PRINCIPLED, courageous and determined, Jim Larkin’s hatred of British imperialism — and capitalist rule generally — sparked off a lifelong commitment to socialist republicanism and trade unionism, most notably in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, which he founded in 1909, and the Dublin lockout of 1913.

Widespread appreciation of “Big Jim” has since seen him celebrated in songs, in the theatre — most memorably in the work of his friend Sean O’Casey — and eventually in the erection of a statue of the man himself in Dublin’s O’Connell street. 

Those accolades are well deserved and Emmet O’Connor’s new book on his life and work demonstrates beyond doubt that he played an instrumental role in the development of labour and socialist politics both in Ireland and further afield, particularly in his younger years.