The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Larkin, James
1876–1947, Irish labor leader. The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, which he organized and of which he was secretary, had as its goal the combining of all Irish industrial workers, skilled and unskilled, into one organization. After his activity in the general strike of 1913 he was tried by the British for sedition and jailed briefly. When World War I began, Larkin traveled to the United States to raise funds for the Irish to fight the British. His radical socialist manifestos and close association with the founders of the American Communist party resulted in a conviction (1920) for criminal anarchy. Pardoned in 1923 by the governor of New York, Alfred E. Smith, Larkin was deported to Ireland. There he organized (1924) the Workers’ Union of Ireland and served in the Dáil Éireann (1937–38, 1943–44), on the Dublin Trades Council, and on the Dublin Corporation.
