Irish Labour’s post-election message to Republicans
workers will never again ‘shed blood for a phrase’
Dublin, 5 September 1923 - In a clear and unambiguous message to Irish Republicans, the Irish Labour Party’s Weekly Notes states that there is no future for Republicans without the consent of the working class and Labour offers the only alternative to the present Government. They say that the workers of Ireland would ‘never again consent to shed their blood for a phrase’ and if they were to support a revolutionary political party, it must contain within its programme key elements such as working class control of industry and of the nation’s wealth.
Despite a poor performance in the general election, the message conveyed in the Irish Labour Party’s Weekly Notes is upbeat in its assessment of its own party’s future political prospects. Explaining its disappointing day at the polls, the Labour Notes suggests that just as the British electorate had done in 1918, Irish voters had done in 1923. They had voted politically. Just as in Britain the electorate had voted into the power the ‘men who won the war’, so in Ireland ‘the men who ended the terror and won the Treaty’ have been rewarded.
But Labour’s marginalisation will be short-lived. According to its Weekly Notes, its ‘period of in the wilderness will be of but brief duration’ and men like William O’Brien and Cathal O’Shannon ‘will not be left in political exile.’
However, leading Labour party member Cathal O’Shannon - surprisingly defeated in Louth - may well have burned bridges with voters in his constituency when he told a large crowd outside the Courthouse in Dundalk that they - the workers of the town - had not done their duty and that they would pay for their mistake in the coming years.
He added that when they wanted and needed friends to plead their cause, it would be to neither the Republicans or the Free Staters to which they would go. Instead it would be to the Labour unions they would go, even though, O’Shannon told his audience, they had voted against Labour.
In a further reflection on Labour’s performance and future direction, the Chairman of the Labour Party and Trade Union Congress, Mr. L. J. O’Duffy, has said that he doesn’t believe the new Dáil will last its full-term and that a political re-alignment around issues of internal policy will take place. In respect of the two main groupings, he said that it was ‘impossible to conceive unity of thought amongst the very many interests comprising these parties on the issue of protection vs free trade.’
As for its own priorities, Mr. O’Duffy said that Labour will continue to agitate for a removal of taxation on food, for a national housing policy and for the development of industries to provide for the unemployed.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
