James Larkin Week

This is the last of Chris' Sponsored Posts and his suggested topic was 'the impact of Larkinism on the Irish Working Class'.

Right.

I actually did a module called 'Labour, Nationalism and Unionism' but oddly I don't remember covering James Larkin or his impact on the Irish working class. This, as it turns out, is largely because it was all post-WW2. I know this because I have the file in front of me. My essay for that module was on the Northern Ireland Labour Party split of 1949. I'm sure you're all familiar with it, so no need to go over it here.

So, instead I will tell you, in a tenuous link style, five ways this was James Larkin Week for me.

1. James Larkin's birthday was Tuesday. On Tuesday I had a lovely morning off work (it was exam week, which was great til the marking came in. Ugh marking.) I celebrated Larkin by marking History essays in my jammies. I think he would have approved of a worker's right to mark in jammies.

2. James Larkin was born and lived for a while in Liverpool. Today I texted Brian who lives in Liverpool. Eh…yeah, I'm out.

3. James Larkin lived in County Down. I was nearly in Co. Down today. Well I was in East Belfast at the Soul Mates Day of Prayer. I like our Soul Mates people; we have some good people involved. I imagine James Larkin thought he had good people in the Trade Union movement. Unless he thought they were all spos.

4. James Larkin went to America. I Facetimed Megann in America for, like, a minute today. That's practically the same as going to America because I felt like I was at her table eating lunch with her, even though it was tea time here.

5. James Larkin said 'The great appear great because we are on his knees: Let us rise.' I'm not sure I said anything equally as profound this week but I did write a tweet that made me laugh, well the situation it was based around made me laugh. 'Had an emailed Word doc on my screen written in Comic Sans. Someone came into my room. As they left, I panicked they might think it's mine.' James Larkin didn't like Comic Sans either. I'm pretty sure the industrialists' insistence on using Comic Sans is what started the whole union affair in Ireland.

So that's it, those are my five ways this has been James Larkin Week.

Might take to a bit of Wiki editing to update Larkin's entry. At least to get James Larkin Week to be a thing.