revolutionary General Strike in ireland
april 1920 revolutionary general striKe in ireland One hundred years ago workers downed tools and took over their workplaces and towns. What began as a hunger strike in prison grew into a general strike against British Imperialism that pointed in the direction of socialism and workers’ power. Manus LenIhan gives an account of these colossal events. One hundred years ago revolution was sweeping across Ireland and the world. Beginning with Russia in 1917, the working class and poor people mounted a global challenge to capitalism and imperialism. In Europe, empires and ancient monarchies collapsed into dust, and workers’ councils governed whole cities and states, heralding a new era of socialist revolution. In Asia and Africa, oppressed peoples rose up to challenge imperialism. In North America, strikes led to working-class takeovers of whole cities, and gun battles raged in the coal-mining areas. In the south of Ireland, after the 1916 Rising, a growing mood for independence was intertwined with a desire for socialism and a “Workers’ Republic.” A previously obscure fringe party called Sinn Féin grew 24 l SocialiSt altErNativE l SuMMEr 2020
to a powerful mass organisation in a few short years. Sinn Féin stood up against British imperialism but envisaged an independent capitalist Ireland. The British ruling class responded with violent repression, which stepped up a gear in 1920. The nightmare scenario of the British ruling class was socialist revolution in Ireland, spreading inevitably to Britain. After the 1919 engineering strike in Belfast, the Viceroy Lord French was terrified of the potential for socialist and class politics to unite Protestant and Catholic workers.1 Sinn Féin was equalled, and for a period surpassed, by the trade union movement, especially the militant Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU), which grew from 5,000 to 120,000 members between 1916 and 1920. On the back of awesome struggles such as the anticonscription general strike and the Limerick Soviet, “There was a growing working-class culture in 1920 which openly identified with the Red Flag and took inspiration from the Russian Revolution.”2 This aroused horror not only on the part of the British authorities, but also Sinn Féin and its armed wing, the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
hunger Strike By April, raids and police informers have filled the cells of Mountjoy. The Black and Tans, paramilitaries
