Outdoor Relief Protests

Outdoor Relief Protests, a campaign waged in Belfast, 4–14 October 1932, by unemployed workers and their supporters for an improvement in welfare benefits. The movement, which had widespread Catholic and Protestant support, was organized by the Revolutionary Workers' Group, northern wing of the Irish communist movement. Most of its leaders, including Tommy Geehan and Betty Sinclair, had previously split from the Northern Ireland Labour Party. Local property taxes and relief rates were considerably lower in Belfast than in the main British industrial cities, and unemployment in the city was above 25 per cent. After massive demonstrations, leading to serious rioting and two deaths when the police intervened, the local authorities made major concessions to head off further trouble. Relief was raised from a minimum of 8 shillings per week (max. 24 shillings) to a minimum of 20 shillings (max. 32 shillings). Geehan correctly claimed the outcome as a ‘glorious victory’, and indeed it represents one of communism's few successes in Irish (or British) history. But it did not lead to electoral advances for the Communists, nor to a general lowering of the sectarian divide in Belfast, let alone imply any incipient harmonization of the views of Catholic and Protestant workers on the national question.

A. C. Hepburn