Dublin 1913 – Lockout
Low-paid workers – under the leadership of Big Jim Larkin – organised themselves into Unions to insist on better conditions. The business world retaliated by locking them out of their jobs without pay … how long could they hold out?
Category: Dublin, Dublin 1913 Lockout, Graphic Novel, History
Dublin 1913 – a city of haves and have-nots.
The business-owners lived comfortably, with servants and fine homes. They barely knew of the lives of the poor workers, crowded into ramshackle tenement buildings where disease and hunger were rife. These two worlds collided when ‘Big Jim’ Larkin, took on the might of the business world. Opposing him was wealthy businessman William Martin Murphy, who refused to employ Larkin’s Union members and organised a Lockout to break the spirit of the striking workers.
A dramatically-illustrated account of a dark time in Irish history
Gerry Hunt worked for twenty-five years as an architect, eighteen of them with the IDA. In 1986 he left architecture and began drawing political cartoons. From this, he moved on to drawing entire comics ... his first, self-produced, comic was a rhyming, Spanish-language work that he gave away to friends. His book The Streets of Dublin was included in an exhibition entitled ‘Artist’s Books’ in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. He published ground-breaking historical graphic novels for The O'Brien Press, about the 1913 Lockout, Easter Rising (1916), War of Independence (1919) and Bobby Sands. Gerry died in June 2018.
Alan Nolan lives and works in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. He has written and illustrated many books and comics for children and grown-ups, including Fintan’s Fifteen, Conor's Caveman and the Murder Can Be Fatal series.
A detailed and historically accurate graphic account of the devastating Ireland Labour War of 1913
I've no idea why I haven't blogged about Gerry Hunts historical graphic novels before. We've had Blood Upon The Rose, the story of Easter 1916, since it was published in 2009. That was such a success that when At War With The Empire, the follow up came out, I ordered it straightaway. It was a no-brainer - my eldest son loved graphic novels and flew through them. And these books explained (in colourful detail) Irish history that he needed to know about, for school and for life. This latest one, 1913 Larkin's Labour War which I found in the library last week is his favourite of the lot
ambitious in its storytelling … covers both the human and the political angles
an excellent aide to the greater understanding of an important part of Irish history
another dramatically-illustrated graphic novel of a dark time in Irish history
the Lockout of 1913 … is graphically documented here
if young people find out about Larkin and the watershed that was the Lockout through a graphic novel, it’s a gateway to learning that should not be snubbed
