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The Irish Labour History Society (ILHS) was established in 1973 with the Constitutional obligation to 'promote the knowledge of Irish labour history and of Irish people in labour history abroad and labour history in general; the appreciation of the importance of labour history in the educational curriculum; and the preservation of all records and reminiscences, oral and written, relating to the current and past experiences of the Irish working class and its organisations'. The Society has since that time diligently striven to fulfil these obligations, despite the handicaps of lack of resources, financial and human, and reliance on the voluntary efforts of its Committee members and activists. These efforts have borne much fruit. The Society's annual journal, Saothar, has gained an international audience and generated much critical acclaim in historiographical reviews. A second more popular publication, Labour History News, has also received its own favourable press.
These published records of the Society's activities have reflected the range of activities undertaken, including an Annual Conference of high scholarly worth held, variously, in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Derry, and Manchester; numerous occasional lectures and workshops in the Society's active branches in Belfast, Derry, Dublin, and Galway; international participation in labour history events in Wales, Scotland, England, France, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, and Mexico; and an annual address by a labour historian of international repute.
Saothar, the official publication of the ILHS, reflects the steady if uneven development within the subject area. The 'Sources' and 'Bibliography' sections of the journal indicate the growing awareness of the need to preserve the record of Irish labour's past, and the value of Cataloguing and broadcasting the availability of that record is indicated by the ever expanding range of articles, publications and research projects. The Society's Archives Subcommittee has conscientiously attempted to rescue threatened material and raise Irish labour's archival consciousness, particularly within the trade union movement. Under the guidance of the Society's founding President, the late John Swift, the records of his own union, the Irish Bakers, Confectioners and Allied Workers Amalgamated Union, formed the first deposit in the ILHS Archive, generously housed at present by the Archives Department of University College Dublin. This archive has greatly expanded to the point of creating questions as to its future location. Notwithstanding the success of the rescue and retrieval operation, however, the ILHS established the Trade Union and Labour Related Records Survey Project.
This web site is designed to assist the organisation to meet its commitment. We hope that you will find this site useful and that it will give you an opportunity to to assist with the work.