2007 marks the 100th anniversary of the 1907 Belfast strikes, and the arrival of James Larkin and mass trade unionism in Ireland. The strikes began on Belfast docks, where Larkin organized the workers to resist exploitation wages and to fight for better working conditions. The dispute spread to other trades, with 1000s of workers becoming unionized for the first time.

Belfast, where the bosses had for so long played the sectarian ‘Orange card’ to divide protestant and catholic workers, saw a new working-class unity. The newspapers condemned the dispute as a ‘socialist and fenian plot’. For once, the old divide and rule tactics didn’t work. Strikers from the catholic Falls Road and the protestant Shankill Road, united in resisting the bosses and their scabs and hired thugs. The port and city of Belfast was brought to a standstill.

When even elements of the Police mutineed and refused to intervene against picket lines, the British Army was sent in to put down the workers’ revolt. The Army viciously attacked workers on the catholic Falls Road, and the fragile unity of the working class began to break down.
A cynical alliance of Loyalist agitators, Unionist bosses and right-wing Catholic politicians drove a sectarian wedge between the workers and the resistance crumbled.

James Larkin, and the more politically aware of the organized workers, both protestant and catholic, learned the bitter lessons of 1907. They came to realize
that to resist capitalist exploitation in Ireland, it was also necessary to, at the same time, resist British colonial rule in Ireland. This fact was reinforced during the 1913 Dublin Lock-Out. Larkin, along with James Connolly, formed the ICA (Irish Citizen Army) in 1915. The ICA was both a workers’ defence force and a national liberation army. The ICA played a leading role in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916.

The lessons of 1907
The struggle for an Irish Socialist Republic, and the unity of Orange and Green, continues to this day. Similarly, the struggle of workers and their trade unions against exploitation continues across the world. James Larkin’s message of working-class unity and resistance from 1907 is as relevant as ever in 2007!