A special headstone to mark the grave of a "forgotten hero" of the 1913 Lockout will be unveiled in Deansgrange cemetery, Dublin, today.
James Byrne, a trade unionist activist who died after going on hunger strike to secure his release from prison, will be remembered at a special ceremony to mark the 90th anniversary of his death.
Mr Byrne's funeral, on November 3rd, 1913 - two days after he died - drew more than 3,000 people, including James Connolly who told mourners that James Byrne had "died a martyr as any other man who died for Ireland".
Since then, however, James Byrne's grave fell unattended, and it wasn't until 1995 that local historians in the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Heritage Society traced the burial place to an unmarked plot in Deansgrange.
A campaign to honour the trade unionist appropriately ensued, and this culminates at 2.30 p.m. tomorrow when the headstone will be officially unveiled by SIPTU general president, Mr Jack O'Connor.
James Byrne, a 38-year-old married father of six, was the Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) branch secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union during the 1913 Lockout. He was arrested and charged - falsely, he maintained - with "intimidation" of a tram worker on October 20th. He was remanded to Mountjoy prison and denied bail, and refused all food and drink in protest. After a number of days, the government gave in and released Byrne. However, he had already fallen seriously ill, catching pneumonia, from which he died in Monkstown Hospital.
The Irish Worker reported James Connolly making a rousing speech at the funeral from the roof of a cab. He said if their "murdered comrade could send them a message, it would be to go on with the fight for the sacred cause of liberty, even if it brought them hunger, misery, eviction and death itself, as it had done to Byrne".
Militant trade unionism was at a peak at the time due to low wages and dismal living conditions. Commenting on a report about Dublin housing, an Irish Times editorial remarked at the time: "28,000 of our fellow citizens live in dwellings which even the Corporation admits to be unfit for human habitation. Nearly a third of our population so live that from dawn to dark and from dark to dawn it is without cleanliness, privacy or self-respect."
