Dr Mike Mecham introduces the new-look website of the Irish Labour History Society

The Irish Labour History Society has rebuilt and relaunched its website, offering free access to biographies and articles on labour history, information on labour history resources, and a collection of book reviews published by the society’s journal Saothar in 2021.

The website consists of seven categories:

• Society: information about the society, membership, the museum and archive at Beggars Bush (Dublin), contact details and opening hours.
• Collections: archives, including a current list of collections; library – currently under construction; material studies – a new section providing essays on paper-based collections donated to the ILHS, currently one at present covering the branch minute books of the Land Commission Inspectors.
• Saothar: information on how to access the journal, contribute articles etc and two detailed indices covering issues 1-24 (1973-2000), including several introductory essays, and 25-42 (2001-2017); more than 60 pages of book reviews prepared for Saothar 46 (2021). The journal is published annually and requires a membership subscription.
• Events: including conferences, ILHS Newsletters, YouTube links to the ILHS 2020 and 2021 spring and autumn lectures.
• Labour History: essays on Irish labour history (one at present), histories of Irish trade unions (six in PDF format); and essays on the 1913 Dublin lockout together with a chronology of events.
• Biographies: biographies of key activists, including James Connolly, articles on 100 years of women’s struggle and profiles of seven women of the Irish labour movement; 17 ‘Labour Lives’ previously published in Saothar; and obituaries.
• Links: to labour history organisations, including SSLH; Irish trade unions; Umiskin Press; and other bodies.

Visit the Irish Labour History Society website. 

Dr Mike Mecham is  the ILHS representative on the executive committee of the Society for the Study of Labour History