‘Returning the favour’: Irish trade unions’ support for the striking miners in 1984

During the strike, in response to the horrific images of miners and their supporters being battered by the police, donations of cash were received from around the world, More money was raised in Ireland per head of population than anywhere else, Britain included, with many support groups being set up to ‘adopt’ individual mining communities.

The story is told of one elderly woman in Dublin putting a £10 note, a large proportion of her pension, into a collection tin. She said it was to repay the miners for the support they had lent to the city’s dockers and transport workers during the 1913 Dublin Lock Out. She was referring to the many acts of solidarity that had been carried out in 1913, when mining communities in England and Wales raised funds and even took in hungry Dublin children. They were being starved by the members of the Employers’ Federation, who were determined to break the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, led by ‘Big Jin’ Larkin and James Connolly, This talk will consider the strong parallels between the events in 1913 and 1984 and how ordinary working people supported their comrades in other countries, even combatting opposition from their own union leaders.