JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY

SOURCES 101INovember, 1971 to no. 17, December, 1972.NILP Election handbill, c. 1974; Newtownabbey Labour Party, AgendaiElection checklist, n.d.,Labour Party 87, Vote Lillis, 1987; other election ephemera. Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus TradesCouncil, Annual Report, 1981.''c.National Union of Sheet Metal Workers, Coppersmiths, Heating and Domestic Engineers,Belfast BranchAwards and Temporary Decisions between National Society of Coppersmiths, Braziers and Metalworkersand Harland & Wolff, 29 March, 1938 - 17 November, 1950; Demarcation Disputes in Harland& Wolff, 26 January, 1951- 11 June, 1956; Contracts Disputes, 1954-56; Demarcation Disputesincluding The National Demarcation Procedure Agreement between Shipbuilders and RepairersNational Association and Trade Unions Affiliated to the Confederation of Shipbuilding and EngineeringUnions, 1970. Correspondence with J. MacDonald and later A. Barr, District Secretaries,NSCBMW and, later, NUSMWCHDE.Trade Union Journals in the National Library of IrelandJournals are a valuable but underused source for the study of trade union history. They maycompensate for either the total absence of records or fill in gaps in any surviving series of records. Inany case, journals are an important starting point for a researcher as they delineate a union's mainconcerns and activities, at both national and local level, and provide useful information about unionstructure and administration.While the size of journal, frequency of issue, length of time published and information contentvaries cqnsiderably from journal to journal, a number offeatures are common to all. The most importantof these are reports from executive councils or general secretaries, ranging from minutes of meetingsto notes of deputations; items concerning annual conferences including agendas, motions andresolutions and the union's annual report; financial reports, audited accounts and membership details;nominations and elections for officerships, executive council or standing orders committee; reportsfrom delegates to Congress, Labour Party or other organisations to which the union is affiliated;conference reports in either verbatim or annotated form; reports from branches; and reports on specialactivities, social events, obituaries, appreciations and profiles of personalities.In many cases, journals are the only or fullest surviving record of a union's activities. This isespecially true for branch activity as few branch records have survived. A large portion of the IrishTeachers' Journal in the 1870s was taken up with reports from the local associations of the IrishNational Teachers' Organisation. As the years passed such coverage diminished and, generally, tradeunion journals became less detailed from the 1950s and 1960s. Other journals that give notably richinformation about branch organisation and endeavours are the Distributive Worker, Postal Worker,Civil Servant and Bakery Trades Journal.At national level, coverage of executive meetings is often fuller than that found in the actual minutesthemsel ves, many of which merely record decisions reached or matters resol ved. Most journals recordwage claims, agreements and disputes affecting the membership and details of legislative changes.Many journals include articles or notes on social, industrial or economic affairs of a broader range butof interest to the readership. The Local Officer, for example, includes a regular section entitled'Happenings of Local Authorities'. International comparisons are commonplace, often in the contextof reports from delegates to intern~tionaltrade union'conferences.Trade Union Information, issued by the Irish Trade Union Congress from 1949 until 1959 and thenby the Irish Congress of Trade Unions until 1981 , contains a wealth of information in article, digest and