Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘1926 General Strike in Britain’ Category

‘An Historic May Day in London: New Days in Old England’ by Thomas J. O’Flaherty from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 3 No. 134. June 19, 1926.

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Tomás Ó Flatharta, inspiration of this blog, was a talented writer. This is an example of his work, full of interesting personal and political insights.

Source : Revolution’s NewsStand : https://revolutionsnewsstand.com/2023/05/01/an-historic-may-day-in-london-new-days-in-old-england-by-thomas-j-oflaherty-from-the-daily-worker-saturday-supplement-vol-3-no-134-june-19-1926/

May Day in London’s Hyde Park, 1926.

T.J. O’Flaherty travels from Dublin to London to participate in the May Day celebrations during that year’s General Strike and penned this wonderful essay on the day’s events.

‘An Historic May Day in London: New Days in Old England’ by Thomas J. O’Flaherty from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 3 No. 134. June 19, 1926.

I LEFT the usually turbulent but now comparatively peaceful Dublin on the evening of the 30th of April, bound for London. Dublin is not an easy place to leave—particularly for those with a thirst for the dramatic.

But May Day in London in 1926 with 1,000,000 coal miners out of the pits! And with a general strike threatened! This was something that many men and women would sacrifice years of ordinary existence to experience. So I resisted the temporary invitation of friends to spend a week shooting curlews in the heather-clad mountains of Wicklow, or discussing the futility of things in general with the cynical intelligentsia of Dublin who survived the gats of Black and Tans, Regular and Irregular Republicans and Free States.

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