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The Caledon Lockout: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Rural Ulster, 1918–1922

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2020

Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh
Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh*
Affiliation:
St. Mary's University College, Belfast
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Abstract

This paper examines an unsuccessful strike by Irish Catholic and Protestant workers at a woolen mill in 1919. The location, Caledon in County Tyrone, is renowned as a stronghold of Ulster Unionism and Orangeism, yet in the context of the revolutionary period in Ireland from 1916–1926, traditional sectarian divisions briefly abated in the face of working-class solidarity. In this respect, the analysis offers something of a corrective to assumptions regarding the immutability of sectarian divisions in Ulster. The article also places Caledon within the context of a widespread and sustained movement of unskilled workers in the main provincial city, Belfast, and across much of rural Ulster between 1918–1920. Nevertheless, the manner in which the employer defeated the strike and the village's subsequent history of violent sectarianism offers valuable insights into the creation and consolidation of Northern Ireland, or what many local Catholics called “the Orange State,” which celebrates its centenary in 2020.

Type
Lines of Labor, Lines of Production
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 98: East Europe and the Troubled Memory of “The Worker” / Labor Activism Under Neoliberalism / Lines of Labor, Lines of Production , Fall 2020 , pp. 193 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2020

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References

Notes

1. One of the six counties to be planted by King James in 1609; Tyrone was the scene of the first civil rights march in 1968, which emerged from a dispute in Caledon village regarding discrimination in housing by a unionist-controlled and gerrymandered local council. A subsequent police attack on a civil rights march in Derry is recognized as the starting point for the modern Troubles.

2. The village is made anonymous in the book but fits the description of Caledon, or Newmills in the same area: Kelleher, William F Jr., The Troubles in Ballybogoin, 47 (Michigan, 2004)Google Scholar.

3. Freeman's Journal, November 3, 1919; founded in 1795 in nearby Loughall, the Orange Order was an exclusively Protestant and loyalist fraternal organization pledged to maintain the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. It played a pivotal role in the mass mobilization of Irish Protestant over the next century and became the dominant organization within Ulster Unionism prior to creation of the majority Unionist six-county statelet.

4. Derry Journal, 28 February 1919; Peadar O'Donnell (1893–1986) who led the strikers at Caledon, was one of the foremost radicals of twentieth-century Ireland, achieving international prominence as an Irish republican, socialist activist, politician, and writer.

5. Peter Hart, The IRA at War 1916-1923, 21 (Oxford, 2003).

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7. Department of Environment, Conservation Caledon (Omagh, 2003); Caledon Woollen Mills, Company, 1921–32 (Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, hereafter, PRONI, COM/40/1/C/2).

8. https://www.libraryireland.com/UlsterDirectory1910/Caledon.php.

9. For the mill's increased order book, see Freeman's Journal, 31 Mar. 1915.

10. See Fergal McCluskey, Tyrone, 1912-23, 83–84 (Dublin, 2014).

11. This sometimes took explicit form during wartime, for example, with “Red” Clydeside from 1915 onward. It was, however, the immediate postwar period, 1918–1920, when domestic grievances took explicit form across Britain and Ireland.

12. RIC County Inspector for Tyrone, hereafter CI Feb. 1919, CO904/108.

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19. RIC Inspector General, hereafter IG, Jan. 1919 (NAL, CO904/108).

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34. The CI apparently dated the dispute from the beginning of the lockout, not the strike itself (Annual Intelligence Notes for County Tyrone 1919, NAL, CO903/19/5).

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46. Armagh Guardian, March 28, 1919; McVeigh, 97.

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48. CI Feb. 1919 (NAL, CO904/108).

49. Derry Journal, May 26, 1919.

50. Ó Drisceoil, O'Donnell, 14.

51. Voice of Labour, March 16, 1919.

52. Belfast Newsletter, February 24, 1919

53. C Desmond Greaves, ITGWU, 232 (London, 1982); The Voice of Labour, March 1, 1919.

54. The RIC apparently added the non-striking workers to the total number, a mistake subsequently repeated in Westminster (CI Feb. 1919, NAL, CO904/108).

55. Voice of Labour, March 8, 1919.

56. O'Donnell, Monkeys, 13.

57. Derry Journal, February 28, 1919

58. Irish Independent, February 24, 1919.

59. O'Donnell, Monkeys, 16.

60. Ulster Herald, May 31, 1919.

61. House of Commons Debate, March 17, 1919, vol. 113, cc1728-9 1728; Tyrone Courier, March 27, 1919.

62. McVeigh, “Lock out?” 98–102.

63. Watchword of Labour, January 3, 1920.

64. Irish Independent, June 9, 1919; Evening Telegraph, June 5, 1919.

65. Northern Whig, June 16, 1919; UULA minutes, June 7, 1919 (PRONI, D1327/11/4/1).

66. UULA minutes, August 21, 1919 (PRONI, D1327/11/4/1).

67. Voice of Labour, April 19, 1919.

68. CI Mar. 1919, CO904/108.

69. Voice of Labour, April 26, 1919.

70. Voice of Labour, May 10, 1919.

71. Tyrone Courier, May 9, 1919 quoting the Belfast Telegraph.

72. Tyrone Courier, May 1, 1919; the lodges in question were 299, 426, and 1268.

73. Derry Journal, May 16, 1919.

74. Armagh Guardian, July 4, 1919; McVeigh, 104.

75. Patterson, Class Conflict, 125.

76. Voice of Labour, May 31, 1919.

77. Voice of Labour, May 24, 1919.

78. Tyrone Courier, May 22, 1919.

79. W Chaine to Carson, June 17, 1919 (PRONI, D1507/A/30/6).

80. “Practically all the Roman Catholic vote was given to Hanna… . The Ulster protestant Home Ruler still exists, though in small numbers, but they can make a lot of mischief” (Bates to Captain Craig, June 18, 1919, PRONI, D1507/A/30/3).

81. Fred Crawford's diary, September 28, 1920 (PRONI, D640/11/1).

82. McVeigh, “Lock out?” 104.

83. Eric Hobsbawm, Age of extremes: the short twentieth century, 1914-1991, 125 (London 1994).

84. A. J. Gregor, Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism, 238 (California, 1979).

85. Freeman's Journal, March 31, 1915.

86. Watchword of Labour, November 29, 1919.

87. CI, Jan. 1915 (NAL, CO904/96).

88. Friends of the Somme Mid-Ulster branch, accessed November 19, 2019; http://www.dungannonwardead.com/persondepth.asp?cas_id=601.

89. The Watchword of Labour, January 3, 1920.

90. Voice of Labour, May 17, 1919.

91. O'Donnell, Monkeys, 16–17.

92. CI May 1919, CO904/109.

93. Watchword of Labour, December 13, 1919.

94. Freeman's Journal, January 5, 1920.

95. Evening Herald, May 12, 1920.

96. The alterations are dated 1928 in anticipation for local government elections, but the village's working-class streets clearly experienced significant change in the revolutionary period (PRONI, VALB/38/8).

97. Anglo-Celt, January 12, 1920; Freeman's Journal, January 5, 1920.

98. Rotten Prod was a pejorative term used by loyalists to described Protestants who were insecure in their commitment to the Union with Britain; by 1920, it was directed largely against active trade unionists.

99. Michael Collins (1890–1922) was an Irish revolutionary, soldier, and politician who was a leading figure in the early-twentieth-century Irish struggle for independence, signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty that led to the consolidation of partition and then chairman of the Free State and Army commander before his assassination in 1922; James Craig (1871–1940) was a prominent Irish unionist politician, Orange, and leader of the Ulster Unionist Council and the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland after Carson's retirement.

100. O'Duffy to Collins, March 10, 1922 (National Archives of Ireland, hereafter NAI, DT, S 1801/A).

101. O'Duffy to Collins, January 30, 1922 (ibid.).

102. Weekly survey of the state of Ireland, February 13, 1922 (TNA, CAB 24/133).

103. Summary of outrages in NI, 1921–1922 (PRONI, HA/5/698).

104. Compensation claim of Mrs Robert Scott, 1922 (TNA, HO 144/2235).

105. J Fulton to Bates, February 8, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/165).

106. Report of the Northern Border Commission (PRONI, HA/32/1/16).

107. Memoirs (Pre-Truce) Mr. James McKenna, formerly of North Monaghan, now residing (1970) Kilbrogan Place, Bandon, Co. Cork. “The arrest and subsequent rescue of Commandant Matt. Fitzpatrick, Clones battalion, Co. Monaghan” Cardinal Ó Fiaich Library, Armagh, LOK IV.D.11 0003 05 Ee.4.5.

108. Report of the Northern Border Commission (PRONI, HA/32/1/16); Summary of outrages in NI, March–April. 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/699).

109. RUC, Belfast, March 15, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/152); P. Finnegan, Andrew Sherry, Thomas Hegarty “File containing return of persons killed or wounded since December 6, 1921 in NI” (PRONI HA/5/219); Summary of outrages in NI, March–April 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/699); Tyrone Courier, March 9, 1922.

110. Summary of outrages in NI, March–April 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/699); RUC, Belfast, March 31, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/152); File containing return of persons killed or wounded since 6 Dec. 1921 (PRONI, HA/5/219).

111. Summary of outrages in NI, March–April 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/699); RUC, Belfast, March 31, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/152).

112. Northern Border Commission, March 19, 1922 (PRONI, HA/32/1/16).

113. RUC report on the political situation at Caledon, March 19, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/903).

114. Northern Border Commission, March 27, 1922 (PRONI, HA/32/1/16).

115. Northern Border Commission,  Ma 29, 1922 (PRONI, HA/32/1/16).

116. James Doran, 1922–1924 (PRONI, HA/5/2232).

117. RUC, Belfast, April 18, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/152).

118. RUC, Belfast, March 31, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/152).

119. Report of the Northern Border Commission (PRONI, HA/32/1/16).

120. Fulton to Dawson Bates, March 22, 1922, “Steps to be taken for prevention of disturbances on border,” March 1922  (PRONI, HA/5/905).

121. J.K. McClintock, March 29, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/905).

122. Report of the northern border commission, Col. Sutton, Clogher, March 28, 1922 (PRONI, HA/32/1/16).

123. RUC, Belfast, April 18, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/152).

124. Telegram Fintona, April 18, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/205); persons killed or wounded since 6 Dec. 1921 in NI (PRONI, HA/5/219); Tyrone Courier, April 27, 1922.

125. Lt. Col. Charles Wickham to S. J. Watt, March 30, 1922 (PRONI, HA/5/905).

126. Report of the Northern Border Commission, Lieut E F Bolton, Clogher April 9, 1922 (PRONI, HA/32/1/16).

127. Bew, Gibbon & Patterson, The State in Northern Ireland, 7–8 (Belfast, 1978).

128. Patterson, 142.

129. Patterson, 147.

130. The Lambeg is a large drum beaten during Orange marches.

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132. Bew et. Al, NI, 8.

133. Chomsky, Noam, Because we say so, 26 (New York, 2015)Google Scholar.

134. Murray, Paul, The Irish Boundary Commission and its origins, 1886-1925, 31 (Dublin, 2011)Google Scholar.

135. The concepts here rely heavily on Domenico Losurdo, Liberalism: A Counter-History, 309–10 (Verso, 2011).

136. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 113.

137. Ellison, Graham and Smyth, Jim, The Crowned Harp: policing in Northern Ireland, 30 (Pluto, 2000)Google Scholar.

138. Report by Gen. Ricardo, June 1922 (TNA, CO 906/27).

139. Michael Farrell, Arming the Protestants, 153 and 283 (Pluto, 1987).

140. Report by Ricardo, June 1922 (TNA, CO 906/27).

141. Ricardo, June 1922 (TNA, CO 906/27).

142. Loughlin, C., “The Moral Economy of Loyalty: Labour, Law and the State in Northern Ireland, 1921-39,” Labour History Review 82 (1): 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

143. Belinda Probert, Beyond Orange and Green, 57 (London, 1978).

144. J McClelland to Craig, December 16, 1925 (PRONI, PM/2/14/107).

145. Bew et al., NI, 16.

146. O'Connor, 101.

147. Watchword of Labour, December 13, 1919.