William OBrien

Home > People > History > British and Irish History: Biographies

O'Brien, William (1881–1968), labour leader. Born in Co. Cork, a policeman's son, O'Brien became a tailor in Dublin. Although his early trade union experience was in his own craft union, he strongly supported the organization of unskilled and casual workers, assisting Larkin in the creation of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and sponsoring Connolly's return to Ireland in 1910. He was also a leading figure in the launching of the Labour Party, and secretary of the workers' committee in the Dublin lockout of 1913. Though not a participant in the rising of 1916, he had agreed to serve on the provisional government to be set up in the event of success, and was interned. On his release he assisted in reconstructing the ITGWU, becoming acting general secretary in 1918.

Following Larkin's return to Ireland in 1921 a power struggle quickly developed, based partly on the contrast between Larkin's revolutionary socialism and O'Brien's reformism, but also involving an increasingly bitter personal hostility. O'Brien's determination to deny his rival a role in the Irish labour movement led him in 1944 to disaffiliate the ITGWU from the Labour party, after it had selected Larkin as a prospective candidate, leading to the creation of the rival National Labour Party. Fear that the growing influence in the Irish Trade Union Congress of British‐based unions would undermine opposition to Larkin's readmission there likewise played a part in O'Brien's decision to lead a secession from congress in 1945 (see irish congress of trade unions).

William O'Brien 1852–1928, Irish journalist and political leader. He became (1881) editor of a newspaper, United Ireland, which championed the Irish agrarian cause (see Irish Land Question ). Imprisoned in the same year, he wrote, at the behest of Charles Parnell , the famous No Rent Manifesto. He sat in the British Parliament (1883–95, 1900–1918), initiated the United Irish League (1898), which helped to reunite the pro- and anti-Parnell factions of the nationalist movement, and helped shape the Wyndham Land Act of 1903. Later he founded the All-for-Ireland League, advocating a more conciliatory policy toward Britain. He wrote Recollections (1905), Evening Memories (1920), and The Irish Revolution (1923); his letters were edited by his wife, S. F. O'Brien, as Golden Memories (2 vol., 1929).

O'Brien, William (1852–1928). Irish nationalist. A journalist from Co. Cork, O'Brien became editor of United Ireland in 1881 and was imprisoned for his Irish Land League agitation until released under the Kilmainham treaty. In 1883 he was returned to the Westminster Parliament in which he served until 1918. In the Parnell split he was a moderate and worked for the reunification of the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1900. His passionate opposition to partition led him towards Sinn Fein. He did not stand for re‐election in 1918 and declined nomination to the Senate of the Irish Free State, since he refused to accept the treaty .