Irish Transport and General Workers' Union

Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), established in December 1908 following a final breach between James Larkin and his employers, the British‐based National Union of Dock Labourers. The new union, combining an ability to cater for the rapidly developing mood of industrial militancy with a distinctly nationalist flavour, grew rapidly. By mid‐1913 membership had risen to 10,000. Having survived defeat in the Dublin lockout of 1913, the ITGWU entered a second phase of dramatic growth from 1918, as it became the main organization for those who aspired to see social as well as political revolution emerge out of the developing Anglo‐Irish War. By 1920 membership had risen to 120,000. Much of this growth took place among a previously almost wholly unorganized group, the agricultural labourers. During this period syndicalism played a significant role in ITGWU strategy, and the union was involved in most of the soviets and local general strikes that took place. After 1922, however, labour militancy receded, and the ITGWU leadership, under William O'Brien, was drawn into a bitter conflict with Larkin's Workers' Union of Ireland. Aspirations to make the ITGWU the ‘One Big Union’ called for in syndicalist strategy faded. By 1923 membership had fallen to 87,000, and by 1929 to 15,453. Despite this the ITGWU remained the largest union in Ireland. Rapid post‐war growth brought membership back to an estimated 120,000 by 1950, and during the 1970s and 1980s it absorbed a number of smaller unions.