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Back to index of Nerve 11 - Winter 2007 | Merseyside Resistance Calendar April
30th April 1920: 20,000 dockers strike to secure release of Irish republicans from Wormwood Scrubs prison
The date we have given in our calendar should read 30th April, not 30th March.
The following is written by A. Shallice in: Liverpool Labourism and Irish Nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s.From North West Labour History Society Bulletin 8, 1982-83
“Who was responsible for the crimes and atrocities committed in
Ireland? The guilty were not Irishmen; they were not Indians or Egyptians.
The men who did these things were the sons and brothers of British trade
unionists. As one who had a right to speak to Labour, he said that not
until they ceased to make munitions of war, build machine guns and armoured
cars, and send their kindred to mow down innocent and defenceless people,
those people must regard them- (selves) as the foes of peace and enemies
of liberty. Within the last few days, Irishmen had loaded munitions of
war on Irish steamers. They must put an end to that and refuse also to
ship munitions to India and Egypt”.
(Speech by Cur P.J. Kelly at the Liverpool Stadium as reported in Liverpool
Daily Post, 26.4.20, four days before onset of strike by Liverpool
dockers to try to gain the release of Sinn Fein internees in Wormwood
Scrubs).
The article goes on to say that the strike was successful.