Labour Party (Ireland)
The Labour Party is a centre-left and social democratic political party in the Republic of Ireland. It was founded on 28 May 1912 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, by James Connolly, James Larkin, and William O'Brien as the political wing of the Irish Trades Union Congress.
Labour continues to be the political arm of the Irish trade union and labour movement and seeks to represent workers' interests in the Dáil and on a local level. Unlike many other Irish political parties, Labour did not arise as a faction of the original Sinn Féin party, although it merged with the Democratic Left in 1999, a party that traced its origins back to Sinn Féin. The party has served as a partner in coalition governments on eight occasions since its formation: seven times in coalition either with Fine Gael alone or with Fine Gael and other smaller parties, and once with Fianna Fáil. This gives Labour a cumulative total of twenty-five years served as part of a government, the third-longest total of any party in the Republic of Ireland after Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Led by Ivana Bacik, it is the fourth-largest party in Dáil Éireann, with eleven seats, and is the fourth-largest party in Seanad Éireann, with two seats, making Labour the fourth-largest party in the Oireachtas overall as of 2025. It currently has 1 MEP. Current president of Ireland Catherine Connolly and former presidents Michael D. Higgins and Mary Robinson were members of the Labour Party at one point prior to becoming president. The Labour Party is a member of the Progressive Alliance, Socialist International, and Party of European Socialists.
History
Foundation
, James Larkin and William O'Brien established the Irish Labour Party on 28 May 1912, as the political wing of the Irish Trades Union Congress, in Clonmel Town Hall. This party was to represent the workers in the expected Dublin Parliament under the Third Home Rule Act 1914. However, after the defeat of the trade unions in the Dublin Lockout of 1913 the labour movement was weakened; the emigration of James Larkin in 1914 and the execution of James Connolly following the Easter Rising in 1916 further damaged it.The Irish Citizen Army, formed during the 1913 Lockout, was informally the military wing of the Labour Movement. The ICA took part in the 1916 Rising. Councillor Richard O'Carroll, a Labour Party member of Dublin Corporation, was the only serving elected representative to be killed during the Easter Rising. O'Carroll was shot by John Bowen-Colthurst and died several days later, on 5 May 1916. The ICA was revived during Peadar O'Donnell's Republican Congress but after the 1935 split in the Congress most ICA members joined the Labour Party.
Early history
In Larkin's absence, William O'Brien became the dominant figure in the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and wielded considerable influence in the Labour Party. O'Brien also dominated the Irish Trades Union Congress. The Labour Party, led by Thomas Johnson from 1917, declined to contest the 1918 general election in order to allow the election to take the form of a plebiscite on Ireland's constitutional status. It also refrained from contesting the 1921 elections. As a result, the party was left outside Dáil Éireann during the vital years of the independence struggle.In the Irish Free State
The Anglo-Irish Treaty divided the Labour Party. Some members sided with the Irregulars in the Irish Civil War that quickly followed, however O'Brien and Johnson encouraged its members to support the Treaty. In the 1922 general election the party won 17 seats, having fielded 18 candidates. Winning 21.4% of the first preference vote, this remains the party's highest ever share of the vote as of 2022. However, there were a number of strikes during the first year and a loss in support for the party. In the 1923 general election the Labour Party only won 14 seats. From 1922 until Fianna Fáil TDs took their seats in 1927, the Labour Party was the major opposition party in the Dáil. Labour attacked the lack of social reform by the Cumann na nGaedheal government. From 1927, a large number of the Labour Party's voters were pre-empted by Fianna Fáil, with its almost identical policies. Labour lacked Fianna Fáil's 'republican' image, which was a contributing factor to this loss.Larkin returned to Ireland in April 1923. He hoped to resume the leadership role in the ITGWU which he had previously left, but O'Brien resisted him. Larkin also created a pro-communist party called the Irish Worker League. O'Brien regarded Larkin as a "loose cannon." Following a failed challenge to O'Brien's leadership and association with communist militancy, Larkin was expelled from the ITGWU and created the WUI, a communist alternative to the ITGWU, in 1924. Two-thirds of the Dublin membership of the ITGWU defected to the new union. O'Brien blocked the WUI from admission to the ITUC. Larkin was elected to Dáil Éireann at the September 1927 general election. However, the Labour Party prevented him from taking his seat as an undischarged bankrupt for losing a libel case against Labour leader Tom Johnson.
In 1932, the Labour Party supported Éamon de Valera's first Fianna Fáil government, which had proposed a programme of social reform with which the party was in sympathy. In the 1943 general election the party won 17 seats, its best result since 1927.
The Irish Labour Party and the Irish Trades Union Congress separated in 1930. Future leader William Norton was prominent in urging the separation of the political and industrial wings of the labour movement into autonomous organisations, arguing that the move was necessary to broaden the party's electoral appeal beyond a trade union constituency.
The party was socially conservative compared to similar European parties, and its leaders from 1932 to 1977 were members of the Catholic fraternal organisation the Knights of Saint Columbanus. The early to mid-20th century marked constant battles within Labour about whether to appease the Catholic Church or to take on a more militant labour approach.
Split with National Labour and the first coalition governments
Despite efforts in the 1930s to sternly downplay the idea of Communist influence over the party, by the 1940s internal conflict and complementary allegations of communist infiltration caused a split in the Labour Party and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Tensions peaked in 1941 when party founder Jim Larkin and a number of his supporters were re-admitted to the party and subsequently accused of "taking over" Labour branches in Dublin. In response William X. O'Brien left with six TDs in 1944, founding the National Labour Party, whose leader was James Everett. O'Brien also withdrew the ITGWU from the Irish Trades Unions Congress and set up his own congress. The split damaged the Labour movement in the 1944 general election. The ITGWU attacked "Larkinite and Communist Party elements" which it claimed had taken over the Labour Party. The split and the anti-communist assault put Labour on the defensive. It launched its own inquiry into communist involvement, which resulted in the expulsion of six members. Alfred O'Rahilly in The Communist Front and the Attack on Irish Labour widened the assault to include the influence of British-based unions and communists in the ITUC. The National Labour Party juxtaposed itself against this by emphasising its commitment to Catholic Social Teaching. However, Labour also continued to emphasise its anti-communist credentials. Only after Larkin's death in 1947 could an attempt at unity be made.After the 1948 general election National Labour had five TDs – Everett, Dan Spring, James Pattison, James Hickey and John O'Leary. National Labour and Labour both entered the First Inter-Party Government, with the leader of National Labour becoming Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. In 1950, the National Labour TDs rejoined the Labour Party.
From 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957, the Labour Party was the second-largest partner in the two inter-party governments. William Norton, the Labour Party leader, became Tánaiste on both occasions. During the First Inter-Party Government he served as Minister for Social Welfare, while during the Second Inter-Party Government he served as Minister for Industry and Commerce.
Re-establishment in Northern Ireland
The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 and Ireland Act 1949 precipitated a split in the Northern Ireland Labour Party with Jack Macgougan leading anti-Partition members out and affiliating branches to the Dublin party, joined by other left-wing and nationalist representatives and branded locally as "Irish Labour". At Westminster, Jack Beattie held Belfast West from 1951 to 1955; the British Labour party refused Beattie its whip. At Stormont, Belfast Dock was won by Murtagh Morgan in 1953 and Paddy Devlin in 1962, but Devlin in 1964 left for the Republican Labour Party and Irish Labour contested no further Westminster or Stormont elections. In the 1949 local elections it won 7 seats on Belfast City Council, 6 on Armagh urban district council and one on Dungannon UDC. In Derry, the party collapsed when Stephen McGonagle left after 1952. It was strongest in Warrenpoint and Newry UDCs, winning control of the former in 1949 and the latter in 1958, retaining seats in both until their 1973 abolition. Tommy Markey was expelled from the party in 1964 for taking a salute as Newry council chair from the Irish Guards. Party branches still existed in Warrenpoint and Newry as late as 1982, though candidates were heavily defeated in Newry and Mourne District Council at the 1973 local elections. The Social Democratic and Labour Party founded in 1970 took most of Irish Labour's voters and soon had its formal endorsement.Under Brendan Corish, 1960–1977
became the new Labour leader in 1960. As leader, he advocated for more socialist policies to be adopted by the party; although initially tempering by this describing these policies as "a form of Christian socialism", he would later feel comfortable enough to drop the "Christian" prefix. In contrast to his predecessors, Corish adopted an anti-coalition stance. He attempted to give his fractious, divided party a coherent national identity, lurched it to the left and insisted Labour was the natural party of social justice. In the late 1960s, Labour began to embrace the 'New Left,' and Corish presented his A New Republic document at the 1967 Labour national conference, alongside a famous speech which declared that "The seventies will be socialist", which later became a Labour campaign slogan. Corish's new socialist direction for Labour was generally well-received internally; the membership's faith in Corish had already been bolstered by encouraging election results in 1965 and 1967.Although Labour's share of the vote improved to 17% in the 1969 Irish general election, the best in 50 years, the party only won 17 seats - 5 fewer than in the 1965 general election. The result dented Corish's confidence and caused him to reconsider his anti-coalition stance.
Labour promoted a Eurosceptic outlook in the 1961 general election, and in 1972, the party campaigned against membership of the European Economic Community.
Between 1973 and 1977, the Labour Party formed a coalition government with Fine Gael. The coalition partners lost the subsequent 1977 general election, and Corish resigned immediately after the defeat and was succeeded by Frank Cluskey following a leadership contest.