Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ Richard O’CarrollTown Councillor, Trade Unionist, Labour Activist And Volunteer.

Richard O’Carroll was born in 1876 into a working-class family in Dublin. He married Annie Esther (nee Power) and between them the couple produced seven children. 

Like his contemporary James Connolly Richard was active in the labour and trade union movement and later in 1916 was active in the Easter Rising. 

In 1906 he was elected to the position of General Secretary of his union; the Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stonelayers. Richard O’Carroll despite his elevation to a fulltime position in the union never neglected his rank-and-file duties, as he saw them. Many activists once they reached fulltime status considered the everyday work of trade unionism below them, something which local shop stewards and activists should be sorting out. This was not the case with Richard O’Carroll who, if needed was never afraid to return to his roots and the everyday work of trade union organisation, rank-and-file union business. 

On one occasion, not long before his death, in March 1916 O’Carroll received a letter from one of his unions local representatives who may have thought the problem was out of their depth. The letter explained the problem which was about men who worked a week on nights, and did not receive the correct rate for nocturnal hours of labour. The union official who the men spoke to passed the case up to Richard who rectified the problem successfully, securing the night rate of pay for the work. Another case of Richard involving himself at rank-and-file level was an instance in which building work was contracted to be done in brick. Suddenly the client decided, for cost cutting reasons, that the building would be done in concrete instead claiming a shortage of bricks as the reason for their change of heart. This change, and technically breach of contract, threatened the jobs of the Bricklayers on the job. Richard O’Carroll knew the reason given, a shortage of bricks, was untrue so he scoured the brickyards where he found an abundance of the correct bricks for the specification of the work in question. This could not pass unchallenged, which O’Carroll did not allow to happen, and again the situation was resolved successfully, the terms of the building specification kept to, thus securing the men’s employment. 

This hands-on approach should act as a guideline for many modern fulltime officials within the trade union movement who, in many cases, every day union work is considered below them. The conducting of everyday trade union issues and keeping good contact with the members was not a labour for Richard, it was second nature.

Richard was a member of the Sinn Fein organisation and in 1906 he fell out with the organisation's President, Arthur Griffith. This would not have been difficult for a socialist, as Griffith opposed strikes and any form of militant working-class action which may have affected the so-called “natural order” of capitalism. This was and is a problem with broad church membership organisations: they cover too many class interests which often fall into conflict with each other. It must be stressed that Sinn Fein of the early twentieth century bore little political resemblance to either of today’s parties of the same name. The fact was Arthur Griffith was not even a republican let alone a socialist: he believed in the dual monarchist approach for Ireland based very much on the Austro/Hungary model. One monarch over two countries: each country, in this case Britain and Ireland, having separate parliaments as was the case with Austria and Hungary, sometimes referred to as “The Hungarian Way”.

Richard was also a member of the oath bound secretive organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and later in 1913 the Irish Volunteers. Just before the Irish Volunteers (IVF) were formed another military organisation, the Irish Citizen Army were in existence. This was effectively the military arm of the trade unions and, in particular the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU). Many people have asked why Richard was a member of the IVF and not the ICA? A fair point, politically the ICA would have been the obvious choice, if he had a choice! A possible reason for his involvement with the IVF and not the ICA was the IRB had infiltrated the Volunteers for revolutionary purposes and Richard, like all other IRB members was bound by his oath of allegiance, irrespective of personal preferences, to the IRB. He could not, even if he had wanted to, join an alternative movement because it was not IRB policy and strategy. 

The IRB strategy at the time was to infiltrate the larger and wealthier, because of its bourgeois nature and make up, Irish Volunteers and not the Irish Citizen Army. For Richard to exercise his preference, if indeed it was his preference, and join the ICA may well have been in breach of his IRB oath. Had the Easter Rising resulted in an Irish victory it may have been probable Richard O’Carroll would have moved across to the trade union militia, the ICA. Class interests may have forced the pace here, and having kept his oath to the IRB for the insurrection, the Irish Citizen Army would, in my opinion, have been his natural choice and progression. The interests of the working-class would have come to the fore, something James Connolly had made provisions for in the ICA, as the right-wing of within the volunteers would have come further to the surface and in all probability become the policy makers for that movement and the IRB. Something which did happen after the treaty with Britain was signed in December 1921.

Richard also served on the Board of Poor Law Guardians, though as a socialist and trade unionist he did not accept such institutions as these should exist, there should have been no need for them. In a socialist Ireland they would not have existed, because the poverty which deemed them necessary would not have been there, but as things stood it was better to be in, monitoring the situation and ensuring poor people were not neglected any further than outside unable to influence anything. If people like Richard had not, albeit reluctantly, involved themselves on these bodies the affairs of the destitute would have been left to the bourgeoisie to control, unopposed, who gave little consideration to the needs of the poor, except how to keep them in a position of destitution to be used as slaves to bourgeois interests. Richard and other socialist minded people’s role in this organisation was to ensure this did not happen or at least minimise bourgeois exploitation.

In 1911 Richard O’Carroll was instrumental in the formation of the Dublin Labour Representation Committee. The following year along with James Connolly and Jim Larkin he was a founder of the Irish Labour Party in 1912. The formation of the Irish Labour Party would come about at the Irish Trade Union Congress conference at Clonmel Town Hall, County Tipperary, on the 27th-28th May 1912. A motion proposed by James Connolly calling for the establishment of a political wing was carried by 49 votes in favour to 18 against. Earlier in the year, January, Richard was elected as a labour candidate to Dublin Corporation. He was to lead the labour group, not yet a party as such until the dates outlined above on the corporation. The Irish Labour Party was independent of its British counterpart, though on areas of common interest and in the spirit of comradeship the two would work in conjunction with each other. The Irish Labour Party was as separate from the British variant as was the SPD in Germany, but still considered each other sister parties of the still united second international. The party stood for an independent socialist Ireland with fraternal links to the British model or, as Connolly once put it; ‘friends and comrades yes, “bedfellows” no’! The party like all other socialist groups of the day based their ideologies on the teachings and writings of Karl Marx.

By 1913 Richard had established fourteen branches of his union throughout Ireland, no small achievement at a time of anti-trade union feelings throughout Britain and Ireland as Victorian attitudes among the ruling-class still prevailed. Craft unions tended to be tolerated by the social elite, so-called, but unskilled workers organising was resisted with ferocity. Many of the skilled workers unions still held the mid-nineteenth century attitudes, then promoted by the Engineers Union, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) who had a motto; ‘defence not defiance’ and they considered themselves almost on a par with the employers. 

This snobbery did not apply to Richard O’Carroll and his union. In August of that year the turbulent events of the Dublin Lockout began. This was as struggle between the trade unions, primarily the ITGWU bringing into the dispute another thirty-six trade unions against the hitherto moribund Employer’s Federation consisting of 400 employers led by William Martin Murphy. Murphy had resurrected the Employers Federation, the forerunner of today’s IBEC, and used it as a kind of bosses union! He adopted the very same tactics he was trying to prevent his workers using, class solidarity.

Like many other trade unionists Richard O’Carroll gave speeches in support of the locked out and striking workers. What made Richard’s speeches a little more relevant was the fact he represented a craft union, most of whom gave little if any consideration to their unskilled locked out and striking colleagues. He threw the full weight of the AGIBS behind the suffering thousands of unskilled workers, such an oration was perhaps unique among the skilled workers unions. In those days and, to perhaps a lesser extent today, a certain snobbery existed(s) within the craft unions feeling they must stay aloof of their unskilled working-class brethren - this did not apply to the AGIBS and Richard O’Carroll. 

When the lockout came to an end in 1914 Richard O’Carroll was a trade union delegate on the Board of Enquiry set up by the British Government to look into the causes of the dispute. The Board of Enquiry was to be chaired by Sir George Askwith [not to be mistaken with Herbert Asquith the Prime Minister] and frankly, if to look into the causes of the lockout was its aims should not have been necessary. The causes of the dispute were plain for all who wished to see. William Martin Murphy was denying his employees the right to join a trade union of their choice, threatening to dismiss any employee who joined the ITGWU. Murphy planned and executed the lockout and no Board of Enquiry worthy of the name could possibly dispute that fact.

Murphy had come to a decision back in 1911 after the events of Wexford had resulted in the employers there being duped, in Murphy’s opinion, into accepting a settlement which in all but name recognised the ITGWU. After a lockout in Wexford, initiated by several employers, against the transport union designed to force their employees to renounce this organisation the employers settled for a compromise initiated by James Connolly. It did not recognise the ITGWU but did allow for the foundry workers, skilled and unskilled, to organise in the Irish Foundry workers Union which would be an affiliate of the ITGWU. It was the final piece of the deal which Murphy did not like, this “affiliate” bit. He saw it for what it was, a transport union Trojan Horse. The events of Wexford were a pre-cursor to what would happen in Dublin two years later.

Despite all the great and progressive work Richard O’Carroll had done he, like his contemporary Jim Larkin had one stain on his character, anti-Semitism. The language of the time did not restrict anti-Semitic remarks to ultra-nationalists like Arthur Griffith. Trade unionists and socialists were, alas, equally as guilty. Jim Larkin often made derogatory remarks against Jewish people and cartoons in the Irish Worker, edited by Larkin, often depicted capitalists as having large hooked noses, images often used to depict Jewish people. Richard O’Carroll attacked a Jewish builder called Ellion, not because he was an employer but because he was a Jew. Both Larkin and O’Carroll could claim they were simply lapsing into the odium of the day which was generally anti-Semitic, and today most certainly would not be tolerated. The language of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century accepted such vehemently racist and anti-Semitic remarks as part of the everyday narratives. This in no way is an attempt at excusing this language but maybe as it was not out of the ordinary these people did not consider they were saying anything wrong. To add credence to this claim not one person, all trade unionists, in the meeting spoke out against the use of such language. The words Jew and moneylender, capitalist and exploiter went synonymous in those days. It never appeared to cross anybody’s mind [with the exception of James Connolly] that there were just as many working-class Jewish people per capita as in any other ethnic group. No, the Jew was an exploiter and thief and thirty years later in Germany such unwarranted ideas were taken to their extreme. However, these events and narratives were before the Nazi Holocaust and nobody had a crystal ball to see where such comments could, and did lead. But persecution and discrimination against Jewish people had gone on for centuries [in 1190 local Jews were killed in a local pogrom at Cliffords Tower, York. Most committed suicide so as not to fall into the hands of the mob], so perhaps there was no excuse, had people read their history, and there would certainly be no accommodation for such comments today. As with Jim Larkin, this anti-Semitism was perhaps the only stain on Richard O’Carroll’s character, though at the time it would perhaps not have been seen as a stain.

Richard O’Carroll, as we know was a member of the IRB and therefore the Irish Volunteers and it was through his participation in the Easter Rising of 1916 which would cost him his life. The popular consensus as to how Richard met his demise appears to be that he was shot in Campden Street, having led his unit into action against the Crown Forces. Richard held the rank of Lieutenant and was under the overall command of Thomas McDonagh. He was one of the few working-class officers in the Volunteers, and all those were tradesmen unlike the Irish Citizen Army where all officers were elected and the majority came from the working-class, skilled and unskilled alike. The fall of Richard O’Carroll is not as simple as being shot, killed in action. There are two, perhaps three very different accounts of his death, the first being he was captured in Delahunt’s Bakery [or Byrnes grocery shop in the same area], having taken it as a mini-HQ for his engagement against the enemy. According to the popular version of his death he was arrested, taken out of the building by a certain Captain John Bowen-Colthurst, who had led the British raid on the rebel holdout, and shot in cold blood either by or on the orders of Bowen Colthurst. This is certainly believable as this particular British officer, later found conveniently insane and shipped off to Broadmoor, went on to shoot civilians in cold blood. One of his victims was the socialist and pacifist, Francis Sheehy Skeffington and two reporters who he gunned down in the yard of Portobello Barracks. When a soldier asked Bowen-Colthurst of O’Carroll; ‘Is he dead yet’ the Captain reportedly answered; ‘never mind he’ll die later.’ Richard O’Carroll was not dead and may have been able to be saved had he received immediate medical treatment. He was left by the less than noble British officer, loony or otherwise, and was picked up by a bread lorry and taken to hospital. He died of his injuries on 5th May 1916 nine days after he received his wounds.

Another account explaining Richard’s death, and much less consensual, suggests he was travelling along Camden Street on his motorcycle, pulled from his machine and shot in Wexford Street. This version does not tally with the popular concept that he was shot by a British officer in Camden Street having been captured first!

Another possibility is that he was indeed shot in Camden Street under circumstances broadly as laid out above but perhaps not by or on the orders of Bowen-Colthurst who was safely under lock and key in Broadmoor when the major enquiries started. However there was an internal enquiry into Bowen Colthurst’s actions, including the shootings of Sheehy Skeffington and Richard O’Carroll. The local investigation, if that is what it was, held at Portobello orderly room was perhaps less than thorough. Bowen Colthurst, who had led the British raid, may have been a convenient scapegoat, already suspected of being unstable. He may have been shot by British agents of the recently formed MI5 [established in 1909], even though he could have been taken prisoner, because he was an elected councillor, a socialist and a trade union official. 

What better guise to use than he was active in the Easter Rising to get a socialist out of the way, killing two birds with one stone so to speak. Either way it was claimed by the British O’Carroll was shot while trying to escape. The British Imperialist Power and their agents may well have seen in Richard O’Carroll, as was the case with James Connolly and perhaps Michael Mallin, both members of the ICA, an economic as well as a political threat. Could this have been the reason O’Carroll was shot and not taken prisoner? 

Either way the fact remains that Richard O’Carroll, Town Councillor, trade union official, Labour Party activist and socialist died on 5th May 1916 under circumstances not as clear cut as we are supposed to believe. For example, around the same time in Abbey Street, a group of Irish Volunteers were taken prisoner and they too could have been shot, as was Richard. Maybe these rebels were not known socialists so killing in cold blood did not give the same appetite to their would-be killers! The British military authorities attempted to erase O’Carroll’s name from the historical record!! 

Just a worthy thought because the sixteen men who were executed after the rising were all from what today we would call left of centre politically. From the Marxist James Connolly to Padraig Pearse, who gave some rousing anti-landlord speeches a left-wing current threaded through all these men. Notable to see those who were spared, from Michael Collins to Kevin O’Higgins, Michael J. Staines and a man who would become future President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, W.T. Cosgrave were of a centre to far right-wing political opinion. A point of observation which, for me holds more than a drop of water! Was it political [ethnic in one respect] cleansing of those considered socialist in their ideologies? The ruling-classes of the day were having difficulties recognising the formation of various labour parties entering the political field. Now, some of these would be socialists were taking up arms, Richard O’Carroll being one. Socialist entering the electoral process was one thing, taking up arms, perhaps hiding behind the nationalist aspirations as they saw it, was something totally different and unacceptable to the ruling classes of the day.

Richard O’Carroll, Town Councillor, trade unionist, Labour Party founder and activist, IRB member and Irish Volunteers died a very painful death, which could and should have been avoided, ten days after his injuries were sustained in Portobello infirmary on 5th May 1916. He should not have died and could – should – have been saved had medical treatment being administered earlier. Whether it was the madman, Bowen Colthurst, or other agents of the crown who shot him his death was avoidable, unless an ulterior motive lay beneath the surface for not getting him the treatment he required!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is a Dublin 
based Marxist and author. 

Early 20th Century Socialists ➖ Richard O’Carroll

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ Richard O’CarrollTown Councillor, Trade Unionist, Labour Activist And Volunteer.

Richard O’Carroll was born in 1876 into a working-class family in Dublin. He married Annie Esther (nee Power) and between them the couple produced seven children. 

Like his contemporary James Connolly Richard was active in the labour and trade union movement and later in 1916 was active in the Easter Rising. 

In 1906 he was elected to the position of General Secretary of his union; the Ancient Guild of Incorporated Brick and Stonelayers. Richard O’Carroll despite his elevation to a fulltime position in the union never neglected his rank-and-file duties, as he saw them. Many activists once they reached fulltime status considered the everyday work of trade unionism below them, something which local shop stewards and activists should be sorting out. This was not the case with Richard O’Carroll who, if needed was never afraid to return to his roots and the everyday work of trade union organisation, rank-and-file union business. 

On one occasion, not long before his death, in March 1916 O’Carroll received a letter from one of his unions local representatives who may have thought the problem was out of their depth. The letter explained the problem which was about men who worked a week on nights, and did not receive the correct rate for nocturnal hours of labour. The union official who the men spoke to passed the case up to Richard who rectified the problem successfully, securing the night rate of pay for the work. Another case of Richard involving himself at rank-and-file level was an instance in which building work was contracted to be done in brick. Suddenly the client decided, for cost cutting reasons, that the building would be done in concrete instead claiming a shortage of bricks as the reason for their change of heart. This change, and technically breach of contract, threatened the jobs of the Bricklayers on the job. Richard O’Carroll knew the reason given, a shortage of bricks, was untrue so he scoured the brickyards where he found an abundance of the correct bricks for the specification of the work in question. This could not pass unchallenged, which O’Carroll did not allow to happen, and again the situation was resolved successfully, the terms of the building specification kept to, thus securing the men’s employment. 

This hands-on approach should act as a guideline for many modern fulltime officials within the trade union movement who, in many cases, every day union work is considered below them. The conducting of everyday trade union issues and keeping good contact with the members was not a labour for Richard, it was second nature.

Richard was a member of the Sinn Fein organisation and in 1906 he fell out with the organisation's President, Arthur Griffith. This would not have been difficult for a socialist, as Griffith opposed strikes and any form of militant working-class action which may have affected the so-called “natural order” of capitalism. This was and is a problem with broad church membership organisations: they cover too many class interests which often fall into conflict with each other. It must be stressed that Sinn Fein of the early twentieth century bore little political resemblance to either of today’s parties of the same name. The fact was Arthur Griffith was not even a republican let alone a socialist: he believed in the dual monarchist approach for Ireland based very much on the Austro/Hungary model. One monarch over two countries: each country, in this case Britain and Ireland, having separate parliaments as was the case with Austria and Hungary, sometimes referred to as “The Hungarian Way”.

Richard was also a member of the oath bound secretive organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and later in 1913 the Irish Volunteers. Just before the Irish Volunteers (IVF) were formed another military organisation, the Irish Citizen Army were in existence. This was effectively the military arm of the trade unions and, in particular the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU). Many people have asked why Richard was a member of the IVF and not the ICA? A fair point, politically the ICA would have been the obvious choice, if he had a choice! A possible reason for his involvement with the IVF and not the ICA was the IRB had infiltrated the Volunteers for revolutionary purposes and Richard, like all other IRB members was bound by his oath of allegiance, irrespective of personal preferences, to the IRB. He could not, even if he had wanted to, join an alternative movement because it was not IRB policy and strategy. 

The IRB strategy at the time was to infiltrate the larger and wealthier, because of its bourgeois nature and make up, Irish Volunteers and not the Irish Citizen Army. For Richard to exercise his preference, if indeed it was his preference, and join the ICA may well have been in breach of his IRB oath. Had the Easter Rising resulted in an Irish victory it may have been probable Richard O’Carroll would have moved across to the trade union militia, the ICA. Class interests may have forced the pace here, and having kept his oath to the IRB for the insurrection, the Irish Citizen Army would, in my opinion, have been his natural choice and progression. The interests of the working-class would have come to the fore, something James Connolly had made provisions for in the ICA, as the right-wing of within the volunteers would have come further to the surface and in all probability become the policy makers for that movement and the IRB. Something which did happen after the treaty with Britain was signed in December 1921.

Richard also served on the Board of Poor Law Guardians, though as a socialist and trade unionist he did not accept such institutions as these should exist, there should have been no need for them. In a socialist Ireland they would not have existed, because the poverty which deemed them necessary would not have been there, but as things stood it was better to be in, monitoring the situation and ensuring poor people were not neglected any further than outside unable to influence anything. If people like Richard had not, albeit reluctantly, involved themselves on these bodies the affairs of the destitute would have been left to the bourgeoisie to control, unopposed, who gave little consideration to the needs of the poor, except how to keep them in a position of destitution to be used as slaves to bourgeois interests. Richard and other socialist minded people’s role in this organisation was to ensure this did not happen or at least minimise bourgeois exploitation.

In 1911 Richard O’Carroll was instrumental in the formation of the Dublin Labour Representation Committee. The following year along with James Connolly and Jim Larkin he was a founder of the Irish Labour Party in 1912. The formation of the Irish Labour Party would come about at the Irish Trade Union Congress conference at Clonmel Town Hall, County Tipperary, on the 27th-28th May 1912. A motion proposed by James Connolly calling for the establishment of a political wing was carried by 49 votes in favour to 18 against. Earlier in the year, January, Richard was elected as a labour candidate to Dublin Corporation. He was to lead the labour group, not yet a party as such until the dates outlined above on the corporation. The Irish Labour Party was independent of its British counterpart, though on areas of common interest and in the spirit of comradeship the two would work in conjunction with each other. The Irish Labour Party was as separate from the British variant as was the SPD in Germany, but still considered each other sister parties of the still united second international. The party stood for an independent socialist Ireland with fraternal links to the British model or, as Connolly once put it; ‘friends and comrades yes, “bedfellows” no’! The party like all other socialist groups of the day based their ideologies on the teachings and writings of Karl Marx.

By 1913 Richard had established fourteen branches of his union throughout Ireland, no small achievement at a time of anti-trade union feelings throughout Britain and Ireland as Victorian attitudes among the ruling-class still prevailed. Craft unions tended to be tolerated by the social elite, so-called, but unskilled workers organising was resisted with ferocity. Many of the skilled workers unions still held the mid-nineteenth century attitudes, then promoted by the Engineers Union, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) who had a motto; ‘defence not defiance’ and they considered themselves almost on a par with the employers. 

This snobbery did not apply to Richard O’Carroll and his union. In August of that year the turbulent events of the Dublin Lockout began. This was as struggle between the trade unions, primarily the ITGWU bringing into the dispute another thirty-six trade unions against the hitherto moribund Employer’s Federation consisting of 400 employers led by William Martin Murphy. Murphy had resurrected the Employers Federation, the forerunner of today’s IBEC, and used it as a kind of bosses union! He adopted the very same tactics he was trying to prevent his workers using, class solidarity.

Like many other trade unionists Richard O’Carroll gave speeches in support of the locked out and striking workers. What made Richard’s speeches a little more relevant was the fact he represented a craft union, most of whom gave little if any consideration to their unskilled locked out and striking colleagues. He threw the full weight of the AGIBS behind the suffering thousands of unskilled workers, such an oration was perhaps unique among the skilled workers unions. In those days and, to perhaps a lesser extent today, a certain snobbery existed(s) within the craft unions feeling they must stay aloof of their unskilled working-class brethren - this did not apply to the AGIBS and Richard O’Carroll. 

When the lockout came to an end in 1914 Richard O’Carroll was a trade union delegate on the Board of Enquiry set up by the British Government to look into the causes of the dispute. The Board of Enquiry was to be chaired by Sir George Askwith [not to be mistaken with Herbert Asquith the Prime Minister] and frankly, if to look into the causes of the lockout was its aims should not have been necessary. The causes of the dispute were plain for all who wished to see. William Martin Murphy was denying his employees the right to join a trade union of their choice, threatening to dismiss any employee who joined the ITGWU. Murphy planned and executed the lockout and no Board of Enquiry worthy of the name could possibly dispute that fact.

Murphy had come to a decision back in 1911 after the events of Wexford had resulted in the employers there being duped, in Murphy’s opinion, into accepting a settlement which in all but name recognised the ITGWU. After a lockout in Wexford, initiated by several employers, against the transport union designed to force their employees to renounce this organisation the employers settled for a compromise initiated by James Connolly. It did not recognise the ITGWU but did allow for the foundry workers, skilled and unskilled, to organise in the Irish Foundry workers Union which would be an affiliate of the ITGWU. It was the final piece of the deal which Murphy did not like, this “affiliate” bit. He saw it for what it was, a transport union Trojan Horse. The events of Wexford were a pre-cursor to what would happen in Dublin two years later.

Despite all the great and progressive work Richard O’Carroll had done he, like his contemporary Jim Larkin had one stain on his character, anti-Semitism. The language of the time did not restrict anti-Semitic remarks to ultra-nationalists like Arthur Griffith. Trade unionists and socialists were, alas, equally as guilty. Jim Larkin often made derogatory remarks against Jewish people and cartoons in the Irish Worker, edited by Larkin, often depicted capitalists as having large hooked noses, images often used to depict Jewish people. Richard O’Carroll attacked a Jewish builder called Ellion, not because he was an employer but because he was a Jew. Both Larkin and O’Carroll could claim they were simply lapsing into the odium of the day which was generally anti-Semitic, and today most certainly would not be tolerated. The language of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century accepted such vehemently racist and anti-Semitic remarks as part of the everyday narratives. This in no way is an attempt at excusing this language but maybe as it was not out of the ordinary these people did not consider they were saying anything wrong. To add credence to this claim not one person, all trade unionists, in the meeting spoke out against the use of such language. The words Jew and moneylender, capitalist and exploiter went synonymous in those days. It never appeared to cross anybody’s mind [with the exception of James Connolly] that there were just as many working-class Jewish people per capita as in any other ethnic group. No, the Jew was an exploiter and thief and thirty years later in Germany such unwarranted ideas were taken to their extreme. However, these events and narratives were before the Nazi Holocaust and nobody had a crystal ball to see where such comments could, and did lead. But persecution and discrimination against Jewish people had gone on for centuries [in 1190 local Jews were killed in a local pogrom at Cliffords Tower, York. Most committed suicide so as not to fall into the hands of the mob], so perhaps there was no excuse, had people read their history, and there would certainly be no accommodation for such comments today. As with Jim Larkin, this anti-Semitism was perhaps the only stain on Richard O’Carroll’s character, though at the time it would perhaps not have been seen as a stain.

Richard O’Carroll, as we know was a member of the IRB and therefore the Irish Volunteers and it was through his participation in the Easter Rising of 1916 which would cost him his life. The popular consensus as to how Richard met his demise appears to be that he was shot in Campden Street, having led his unit into action against the Crown Forces. Richard held the rank of Lieutenant and was under the overall command of Thomas McDonagh. He was one of the few working-class officers in the Volunteers, and all those were tradesmen unlike the Irish Citizen Army where all officers were elected and the majority came from the working-class, skilled and unskilled alike. The fall of Richard O’Carroll is not as simple as being shot, killed in action. There are two, perhaps three very different accounts of his death, the first being he was captured in Delahunt’s Bakery [or Byrnes grocery shop in the same area], having taken it as a mini-HQ for his engagement against the enemy. According to the popular version of his death he was arrested, taken out of the building by a certain Captain John Bowen-Colthurst, who had led the British raid on the rebel holdout, and shot in cold blood either by or on the orders of Bowen Colthurst. This is certainly believable as this particular British officer, later found conveniently insane and shipped off to Broadmoor, went on to shoot civilians in cold blood. One of his victims was the socialist and pacifist, Francis Sheehy Skeffington and two reporters who he gunned down in the yard of Portobello Barracks. When a soldier asked Bowen-Colthurst of O’Carroll; ‘Is he dead yet’ the Captain reportedly answered; ‘never mind he’ll die later.’ Richard O’Carroll was not dead and may have been able to be saved had he received immediate medical treatment. He was left by the less than noble British officer, loony or otherwise, and was picked up by a bread lorry and taken to hospital. He died of his injuries on 5th May 1916 nine days after he received his wounds.

Another account explaining Richard’s death, and much less consensual, suggests he was travelling along Camden Street on his motorcycle, pulled from his machine and shot in Wexford Street. This version does not tally with the popular concept that he was shot by a British officer in Camden Street having been captured first!

Another possibility is that he was indeed shot in Camden Street under circumstances broadly as laid out above but perhaps not by or on the orders of Bowen-Colthurst who was safely under lock and key in Broadmoor when the major enquiries started. However there was an internal enquiry into Bowen Colthurst’s actions, including the shootings of Sheehy Skeffington and Richard O’Carroll. The local investigation, if that is what it was, held at Portobello orderly room was perhaps less than thorough. Bowen Colthurst, who had led the British raid, may have been a convenient scapegoat, already suspected of being unstable. He may have been shot by British agents of the recently formed MI5 [established in 1909], even though he could have been taken prisoner, because he was an elected councillor, a socialist and a trade union official. 

What better guise to use than he was active in the Easter Rising to get a socialist out of the way, killing two birds with one stone so to speak. Either way it was claimed by the British O’Carroll was shot while trying to escape. The British Imperialist Power and their agents may well have seen in Richard O’Carroll, as was the case with James Connolly and perhaps Michael Mallin, both members of the ICA, an economic as well as a political threat. Could this have been the reason O’Carroll was shot and not taken prisoner? 

Either way the fact remains that Richard O’Carroll, Town Councillor, trade union official, Labour Party activist and socialist died on 5th May 1916 under circumstances not as clear cut as we are supposed to believe. For example, around the same time in Abbey Street, a group of Irish Volunteers were taken prisoner and they too could have been shot, as was Richard. Maybe these rebels were not known socialists so killing in cold blood did not give the same appetite to their would-be killers! The British military authorities attempted to erase O’Carroll’s name from the historical record!! 

Just a worthy thought because the sixteen men who were executed after the rising were all from what today we would call left of centre politically. From the Marxist James Connolly to Padraig Pearse, who gave some rousing anti-landlord speeches a left-wing current threaded through all these men. Notable to see those who were spared, from Michael Collins to Kevin O’Higgins, Michael J. Staines and a man who would become future President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, W.T. Cosgrave were of a centre to far right-wing political opinion. A point of observation which, for me holds more than a drop of water! Was it political [ethnic in one respect] cleansing of those considered socialist in their ideologies? The ruling-classes of the day were having difficulties recognising the formation of various labour parties entering the political field. Now, some of these would be socialists were taking up arms, Richard O’Carroll being one. Socialist entering the electoral process was one thing, taking up arms, perhaps hiding behind the nationalist aspirations as they saw it, was something totally different and unacceptable to the ruling classes of the day.

Richard O’Carroll, Town Councillor, trade unionist, Labour Party founder and activist, IRB member and Irish Volunteers died a very painful death, which could and should have been avoided, ten days after his injuries were sustained in Portobello infirmary on 5th May 1916. He should not have died and could – should – have been saved had medical treatment being administered earlier. Whether it was the madman, Bowen Colthurst, or other agents of the crown who shot him his death was avoidable, unless an ulterior motive lay beneath the surface for not getting him the treatment he required!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is a Dublin 
based Marxist and author. 

7 comments:

  1. While very long pieces I enjoy the series.
    There would seem to be a book of collected short bios in this.
    A couple of times now the issue of racism has been raised - I don't think there is any uncomplicated way of addressing these matters that were in many ways of their time. Trying to impose a current moral framework on a different age does not work and I see how the author here has sought not to do that.
    This is why I am not enthusiastic about the modern form of book burning which manifests itself in the destruction of statues.

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  2. AM
    The point I was trying to make that the language of the day does not excuse, but to a certain extent makes the anti-Semitism of Larkin and O'Carroll relative to the times understandable. This should not be confused with "acceptable". Next week, William Walker does not have the same quazi excuse as the language he used then, is still prevalent today.
    Another point, and to Kier Hardie, Jim Larkin and Richard O'Carroll's credit was their ability to get involved, despite holding high union positions, with rank and file issues. Leaders of these pedigrees are few and far between in what is left of the modern trade union movement. The last leader of this calibre was Arthur Scargill during the 1984/85 miners strike in Britain. He was let down, as was the case in 1926 General Strike, by a white livered TUC and Labour Party leadership (UK). One of the reasons certainly in Britain, the trade union movement are in the state they are in is the failure of these highly paid leaders to engage the capitalist mode of production.
    When I, and others, were doing our shop stewards courses we were told, instilled, that we "are the movement of oppossition", something lost on the modern union leadership. Nothing in Ireland tells me anything different happens here. As one former Irish union leader said to me, "I can threaten strike action all I wish, if the members won't back it I have an empty gun". Fair enough, but have you given the members the opportunity to take on the bosses, as the three union leaders so far alluded to in the early 20th century did?
    It is time the trade unions, and the shop stewards movement in particular, reasessed the situation. The bosses are on a permanent offensive and the unions must respond and quick. Even moderate benefits to workers, like sick pay are oppossed by the bosses. Perhaps it is time to forget the leaders and the shop stewards take up the challenge. Finally, in the private sector the unions are virtually non existent, why is that? Time to recruit and explain the contradictions in ownership, and operation of the means of production. The principle of exploited and exploiter which many younger employees do not appear to grasp. Why? Probably because it has never been explained.

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    1. I think the point you were trying to make, you did make quite well.

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    2. Had Arthur Scargill held a national ballot of the NUM membership in 1984; the miners' strike would have had wider public legitimacy and may even have been ultimately successful. Mick McGahey would have been a more astute NUM leader as he was not wedded to the syndicalist doctrine that Scargill was beholden to.

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    3. Barry - given that he was in the CP and the CP screws every progressive movement I don't share your benign view. I don't agree with bureaucrats taking strike action without consulting the workers. I think the sad thing is that the state rather than the unions introduced the concept of secret ballot. When Scargill was in Belfast a lot of years back he was sneering about a secret ballot. I think the way Greenslade smeared him was a classic MI5 sting.

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  3. There is an old saying; "sometimes it is neccessary to go backwards in order to go forwards". This is, in my view applicable to the trade union movement. I did my shop stewards courses thirty years ago, I do not know what young stewards are taught today. What I do know, is people like Larkin, O'Carroll and Kier Hradie and again more recently Scargill had to break the law. We, alas, in order to survive today, as I see it, must be prepared to do likewise or be swallowed up as what happened in Japan after the 1953 strike. Just my opinion Anthony, but everytime the unions leadership, in all lands, accept legislation it is another nail in the movements coffin. Use the tactics of yesteryear to go forward.

    This rule of thumb applies to all movements for social change, including those of national liberation. Fight or be choked!

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  4. Barry

    I understand where you are coming from regards a national ballot. Firstly you probably do not know the NUM rule book, which is complex. Rule 41 was applied, and voted on by the area delegates including Nottinghamshire who voted not to apply Rule 41 and wanted a national ballot, Notts were a minority. This was democratically voted down and Rule 41 was applied. Under this rule a ballot was not neccessary, indeed to hold a ballot would have gone against the will of the majority of areas. Notts had their opportunity and their delegates, Ray Chadburn and Henry Richardson put the case for a ballot very strongly. After the decision was taken Chadburn and Richardson got behind the strike. Three thousand Notts lads stayed out for the full year, but a majority, not for the first time in the coalfield worked thus assisting Thatcher and her ballot propaganda. The union rule book, any union, is sacrascent and the NUM rules allowed for Rule 41. The NEC, which included Notts, kicked out the proposal to hold a ballot. Scargill, as National President had no vote, neither did Peter Heathfield, General Secretary. Even if Arthur and Peter had wanted a ballot it was not in their gift to deliver, the area delegates elected in pit head ballots decided this. As Jack Taylor, the Yorkshire Area President said;'if I was to tell my members who had been out on strike for some time, you have to have a ballot to suit Nottinghamshire they'd have strung me up'. Rule 41 empowered the NUM to authorise a strike on an area by area basis, without the need for a national ballot. Again, Scargill had no vote on this.
    Unlike Thatcher the NUM rule book allowed for democracy. The correct thing for Notts, who formed the scab union, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers backed by Thatcher henchman, businessman David Hart, should have supported the strike having lost their motion, and when it was over put forward a motion to the AGM to remove Rule 41. They chose not to do that and scabbed instead. I must point out it was not the first time the area had broke a strike, they did so during the General Strike of 1926. Their scabbing helped close every pit in their own area, despite vague promises from Thatcher!!

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