The Irish and the Preston Lock-Out, 1853–1854
Journal: Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire
Year: 2024

The Irish have long featured as a central element in British social and labour history, but an idea still prevails that it was as strike breakers rather than strike makers that they influenced British industrial relations. The great Preston strike of 1853–1854 appears to have had a crucial role in cementing that idea and the role of Irish ‘knobsticks’ became a central, as well as a very visual component, of that dispute. The story of the ‘half alive and half dead’ impoverished Irish who arrived