Locked Out: A Century of Irish Working-Class Life

The study of an independent Irish working class is often neglected in favor of the usual focus on nationalism in politics, culture, and wider society. As highlighted throughout this pioneering book, this neglect has stretched at times to an actual denial of the existence of an Irish working class. The idea that class - rather than ethnicity, religion, or the idea of national identity - could have a role to play in politics and cultural production is an alien one to the mainstream Irish historical debate. The working class has been locked out of Irish history. This ground-breaking book - written to commemorate the centenary of the 1913 Dublin Lockout and to advance Irish labor history in new and innovative ways - offers fresh perspectives from a new generation of Irish historians. Looking at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the industrial school system; the Dublin Lockout of 1913; discussions of class, status, and gender among Cork textile workers; and the infamous brutality of 1930's tenement Dublin's 'Animal Gangs' (to name but a few); this book truly digs deep to reveal the richness and diversity of the lives and culture of working-class people over the past century.