‘Colleges should look again at the Limerick Soviet’, says author

ONE of the foremost experts on the 100-year-old Limerick Soviet has called on historians to reassess their attitude to the Labour movement.

Dr Liam Cahill brought the curtain down on the 100th anniversary celebrations which have been taking place in Limerick across the last month by launching a rewrite of his book at the City Library.

Dr Cahill says the Decade of Centenaries had seen a welcome reappraisal of the role of women in the war.

Now, however, he said the time is at hand to “conduct a fuller and fairer review” of Labour’s key role.

The special 100th anniversary edition of the book was launched by Sheila Nunan, the president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, who was joined by the president of the Limerick Trades Council Mike McNamara.

“From 1916 to 1919, there was close collaboration frequently between organised workers and the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin, both nationally and locally. The highpoint of that co-operation was the defeat of conscription in April 1918. My research shows that the ‘Limerick General Strike against British Militarism’ a year later – known as the Limerick Soviet - was the other significant event where that happened. For two weeks, the Limerick United Trades and Labour Council, workers took over the entire running of the city as part of a general strike,” he told the gathering.

He added: “Historians should stop writing off the Limerick Soviet as a kind of exotic aberration in the ‘Confraternity’ city. It was spearheaded by workers and their representatives but with considerable logistical support in the background from the reinvigorated Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers.

“The leadership of the First Dáil, as well as national leaders of the IRB and the Volunteers, were in touch daily with Limerick and  the Dáil cabinet discussed the crisis three times. It was the cabinet’s decision – against IRB advice - not to support a national strike that forced the Soviet to end.”

He said the real significance of the Soviet is that it was a spontaneous eruption of grassroots militancy and impatience with the slow pace of action against British rule.

“In that respect, it is comparable to the first shots of the War of Independence fired at Soloheadbeg, in Co Tipperary, only a few months earlier.”

Dr Cahill urged Limerick’s th​ird level institutions to engage more with the history of the Soviet, and its links to national historical developments.

He said: “There is room for more collaborative community-linked projects, oral history projects, retrieval and conservation of memorabilia as well as a variety of artistic and cultural responses.”

The Forgotten Revolution, Centenary Edition is available in local bookshops.