James Larkin

James (Jim) Larkin (21 January 1876 – 30 January 1947) was an Irish trade union leader and socialist activist, born to Irish parents in Liverpool, England. He and his family later moved to a small cottage in Burren, southern County Down. Growing up in poverty, he received little formal education and began working in a variety of jobs while still a child. He became a full-time trade union organiser in 1905.

Larkin moved to Belfast in 1907 and founded the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, the Irish Labour Party, and later the Workers' Union of Ireland. Perhaps best known for his role in the 1913 Dublin Lockout, "Big Jim" continues to occupy a significant place in Dublin's collective memory.

Biography

Early years

Larkin was born on 21 January 1876 the second eldest son of Irish immigrants, James Larkin and Mary Ann McNulty, both natives of County Armagh. The impoverished Larkin family lived in the slums of Liverpool during the early years of his life. From the age of seven, he attended school in the mornings and worked in the afternoons to supplement the family income—a common arrangement in working-class families at the time. At the age of fourteen, after the death of his father, he was apprenticed to the firm his father had worked for but was dismissed after two years. He was unemployed for a time and then worked as a sailor and docker. By 1903, he was a dock foreman, and on 8 September of that year, he married Elizabeth Brown.

James Larkin (disambiguation)

James Larkin may refer to:

James Larkin (Independent Fianna Fáil)

James Larkin (22 August 1932 – 6 October 1998) was an Irish politician. He was nominated by the Taoiseach Charles Haughey to Seanad Éireann in 1982 and served until 1983. He was elected a member of the Letterkenny Urban District Council in 1967. He was chairman of the council on five different occasions. He was founder member of Independent Fianna Fáil. He was the director of elections for Independent Fianna Fáil leader Neil Blaney. His son Dessie Larkin is a Fianna Fáil member of Donegal County Council.

References

James Larkin, Jnr

James Larkin, Jnr (1904 – 18 February 1969) was an Irish Labour Party politician and trade union official. He first stood for election as an Irish Worker League candidate at the September 1927 general election for the Dublin County constituency but was unsuccessful. His father, James Larkin, was a successful candidate for the Dublin North constituency at the same general election. Larkin, Jnr was one of two candidates for the Revolutionary Workers' Groups in the 1930 newly reformed Dublin City Council elections, and he was elected. Larkin, Jnr was also an unsuccessful independent candidate at the 1932 general election for the Dublin South constituency. On the foundation of the Communist Party of Ireland in 1933, Larkin became its chairman.

He was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South constituency at the 1943 general election, where he sat in the same Dáil as his father. He was re-elected at the 1944 general election for the same constituency. At the 1948 general election, he moved to the Dublin South–Central constituency and was re-elected at the 1951 and 1954 general elections. He did not contest the 1957 general election.

James Larkin (actor)

James Larkin (born 17 March 1963, Surrey) is an English actor, most notable for his portrayal of the character Dylan in EastEnders and as Tony Blair in the 2005 The Government Inspector. He has also written Int. Bedsit - Day (2007) and Dead on Time (1999, for which he gained a nomination for First Prize for Short Films at the 1999 Montréal World Film Festival) and worked as a director, especially on 18 episodes of Doctors during 2008. In 2011, he returned to the soap playing villain Harrison Kellor.

In 1998, he played the part of the artist, Stanhope, in "Colour Blind", a TV mini-series based on the Catherine Cookson novel.

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