Irish Labour History Society

     The Irish Labour History Society (ILHS) was established in 1973 with the Constitutional obligation to 'promote the knowledge of Irish labour history and of Irish people in labour history abroad and labour history in general; the appreciation of the importance of labour history in the educational curriculum; and the preservation of all records and reminiscences, oral and written, relating to the current and past experiences of the Irish working class and its organisations'. The Society has since that time diligently striven to fulfil these obligations, despite the handicaps of lack of resources, financial and human, and reliance on the voluntary efforts of its Committee members and activists. These efforts have borne much fruit. The Society's annual journal, Saothar, now in its twentieth year of publication, has gained an international audience and generated much critical acclaim in historiographical reviews. A second more popular publication, Labour History News, has also received its own favourable press. These published records of the Society's activities have reflected the range of activities undertaken, including an Annual Conference of high scholarly worth held, variously, in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Derry, and Manchester; numerous occasional lectures and workshops in the Society's active branches in Belfast, Derry, Dublin, and Galway; international participation in labour history events in Wales, Scotland, England, France, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, and Mexico; and an annual address by a labour historian of international repute.
     Saothar, of course, reflects the steady if uneven development within the subject area. The 'Sources' and 'Bibliography' sections of the journal indicate the growing awareness of the need to preserve the record of Irish labour's past, and the value of Cataloguing and broadcasting the availability of that record is indicated by the ever expanding range of articles, publications and research projects. The Society's Archives Subcommittee has conscientiously attempted to rescue threatened material and raise Irish labour's archival consciousness, particularly within the trade union movement. Under the guidance of the Society's founding President, the late John Swift, the records of his own union, the Irish Bakers, Confectioners and Allied Workers Amalgamated Union, formed the first deposit in the ILHS Archive, generously housed at present by the Archives Department of University College Dublin. This archive has greatly expanded to the point of creating questions as to its future location. Notwithstanding the success of the rescue and retrieval operation, however, the ILHS established the Trade Union and Labour Related Records Survey Project. On behalf of the Committee of the ILHS and of the Society's affiliated membership, especially the trade unions, a sincere 'vote of thanks' is due to all those who so successfully saw the project through to conclusion. They have done invaluable service to the Irish labour movement.
     The task now confronting the Society, in association with the trade union and labour movement, is to progress to the next stage, which is to ensure the safety of the records listed here. This is imperative because of the condition in which some of these records survive, but additional urgency is occasioned by the current spate of trade union mergers and amalgamations, a trend which labour market conditions suggest will continue. In such situations premises are vacated and structures rationalised. Trade union archives are often the first thing to be 'rationalised', usually into the nearest shredder or skip. We would again appeal to all unions on receipt of this valuable catalogue to reflect on the responsibility they bear as custodians of their own past and join with the Society in guaranteeing the safe transfer of their unwanted material to a suitable and accessible archival location. In this Context, the challenge of the Irish Labour History Museum and Archives at Beggar's Bush offers exciting possibilities for those within our movement with vision. The material catalogued here, in so far as the vast bulk of it is not housed within any archival institution, presents a unique foundation platform for the development of Beggar's Bush as a resource centre drawing on the well of labour's past that might nourish the efforts of those charged with the management of labour's future. This is an oft repeated aspiration of the Society but one whose moment has truly arrived.

Joseph Deasy - President

Francis Devine - Vice-President

Honorary Presidents	Fergus A. D'Arcy
	Ken Hannigan
	Donal Nevin
	Norah O'Neil
President	Joe Deasy
Vice President	Therese Moriarty
Secretary	Charles Callan
Assistant Secretary	Hugh Geraghty
Assistant Secretary	Denise Rogers
Treasurer	Jack McGinley
Trustees	Peter Cassells
	Dympna Harper

Committee	Mary Clancy
	Tom Crean
	Francis Devine
	Jennifer Hunter
	Brian McKevitt
	Cathal Mac Liam
	Se�n Morrissey
	Emmet O'Connor
	Fionnuala Richards
	Leo Van Es
	Edward Soye