A City in Wartime

by Pádraig Yeates

  Meanwhile his position within the national movement was strengthened by a fund-raising trip to the United States on behalf of the Gaelic League, organised by another IRB member, Diarmuid Lynch. The trip lasted from January to October 1914, and Ashe met Casement there, who was fund-raising for the Volunteers. Like Casement, and his namesake Michael Ashe, he welcomed the prospect of a ‘German-Irish entente’ and said Ireland could ‘rule the British Isles from College Green’. During his American stay Ashe urged the Coiste Gnótha to take a strong stand against partition, which would help him raise funds from Irish-Americans.47 He asked, equally unsuccessfully, for newsreel film of hurling matches and Volunteer parades to be sent over. He told the secretary of the Gaelic League, Pádraig Ó Dálaigh, that he could raise $500 a showing. His instincts were sound. At the very time he was looking for films the American director John Sidney Olcott was making silent feature films in Killarney to exploit the Irish-American demand for romantic stories with a strong sentimental nationalist streak. Ashe collected $1,000 for the Irish Volunteers in America and sent it to Tom Clarke.48

  Ashe was furious at the news of Redmond’s support for the British war effort. He wrote to a friend on 24 August 1914:

  Let us reverse the pictures of Emmet on our walls. No slavish people ever did what we propose doing—defend our land and our people for the tyrant during his difficulties that he may come when they are over and enchain us again.

  He added that Irish-Americans were so infuriated with Redmond that they had stopped sending funds.

  Ashe returned from the United States shortly afterwards, via Belfast, where he discussed the political situation with James Connolly and Cathal O’Shannon of the ITGWU. He told them of the violent Irish-American reaction to Redmond’s Woodenbridge speech.49 Connolly soon followed Ashe to Dublin, to become acting general secretary of the ITGWU after Larkin left for America.

  When Connolly set up the Irish Neutrality League the following year Ashe was one of the first to join. Meanwhile he threw himself into organising the Volunteers in north Co. Dublin and organised the only attempt at large-scale manoeuvres involving his own battalion and the north city battalions in open country.50 It was generally agreed to be a shambles, but Ashe learnt valuable lessons, including the need to train his units as potential flying columns in the event of a rising.51

  Of course neither of the Ashes was typical either in his situation or in his response to Redmond’s speech at Woodenbridge. If perhaps 2,000 Dublin Volunteers remained true to the Provisional Committee leadership, more than 21,000 men volunteered for service under the Crown in the first two years of the war; and by the time the war ended 25,644 Dubliners had served in the British army.52

  The capital had always been fertile recruiting ground for the British army. Between 1899 and 1913 there was only one year when Belfast, with a substantially larger population, contributed more men than Dublin. In some years Dublin provided double, and even treble, the Belfast figure.53 A major reason for the disparity was the high level of unemployment in Dublin among unskilled workers, who provided a traditional source of recruits.

  The 1911 census shows that there were 17,269 general labourers in the city and 2,044 factory labourers. Another 10,358 workers were employed in relatively low-skilled jobs such as messengers, porters and coal heavers. These accounted for more than 27 per cent of the male working population, or up to five times the percentage for British cities. Dublin Corporation occasionally spent money on projects such as road works to alleviate the problem but it refused to adopt the Unemployed Workmen’s Act until parliamentary grants were introduced to administer it in 1906. Even then, the Corporation’s Distress Committee restricted eligibility to work on relief schemes to men living in the city for at least two years.

  When the Liberal government established a system of labour exchanges in 1909, Dublin absorbed 60 per cent of all available unemployment funds for Ireland. The numbers signing on regularly exceeded those in much larger British cities, such as Glasgow and Manchester, not to mention Belfast.54

  The British Army not only provided an escape route from poverty, but offered enhanced career prospects for soldiers returning to civilian life. Rightly, or wrongly, there was a perception that Protestant and Unionist employers in Dublin looked more favourably on ex-soldiers applying for a job. Furthermore, a soldier could earn up to 7s a week as a reservist after leaving the colours. This could transform his quality of life. Ireland’s leading social scientist, D.A. Chart, estimated that, in 1914, a labourer’s family had a disposable income of only 3s 1d out of a weekly wage of 18s, after the essentials of rent, food, heat and light were paid for. An additional 7s made possible the renting of better accommodation and the purchase of decent clothes, food and footwear, not to mention the occasional family treat.

  The defeat of Jim Larkin and the ITGWU in the 1913 Lockout undoubtedly increased unemployment amongst trade union militants blacklisted in the dispute, but there is little evidence to support the notion that hundreds joined the British Army. On the contrary, many availed of one-way boat tickets provided by TUC affiliates to seek jobs in Britain in early 1914 when the Lockout ended. Certainly, when war broke out in August 1914 there was a report in the Dublin Evening Post of an apocryphal ‘Dockers Company’ formed in the ‘Pals’ Battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers from blacklisted men. However this seems unlikely because the surge in military traffic caused by the outbreak of war, combined with the recall of dockers who were reservists to the colours, created an immediate labour shortage in the port. The Post also reported that members of the Orange Order linked Loyal Dublin Volunteers were joining up suggesting it was promoting the idea of war as a unifying force in Ireland against a common foe.55

  But the flow of recruits from Dublin in 1914 was never as great as from British cities or Belfast.56 The response to the initial call to arms came from the Unionist community and Catholic professionals who identified strongly with the promised Home Rule dispensation. To some extent this reflected British trends where the rate of volunteering was highest among the middle classes.57 Subsequent working-class recruitment was very much on economic grounds as will be seen below.

  Lawyers in Dublin gathered as early as 10 August at the Imperial Hotel to discuss forming a company and they would merge with similar groups to form the 7th ‘Pals’ Battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers.58 The moving spirit behind the battalion was Frank Browning, one of Ireland’s leading cricketers and president of the Irish Rugby Football Union. He used the Lansdowne Road grounds for organising and training a ‘Volunteer Corps’ that was generally open to the city’s middle classes, who were even provided with a new recruiting office in Grafton Street. As the Dublin Fusiliers’ nickname in the army was the ‘Toughs’, the ‘Pals’ Battalion was dubbed ‘the Toffs in the Toughs’. Men too old or unfit for active service were formed into the Georgius Rex Reserve Corps, or Georgeous Wrecks as Dubliners christened them.

  On Wednesday 16 September the ‘Pals’ Battalion received the greatest send-off of any British Army contingent from the capital.

  Barristers, doctors, solicitors, stockbrokers, barbers, medical students, engineering students, arts students, businessmen who had responsible positions, civil servants and insurance agents—marched off to Kingsbridge station en route to the Curragh Camp for training, receiving a great ovation from the public and their friends as they went. From almost every window in Nassau Street, College Green and Dame Street, handkerchiefs and hands were waved to them.59

  Their Gethsemane would come in 1915 at Gallipoli. Meanwhile the ‘old sweats’ of the reserve had already departed unnoticed to man the trenches on the Western Front. Many would die before the New Year dawned.60

  Dissent never disappeared entirely. As early as 25 September a recruiting meeting at the Mansion House in Dublin addressed by the Prime Minister and Redmond was interrupted by hecklers. The meeting was held to coincide with the opening of the new recruitment office in Grafton Street, which would provide a more salubrious venue for respe
ctable applicants who wished to join the colours than the existing premises in Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street). Once more the Earl of Meath was involved in the initiative, along with Sir Maurice Dockrell, a respected employer and a leading figure in the unionist community in the city. The incidents at the meeting were serious enough to warrant a request for a full report from the commander in chief, Field-Marshal Kitchener.61

  The disruptive elements came primarily from the ranks of militant nationalists and the labour movement. Jim Larkin held a counter-demonstration outside the Bank of Ireland in College Green. He called on the crowd to swear ‘hatred to the Empire,’ while the Irish Volunteers confronted the DMP, augmented by members of the AOH in Dawson Street, outside the Mansion House meeting. By an unfortunate coincidence for the recruitment drive, one of the civilians wounded at Bachelor’s Walk, forty-year-old Sylvester Pidgeon, had died earlier the same day, and the news was broadcast around the city by opponents of the war.62

  While small in numbers, the Volunteers possessed a much stronger appeal than the British army for those interested in active citizenship. Skilled industrial workers, white-collar workers and members of the professions made up two-thirds of the membership. Even those recruited from lower social classes tended to be upwardly mobile individuals. The democratic structure of the Volunteers, allowing for debate, the election of officers and an opportunity to influence policy at conventions, made it infinitely more appealing than the blind obedience and lack of respect for most things Irish that recruits experienced in the British military machine.63

  Once the initial emotional surge was over, the main appeal of the British army was to the urban unemployed and unskilled workers. A breakdown of recruitment figures for 1915 suggests that the recruitment rate in the city of Dublin was three times higher than in the county. Given the concentration of middle-class and unionist populations in the latter area, this would suggest that economic necessity continued to be the main factor driving men to join up.64 Of course some were ex-regulars who were part of the reserve and liable to being called up in the event of war.65 These men would have been mobilised immediately, and by mid-August 1914 the Irish Builder was complaining about the bulk of Dublin builders’ labourers being called up as members of the reserve. At the same time large retailers were complaining about the dearth of young porters and messenger boys, who were deserting for military service. This probably reflects the poor pay and conditions of these youngsters as much as any enthusiasm for the military life.

  There was also a significant ‘pull’ factor in recruitment. Unlike the Continental powers, Britain did not have conscription, and various initiatives were needed to promote enlistment. Within a week the government decided that civil servants who joined up would receive their full pay, have military service counted for pension purposes and have their jobs kept open for the duration of the war. The Local Government Board adopted a similar approach, but it was up to individual local authorities whether or not to adopt such a scheme.

  Dublin Corporation implemented it with little enthusiasm and only provided half pay; even this was stopped for employees whom they felt did not require it.66 The Dublin Port and Docks Board was another public body that released reservists for military duty on half pay.

  Some large employers, such as the Dublin distilling companies and Guinness, promised to hold jobs for employees who enlisted. Guinness provided half pay, and more than 650 men from the brewery took part in the war, of whom 104 were killed. Volunteers came from all grades and included two directors of the company, Viscount Elveden and W. W. Guinness MP. In all, more than ninety Guinness employees received a commission or its equivalent.67 Penal rates of tax on alcoholic beverages and restrictions on consumption were to have a catastrophic effect on business, and it was in the interests of brewers and distillers to encourage recruitment among surplus staff as the war progressed.

  However, the patriotic instincts of other companies that were strongholds of unionist sentiment, such as the railways, conflicted with the need to maintain adequate staffing levels, because their services were in greater demand than ever. Although the largest company, the Great Southern and Western Railway, immediately offered to pay 4s a week to the wife of any man who joined up, and 5s if the couple had children, it soon became concerned at the possible effect on operations. Sir William Goulding, chairman of the GSWR and of the Railway Association, representing the other operators, sought to secure some control over the recruitment process on behalf of the industry.

  The railway companies had a strong bargaining position, as they could point to their statutory obligation to provide essential services to the state, while the British government tended to see Ireland primarily as an underdeveloped recruiting ground. It was not until November 1915 that a working agreement was achieved with the Lord Lieutenant and the director-general of recruiting for Ireland, Lord Wimborne. He gave an assurance that no man would be recruited from the railway companies who was considered indispensable to their operation, and in return Goulding gave an assurance that enlistment slips would be distributed to all railway employees. The undertaking to be signed by would-be volunteers read:

  I voluntarily undertake to enlist for the period of the War in the Division, Regiment or battalion I mention. I understand I will not be called upon without the previous consent of my Company.

  A circular was also sent out by the GSWR to all men earning not more than £200 a year, giving the amounts it would pay to employees who joined up. Those who had a wife or children were guaranteed the equivalent of four-fifths of their basic pay, taking into account any separation allowance provided by the army. For single men or widowers the directors said they would look at claims for other dependants, such as elderly parents, on their merits.

  The railway companies all gave a commitment to re-employ men in ‘similar positions’ to those they vacated if they were physically fit to carry out the work at the end of the war or on their discharge. The GSWR also agreed at an early stage in the war to maintain pension contributions to the Railway Clearing System Superannuation Fund in order to preserve servicemen’s pension rights. Other railway companies soon followed suit.

  Of more immediate concern was a resurgence in militancy among railway workers in Britain and Ireland. Their bargaining position was transformed by the war. Many of them were essential for maintaining services and too highly skilled to be replaced easily. On 5 February 1915 the National Union of Railwaymen served a pay claim on the Irish companies that had already been conceded in Britain. The smaller companies, such as the Midland Great Western Railway and the Dublin and South-Eastern Railway, were willing to negotiate, as they felt ‘they made better settlements with the aid of the Union than with their men alone, that recognition is bound to come sooner or later and that the companies would do better to accept the inevitable.’ The larger employers, and particularly the GSWR, which had smashed the 1911 strike by railwaymen, wanted to hold out.

  In truth their situations were very different. Despite overall control by the War Office, the Irish companies still retained more autonomy than their British counterparts. One drawback to this comparative freedom was that they could not expect a subvention from the exchequer to meet increased wage costs. By the beginning of March the Irish companies conceded increases of between 1s and 1s 6d a week, compared with increases of 2s to 3s a week in Britain. While the smaller, loss-making concerns applied successfully for state subsidies to meet the cost of wage increases, the highly profitable GSWR found its application rejected. In a statement to the newspapers the secretary of the GSWR, R. Crawford, said his company had been refused a 4 per cent increase in fares because

  it had operated more efficiently than its competitors and reduced costs. It was now being penalised for its success and was having to pay the increases out of its reserves. Under these circumstances my Board think that they are acting generously and have the welfare of their employees at heart, in giving these increases when they would be fully justified, having regard to the
ir anomalous position in not increasing their liabilities.

  He stressed that these were not wage increases but ‘special allowances to the staff to continue until the end of the year, should the war last so long.’ He dubbed the pay increase a ‘War Allowance.’68

  The outcome reflected to a degree the changing balance of forces in the Dublin labour market. While the great surge of volunteers was dropping sharply, and was long spent before the end of 1915, the railways had already haemorrhaged more men than they could comfortably afford to lose, especially in the crafts. Sir William Goulding might express disappointment at the ‘poor response’ of employees to the latest recruiting drive and promise to make ‘a strong appeal’ at the next shareholders’ meeting, on 23 March 1916, but privately he advised the military authorities against sending canvassers to recruit men directly in the works.

  It would be far better if they [the employers] urged them in every way and leave it to the Companies to say who could not be spared. You may be certain we won’t retain any that can be done without.69

  The Easter Rising was now five weeks away, and public sentiment was about to change dramatically.

  Not that public sentiment among Dublin workers was ever that much in favour of the war. Among corporation employees who did not have to worry about job security or what their employer thought, only 169 had joined the forces by 1916. A little more than half of these were from the Paving and Cleansing Departments, where the relatively poor pay and working conditions were probably incentives. Labourers constituted the majority of recruits in most corporation departments; the exceptions were relatively small and included the Tuberculosis Unit, from which one nurse, one clerk and one labourer joined up, and the Public Health Service, from which three sanitary officers, one disinfector and two labourers did so. In the Main Drainage (Loan) Department the two labourers were balanced by two engineers, and in the Workshops four skilled workers and three labourers volunteered. Altogether only nine corporation employees who could be construed as professionals volunteered, compared with 113 labourers. This reflected the general class bias that saw labourers disproportionately represented in the armed forces.70