women in this dispute.
Prior to the lockout in August 1911, around 3,000 mainly women workers went on strike in Jacob’s biscuit factory and were victorious in their battle. Out of this struggle the Irish Women Workers’ Union (IWWU) was born and was led by women
such as Delia Larkin.
The IWWU, along with the ITGWU, not only fought to improve women’s conditions in the workplace but also demanded their right to vote, a key battle for women generally at the time.
In the lockout women were to the forefront in confronting scabs and fighting back against police repression. Socialist women in Britain such as Sylvia Pankhurst organised solidarity with the locked out workers of Dublin. The women of Jacob’s were the last to go back to work in March 1914, eight months after the lockout began.
100 years on as women feel the brunt of austerity and still face discrimination and sexism under capitalism, the lessons of the 1913 and how women fought for their economic and democratic rights have never been more relevant.
Please come to the meeting and learn and discuss these lessons.
8:15pm Wednesday
1st May
Wynn’s Hotel
Abbey St.
