James Larkin was born in Liverpool in 1874. A committed socialist, Larkin joined the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) in 1901. Five years later he was elected General Organiser having successfully organised campaigns for Union candidates in Local and' General Elections. James Sexton, General Secretary of the NUDL assessed Larkin thus: "Jim Larkin crashed upon the public with the devastating roar of a volcano, exploding without even a preliminary wisp of smoke. I have myself been called an agitator and have not resented it Believe me, however in my earliest and hottest days of agitating I was more frigid than a frozen millpond' in comparison with Larkin..."
     Early in 1907 Larkin arrived in Belfast, sent to Ireland to revitalise the NUDL's moribund branches on the east coast. By May the union had gained such strength that Thomas Gallaher, the 'Tobacco King', began the counter offensive. Port workers remained solid behind socialist beliefs and above sectarian ones, sustained by Larkin's presence and fired by his un-compromising oratory. The importation of blacklegs from Liverpool, (the head-quarters port of the NUDL); the strain of July 12 and attempts to arouse religious feelings; a vicious press cam-paign, particularly against Larkin; and the inevitable and tragic introduction of the army all failed to break the workers.
     The spirit of industrial unrest was so high that detective constable William Barrett was moved to lead the famous "mutiny" by the Royal Irish Constabu-lary to demand better pay and conditions. "Larkinism" was contagious. The class unity proved ephemeral although Belfast's social order was shaken to its foundations. The achievement may have passed; the inspiration remains.
     Friction between Sexton and Larkin resulted in the latter's expulsion from the NUDL on December 8, 1908. Later that month the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union was founded with Thomas Foran as President and Larkin as Secretary. The new union, with members in Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Dundalk and Waterford, was registered on 4 January, 1909. The ITGWU revolutionised Irish labour.
     Professor Art Mitchell in his book, Labour in Irish Politics, 1890-1930, re-cognised the union as being unique. "It was the first Irish union to adopt a socialist pro-gramme, seeking the nationalisation of all the means of transport and 'the land of Ireland for the Irish people', it had as its ultimate object a new social and economic order - an 'industrial commonwealth'." This programme was to be won by organising all workers, irrespective of craft, sex or creed, into the One Big Union. The ITGWU was the Irish expression of the syndicalist idea that workers could achieve State power through industrial action. Larkin, however, was no pure industrial unionist. As he said himself: "why use one arm when we have two? Why not strike the enemy with both arms - the political and economic?" Larkin maintained this belief in political action, being an active com-munist, and later a Labour Party T.D.
     To many, Larkin's supreme achieve-ment was his leadership during the 1913 lock-out struggle when he "raised the workers of Dublin from their knees." James Plunkett captures much of the atmosphere of the times in his novel Strumpet City (an excellent serial on RTE). The food ships, soup kitchens, songs and marches cemented the Larkin legend among Dublin workers. The Union survived the conflict winning the right to organise and securing the founda-tion of the modern Irish labour movement.
     Larkin left for a fund-raising tour to America in 1914. In the States he involved himself in anti-war campaigns, supported the Industrial Workers of the World and spoke at Joe Hill's funeral in Chicago in 1915. In 1920 he was convicted of criminal anarchy, becoming convict No.50945 in Sing Sing prison, New York. By the time he was released in 1923, Connolly was dead, Ireland partitioned and ravaged by Civil War, Labour in the Dail and the ITGWU had 100,000, not 5,000 members, new rules and new perspectives.
     In 1924 tensions between Larkin and the Union's new leadership, compounded by the declining membership in the depressed new State, resulted in the establishment of the Workers' Union of Ireland. The bitterness engendered by this split resulted in serious conflict within the Irish labour movement and Larkin's isolation. Larkin was to play a significant role in war-time wages struggles.
     Yet as Emmet Larkin (no relation), Larkin's biographer' in James Larkin: Irish Labour, notes, when Larkin died in 1947 "most people outside Ireland were surprised, for they had assumed he had been dead for a long time." Economic depression and political reaction had buried Larkin's brand of politics and trade unionism. He died forgotten by a world press he had once captivated, abandoned and distrusted by large sections of a move-ment he once led, yet remembered by thousands of mourners who recognised his commitment and sacrifices for them and were not concerned, about faults or strengths, contemporaries and historians might argue he had.
     Over a century after his birth, nearly forty years after his death, James Larkin remains the most controversial character in Irish Labour History. His inspiration of the downtrodden and dispossessed, the victories he led in Belfast and Dublin, and his partnership with Connolly in establishing a revolutionary labour move-ment in Ireland remain fine legacies. The work that Larkin began by raising us from our knees to our feet, it is our duty to complete by marching forward.