Although class solidarity in Ireland could prevent the employers breaking the strike, it was not sufficient to win a victory. For that, solidarity action in Britain was necessary. It w therefore to the British trade union movement that Larkin and Connolly turned to for suppor as the strike progressed.
The response of many of the rank and file i Britain was overwhelming. For example, on or of Larkin's meetings in Britain, the Marchesto Guardian wrote "-.. the chance of hearing hir speak fills the Free Trade Hall and leaves thousands blocking the streets outside for a sight of him. Money and food in large quenti ties were collected. However, the bureaucrats o the TUC refused to give the one thing that could have won the strike outright-sympathy strikes. The rank and file succeeded in forcing the holding of a special meeting of the TUC, b that was as far as they could get. The leaders o the TUC defeated a resolution calling fora trac union blockage of Dublin. Deasy in his pamph letoo Larkin summarised the position neatly a follows: The British workers had asked for th isolation of the capitalists in Dublin. Instead their leaders succeeded in isolating the Dublin working class." Thanks to this act of treachery which was followed inevitably by 1919-21 whe the TUC similarly sold out the British workers it became obvious that the strikers could not win an outright victory. On the other hand, the solidarity inside Dublin itself meant that Murphy could not completely crush the ITGWI By February 1914 a piecemeal return to work began on a significant scale.
The outcome of the strike was a great weakening of the union and the victimising of many of its finest militants. It was never again able to use the sympathy strike in the way it had done before 1913. But the union itself remained intact. Only in a few cases did the employers dare to impose Murphy's notorious document. During the four years after 1914 the ITGWU was to grow to five times its size in 1914. The decisive step in establishing trade unionism in the main Irish industries had been established-but only at a terrible cost.
The lessons of the strike were simple; firsdy that against an organised group of employers a single union is helpless-only massive solidarity action can gain a victory in these circumstence Secondly, that a decisive victory by the employers over one section of the working class is a victory ageinst the entire working class Although the ITGWU survived 1913, it was anh thanks to unimaginable sacrifices by the Dublin workers and never again was it to be able to gain for ail workers the kind of improvements in living standards it had gained before 1913 Thirdly, and this is the most important of all, when an organisation falls down on an act of solidarity, it is only digging its own grave, If the TUC would refuse to support the Dublin workers despite the fact that they were locked i a real war with the employers, what group of workers could rely on the TUC in more "norma struggles? By failing to act in 1913, the TUC took a grant step along the path that led to the defeat of the General Strike in 1926. It didn't understand that in trade unionism, solidarity is not a disinterested act-it is vital in a union's mwn self-interest. In 1913 the Irish working class suffered because the TUC didn't under stand that lesson. In 1926 it was the British working class. Is it really necessory to repeat the lesson in 1971 or 19727?