page_title: 1907 Belfast Dock strike
section_title: Background to the strike
hierarchical_section_title: 1907 Belfast Dock strike / Background to the strike
caption_attribution_description: English: Terrace of houses in Pakenham Street, Shaftesbury Square, South Belfast 1981 Italiano: Case a Pakenham Street, Piazza di Shaftesbury, Belfast, Irlanda del Nord nel 1981
context_page_description: The Belfast Dock strike or Belfast lockout took place in Belfast, Ireland from 26 April to 28 August 1907. The strike was called by Liverpool-born trade union leader James Larkin who had successfully organised the dock workers to join the National Union of Dock Labourers. The dockers, both Protestant and Catholic, had gone on strike after their demand for union recognition was refused. They were soon joined by carters, shipyard workers, sailors, firemen, boilermakers, coal heavers, transport workers, and women from the city's largest tobacco factory. Most of the dock labourers were employed by powerful tobacco magnate Thomas Gallaher, chairman of the Belfast Steamship Company and owner of Gallaher's Tobacco Factory.
  The Royal Irish Constabulary later mutinied when ordered to escort the blackleg drivers of traction engines used to replace the striking carters. Order was eventually restored when British Army troops were deployed. Although largely unsuccessful, the dock strike led to the establishment of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union.
context_section_description: Belfast in the early 20th-century was a flourishing centre of industry with shipbuilding, engineering and linen-manufacturing the main sources of the city's economic lifeblood. Its skilled workforce of shipyard workers and engineers earned wages and enjoyed working conditions comparable with the rest of the United Kingdom. Additionally, they enjoyed the security of trade union membership. For the unskilled workers, such as dock labourers and carters, it was a completely different story. They worked up to 75 hours a week in conditions which were dangerous and unsanitary, without holidays. The pay was low and employment was erratic and uncertain. Unlike the skilled workers, these labourers had no trade union to look after their interests. The men who worked in the docks lived in Sailortown, a community adjacent to the Docks which had a population of 5,000, excluding the transient sailors  who swelled the numbers. This mixed Protestant and Catholic populace was packed into tiny streets of red-bricked terraced houses that were built between the docks and York Street. They were damp, airless, overcrowded and poorly lit. Poverty, hunger and disease was rife. Women and children were compelled to work long, arduous hours in the linen mills and cigarette factories. Most families in Sailortown had men who were merchant seamen; with boys as young as 14 going off to sea. The other men obtained unskilled work on the waterfront as dockers, carters and coal heavers.
  By this time there were 3,100 dock labourers, 2,000 of whom were casual workers or "spellsmen" hired on a daily basis at low pay. Whilst Protestants and Catholics held the same jobs, the sectarian attitudes which dominated every aspect of life in Belfast ensured that Protestant dockers worked in the cross-channel docks where employment was more regular whilst Catholic dockers were made to work in the more dangerous deep sea docks, where the casualty rate was the highest. They were also the first to be laid off when labour cutbacks were required. Author John Gray in his book, City in Revolt: James Larkin and the Belfast Dock Strike of 1907 described the differences in wages earnings and the standard of living between the skilled and unskilled workers as "a yawning abyss, unequalled anywhere else in the United Kingdom.
  It was into this environment and social milieu that trade union leader James Larkin (a Liverpool-born Irish Catholic) arrived in January 1907. He was sent to Belfast by James Sexton, head of the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL), with the aim of bringing the dock workers and carters into the union. Addressing crowds of people on the steps of Belfast's Custom House, he vociferously articulated the grievances of the working classes. Due to his charismatic personality and considerable oratorial skill, Larkin succeeded in unionising the unskilled Protestant and Catholic workers.
caption: Belfast's working class population typically lived in red brick terraced houses similar to these in Pakenham Street, south Belfast
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