A book celebrating the achievements of Irish Labour leader James Larkin snr was launched in Belfast yesterday. Union activists gathered for an afternoon of song and poetry to commemorate him.
The publication of James Larkin - Lion of the Fold, edited by Mr Donal Nevin, a former general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, marks the end of two years of events staged by SIPTU to mark the 50th anniversary of Larkin's death.
Mr Jimmy Somers, SIPTU president, welcomed the audience to the launch and said the book had done justice to "Big Jim". Outlining a brief history of the labour figure, Mr Somers said Larkin, who was born in Liverpool, first arrived in Ireland through Belfast port in 1907, just a short distance from yesterday's launch.
In Belfast, he organised the city's dockers before moving on to Dublin and Cork, where he was involved in a series of strikes.
Ms Inez McCormack, ICTU vice-president, gave the keynote speech.
She told The Irish Times: "Larkinism stands for the triumph of the human spirit and that is as relevant today as it was then. It stands for the belief in the dignity of ordinary people that they have the right to be heard.
"This book is important because it reminds us that if we don't understand our history, we don't understand where we are going."
As the first woman ICTU vice-president, Ms McCormack said it was her goal to uncover the "hidden history" of women workers.
The book is published in association with RTE and SIPTU and is in three parts.
Part one reproduces the text of 15 Thomas Davis Lectures, first broadcast by RTE in 1997. It contains contributions from historians Kenneth Brown, Fergus A. D'Arcy, Cormac O Grada and Emmet Larkin.
Pieces by Larkin's contemporaries, James Connolly and Sean O'Casey, are also in the book, along with speeches and statements by Larkin himself. Poems about him by Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanagh and Brendan Behan are also included.