Big Jim Larkin spoke from the steps of the Custom House – a stone’s throw away from this new mural at Transport House in the city centre – in the early months of 1907, speaking on behalf of the dockers and other unskilled labourers, recruiting them to the National Union of Dock Workers, and ultimately organizing various strikes as part of what is now known as the ‘Belfast Lockout’, which stretched from April 26th to August 28th. Larkin was expelled from the NUDL and went on to form the Irish Transport & General Workers Union in 1909 and organize the Dublin Lockout in 1913. The rest of his history is equally dramatic, including arrest and imprisonment for ‘criminal anarchism’ in the US in 1919. (WP)

Here is an image of Larkin on the platform at a Belfast rally (mouse-over to enlarge), surrounded by workers wearing cloth caps.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Here are more images from the new ‘Unite – the union’ mural at Transport House. A separate entry features Jim Larkin, who, after the Belfast lockout, founded the Irish Transport & General Workers Union in 1909. The separate (Amalgamated) Transport & General Workers Union (headquartered in London) was formed in 1922. (Larkin’s old union NUDL, renamed the National Union of Dock, Riverside and General Workers in Great Britain and Ireland, joined soon after in the same year.) In 2007, the T&G merged with Amicus to form the current Unite – The Union. The TGWU’s base in Belfast was Transport House, a 1959 building by architect J.J. Brennan in the International style (C20) and a B1 listed building (wikimedia). As can be seen from the image of a female welder above, the new mural features the green tile squares of the building itself, as well as the string of workers in the large mosaic on the front.

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Copyright © 2015 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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