Larkin, Delia (1878–1949)

Irish labor leader. Born Brigid Larkin in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, on February 22, 1878; died in Dublin, Ireland, on October 26, 1949; fifth child of James Larkin and Mary Ann (McNulty) Larkin; sister of James (Big Jim) Larkin (a labor leader); educated at Chipping Street elementary school, Liverpool; married Peter Colgan, on February 8, 1921.

Delia Larkin's public life as an organizer of Irish women workers was overshadowed by her more famous older brother James (Big Jim) Larkin, and it is only in recent years that her activities and contribution to Irish labor have begun to receive their due. Her parents were both from Northern Ireland and had immigrated to Liverpool shortly after their marriage in the mid-1860s. She was christened Brigid, although she was known all her life as Delia; her mother had signed her birth certificate with a cross, an indication she was illiterate. The family lived in Toxteth, one of the poorest parts of Liverpool, where overcrowding, sickness, poverty and high infant mortality were rife. Delia's elder sister Agnes died when she was a baby. Her father died in 1887 when Delia was nine and, like her older brothers Jim and Hugh Larkin, she had to go to work early in order to support the family. Though she never had the chance of further education, for the rest of her life she loved poetry and drama.

In Liverpool, Larkin worked as a nurse and as a teacher; at the time, neither occupation required a professional qualification. Her brother James had become actively involved in labor politics on the Liverpool docks, and in 1907 he went to Belfast as an organizer for the National Union of Dock Laborers. In 1909, he founded the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU). Delia also left Liverpool for Ireland, and by 1911 she had joined James and his family in Dublin. Although Delia was initially skeptical, it was decided to start a women's trade union as part of the ITGWU. The first advertisement for the Irish Women Workers Union (IWWU) appeared in the Irish Worker (the ITGWU's paper, in which Delia had a column) in the summer of 1911. That September, the union was launched, and in her column Delia declared: "All we ask for is just shorter hours, better pay than the scandalous limit now existing and conditions of labor befitting a human being."

As her biographer Theresa Moriarty has noted, women trade unionists were very isolated at the time. The membership never amounted to more than 1,000, and they lacked the organizational experience of their male colleagues. Larkin built up her union around the members' militancy and gave unstintingly of her energy and commitment. The union was based at the ITGWU headquarters in Liberty Hall in Dublin. Larkin was available there to members seven days a week and built up a united organization with strong loyalties. She arranged discussion groups and social events, outings, concerts, drama groups and dances.

The IWWU soon had branches in other Irish cities and towns, but most of the members worked for small firms; Jacob's biscuit factory in Dublin was the only workplace where the union could count its membership in the hundreds. The union won two small strikes in 1912 but was less successful the following year, when membership dropped to 700. At the end of August 1913, the IWWU became involved in the great lock-out of workers which followed the tramway strike. Over 300 women workers were locked out of Jacob's because they were wearing the IWWU badge in support of the tramway strikers. When James Larkin went to England to seek British support for the strike, Delia helped to organize support for the strikers at Liberty Hall. She also arranged to bring strikers' children to England to be looked after. This precipitated a major row with the Catholic archbishop of Dublin, who feared that the children's faith would be undermined.

After the lock-out ended, nearly 400 IWWU members were sacked. In order to raise funds, Larkin went on tour with a drama group comprising some of the sacked workers. Financially the tour was not a success, and this brought to a head tensions between the ITGWU and the IWWU, tensions aggravated by divisions between James Larkin and his ITGWU rival William O'Brien. In September 1914, the IWWU was ordered to leave Liberty Hall, and in October James Larkin went to the United States. In July 1915, after further months of wrangling, Delia Larkin left Dublin for London, where she helped to nurse wounded soldiers. This did not indicate support for World War I. In the United States, her brother James was actively campaigning against the war, as was her brother Peter Larkin in Australia who was subsequently imprisoned.

Delia Larkin returned to Dublin in 1918 and worked for the insurance section of the ITGWU. Humiliatingly, she was excluded from membership of the IWWU. There also was a further outbreak of factionalism within the ITGWU in which she became involved. At this point, she considered going to Australia to stay with her brother Peter and his wife. A copy of her letter was intercepted by the Australian police who considered her "no improvement on her brothers." Shortly after this, at the height of the red scare, James was arrested in America for criminal anarchy and sentenced to three years. Delia agitated ceaselessly for both her brothers.

Delia Larkin largely disappeared from public view after her marriage to Peter Colgan in February 1921, although her apartment became a gathering point for young left-wing writers such as Liam O'Flaherty, Sean O'Casey, and Peadar O'Donnell. When her brother James returned to Ireland in 1923, she organized a drama group for the new union he set up, the Workers Union of Ireland. James lived with her and her husband in his last years, before dying in 1947. When Delia Larkin died in 1949, she was buried beside him and her brother Peter in Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin.

sources:

Moriarty, Theresa. "Delia Larkin: Relative Obscurity" and "Larkin and the Women's Movement" in James Larkin: Lion of the Fold. Ed. by Donal Nevin. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1998, pp. 93–101, 428–438.

Deirdre McMahon , lecturer in history at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland