JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY

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ObituaryR. Dudley EdwardsIrish history lost one of its most distinguished practitioners and illustrious characters with thepassing of Professor R. Dudley Edwards a day after his seventy-ninth birthday. Born in Dublin on 4June, 1909, his family background was encouraging to history and liberal in outlook. His mother hadchampioned women's rights and Irish nationalism, while his father had collaborated with FrancisSheehy-Skeffington in the Dublin Socialist Society. Dudley Edwards gained an MA from UniversityCollege, Dublin in 1931 and a PhD from King's College, London in 1933. He taught modem Irishhistory at UCD from 1939 and was Professor from 1945 until retirement in 1979. He published onsubjects as diverse as church and state in Tudor Ireland to the Great Famine, Daniel O'Connell to .sources for history students and researchers. Together with the late T.W. Moody, he founded IrishHistorical Studies in 1938, the formative· and senior Irish history journal that has done so much todevelop standards, nationally and internationally for the subject. As a teacher he could be outstandingand his influence on successive generations of historians is testimony to his ability and impact.Dudley Edwards was ever a willing friend to the Irish Labour History Society, although he wouldnever have claimed to be a labour historian. Perhaps an innate sense of concern for the underprivilegedand a residual sense of disgust at injustice accounted for this sympathetic attitude. He played a role,indirectly, in the genesis of the Society. He was responsible for the Survey of Business Recordsundertaken by his students in Dublin in the summer and autumn of 1972. This survey revealedsomething of the wealth of trade unions records in the city and the urgent need for their preservationgave new impetus to the idea of establishing an Irish labour history society. Those with whom the ideawas already germinating, Fergus D' Arcy, a colleague of Dudley's at UCD, Matt O'Neill of the IrishTransport and General Workers' Union and Padraig 6 Snodaigh of the National Museum, were nowjoined by one of Dudley' s students, Ken Hannigan, who had u)1dertaken the trade union records survey,and the archivist Greagoir 6 Duill who had helped to guide the work. This group drew in others andformally launched the Society in 1973. Dudley Edwards had certainly set part of the final process intomotion. All the academics involved in that unique alliance with trade union activists were either. students or ex-students of his.Dudley Edwards was a member of the initial Saothar Editorial Advisory Board, serving in thiscapacity from 1976 until 1983. As an editor, I found him generous of his time and, when we met, fullof suggestions and willing to indicate potential contributors. His major contribution to the ILHS,however, was in the development of the Irish Labour History Society Archive. Dudley possessed anall encompassing vision for archives and was one of the architects of the concept of a National Archive.He was instrumental in convincing government of the need for a modem policy of access along the linesof contemporary European state archives.He established the Department of Archives at UCD in the early 1970s both to house collections andto train professional archivists. Dudley had already assisted in the development of an archivalconsciousness within the trade union movement and, together with the Society President, John Swift,was responsible for the arrangement whereby Society deposits remain the property in trust of the ILHSand the depositing trade union or individual. He was an enthusiast and I recall the glint behind thosebottle end glasses as he greeted boot loads of Limerick Bakers' records or the arrival from Dundalk ofIrish Shoe and Leather Workers' Union material. He stood in the hallway at Stephen's Green and gaveus all a sense of purpose and resolve to go out again and retrieve more from the jaws of oblivion.Afterwards, he generously directed archival students to the tasks of listing, cataloguing and introducingILHS deposits. His contribution to the work of the Society in this area was immense.We extend our deepest sympathy to his three children. His passing leaves a void that will not befilled. He will be missed.4Frands Devine,President, ILHS
CorrespondenceThe Irish Labour Party, 1927-1933 Debate ContinuedMy article in Saothar 11 deals with theLaboUr Party (LP) for the period 1927-33 only. Iattempted to portray the fortunes of the LP ascompared with those of the other parties strictlywithin that period - a period that witnessed greatstrains and tensions in party politics and culminatedin the highest-ever turn-out in a generalelection. The basic problem faced by the LP wasone of identity. This was recognised by Norton'sstrong leadership in 1932 and the LP emerged atthe end of this period as a far more identifiableparty than it had been in 1927.Ellen Hazelkom (Saothar 12 , Correspondence)alleges that I ignore' the distinction between classidentity and electoral popularity'. This is not thecase: the decision to separate the party from thelTUC in 1930 recognised that working-classidentity, as represented by the LP up to 1930,extended only to trade unionists. The attempt tobroaden the party's appeal to the working-classmeant shedding that narrow image and appealingto the vast majority ofIrish workers who were nottrade unionists. 'Electoral popularity' (to useHazelkom's phrase) demanded such a departure.Incidentally, electoral popularity is (or should be)a motivating force for any political party. Hazelkom'sdescri ption of the separation of the ILPTUC into two distinct organisations as 'merely(my emphasis) an attempt to stem the tide ofelectoral decline' seriously underestimates theimportance of electoral behaviour for any politicalparty. There was no 'desire to abandon class'as Hazelkom argues, rather a recognition that theclass which the LP sought to represent was notfully catered for by the offical trade union movement.Hazelkom refers to events outside the scopeof my article. The deletion of the 'Workers'Republic' concept from the party's constitutionand the split of 1944 were indeed highly significant.But it is totally wrong to charge the LP ofbeing' devoid of ideological and class substance'.How could such a party operating in the Ireland ofthe 1930s ever have inserted a clause in itsconstitution calling for a Workers' Republic?The charge that the LP was (is?) 'devoid ofclass substance ' is refuted not only by a long listof policy papers and programmes that go backbeyond the Democratic Programme of the firstDail, but also by analysis ofthe social backgroundof both party representatives and supporters whichis, and always has been, overwhelmingly working-class.Enda McKay,St. Anne's,Margaret Road,Malahide,Co. DublinWomen in Irish HistoryI am engaged in a research project on womenin Irish history - more specifically on women inradical politics in Ireland from the end of theeighteenth century to the 1850s. I would be veryinterested in contacting fellow researchers on thesubject, or those working generally on women inIrish history.Priscilla Metscher,Heidland 15,2802 Ottersberg 2,Federal Republic of GermanyTrade Union Records in theRegistry of Friendly Societies,DublinI am grateful to Enda McKay of the ILHS TradeUnion and Labour Records Survey for drawingmy attention to the following errors contained inthe list of 'Trade Union Files' appended to the endof my article on 'Trade Union Records in the5
Page 1 and 2: JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY
Page 3 and 4: ContentsPageEditorial: Labour Histo
Page 5: EDITORIAL 3freedom to participate i
Page 9 and 10: ; ~ ; ,The Decline and Fall of Donn
Page 11 and 12: THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBROOK
Page 15 and 16: ·' THE DECLINE AND FALL OF DONNYBR
Page 25 and 26: ,'-,;-''''.A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 23C
Page 27 and 28: A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 25only in the
Page 29 and 30: A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 27clothing._De
Page 31 and 32: A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 29established
Page 33 and 34: ;:-.",.- .. .", ...... '.:. '
Page 35 and 36: LOUIE BENNETI 33feminist movement w
Page 37 and 38: :... ~: ."
Page 39 and 40: -.- '.LOUlE BENNETT 37While there i
Page 41 and 42: LOUIE ~ENNEIT 39Xl's encyclical Qua
Page 43 and 44: LOUIE BENNEIT 41Bennett's own relat
Page 45 and 46: LODIE BENNETT 43109; IWWU resolutio
Page 47 and 48: Essays in ReviewCosherers, Wanderer
Page 49 and 50: ••• .".'. >. '~"ESSA YS IN RE
Page 51 and 52: ESSAYS IN REVIEW 49ConnolIy:Myth an
Page 53 and 54: ESSAYS IN ~EVIEW 51tion' in the Int
Page 55 and 56: ESSAYS IN REVIEW53International:'I
Page 57 and 58:
REVIEWScontroversy is real history.
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REVIEWSJoe Monks was among the earl
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REVIEWSnolly-Column Song','Proudly
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REVIEWSresulting from the arrival o
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REVIEWS,63the book by means of an a
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REVIEWSlogue, it is hardly surprisi
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The Team For All Workers ...CULIAIB
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ESSAYS 69mission and moral refonn.l
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.. ...... ~.~ -~ .'- '.ESSAYS. 71fr
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ESSAYS 73claimed authority but whic
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ESSAYS 75provided the basis for soc
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ESSAYS 779. For comparisons see E.T
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ESSAYS 7952. Annals of Christ Churc
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ESSAYS' 81Fianna Fail and the Worki
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ESSAYS 83Eireann in 1925 visibly di
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ESSAYS 85recognition of the impract
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ESSAYS 871970, it created the condi
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ESSAYS89The Irish Immigrants' Contr
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ESSAYS" 91Although anti -Catholic p
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ESSAYS 93McCowie played a key role
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:. -,,'.' ',. .~.,:.ESSAYS 95Althou
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ESSAYS 97young girl of their own ba
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SourcesIrish Labour History Society
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SOURCES 101INovember, 1971 to no. 1
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SOURCES 103would claim credit for t
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SOURCES105Sources for Irish Labour
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SOURCES 107NorthWest Archives and L
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SOURCES 109In 1966 the Finnish gove
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TURNINGANEWLEAFThe CPSSUis the larg
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REMINISCENCE 113us due to my politi
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REMINISCENCE 115when Jim was presen
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REMINISCENCE 117of Dail Eireann. 17
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REMINISCENCE 119NotesThe above arti
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DOCUMENT STUDY 121James Connolly in
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DOCUMENT STUDY123SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
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DOCUMENT STUDY 125proletariat of th
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DOCUMENT STUDY 127the support of Je
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DOCUMENT STUDY 12926. The Workers'
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131BibliographyA Bibliography of Ir
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 133Compton, P.A. Demog
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 135Levine, I. and Madd
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 137Turner, M. 'Towards
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 1394. Land and Agricul
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 141Clogher Record12 (2
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 143Political Research
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 145Pres, 1987.O'Brien,
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147Notes on Contributorsf onathanBe
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1901: Ireland's first general union
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ELECTRICAL TRADES UNION .Establishe
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