James Larkin Quotes

• You may succeed in your policy and ensure your own damnation, by your victory.

  James Larkin

• We shall not fight for the preservation of the enemy, which has laid waste with death and desolation the fields and hills of Ireland for 700 years.

  James Larkin

• We make mistakes, we have our faults, and God knows some of us have more than our share, but when danger threatens and duty calls, we go smiling to our own funeral.

  James Larkin

• We are now on the threshold of a newer movement, with a newer hope and a new inspiration.

  James Larkin

• We are beaten, we will make no bones about it; but we are not too badly beaten still to fight.

  James Larkin

• Those who want to divide the workers have resorted to the foulest methods.

  James Larkin

• Therefore it is essential that some means should be sought whereby the work of the nation may be carried on without constant yet at present necessary dislocation.

  James Larkin

• There must be freedom for all to live, to think, to worship, no book, no avenue must be closed.

  James Larkin

• The souls you have got cast upon the screen of publicity appear like the horrid and writhing creatures enlarged from the insect world, and revealed to us by the cinematograph.

  James Larkin

• The question of religion was a matter for each individual’s conscience, and in a great many cases was the outcome of birth or residence in a certain geographical area.

  James Larkin

• The men whose manhood you have broken will loathe you, and will always be brooding and scheming to strike a fresh blow.

  James Larkin

• The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland.

  James Larkin

• The fate of you, the aristocracy of industry, will be as the fate of the aristocracy of land if you do not show that you have some humanity still among you.

  James Larkin

• The employers cannot carry on industry nor accumulate profits if they have not got the good will of the workers or their acquiescence in carrying on such industry.

  James Larkin

• The best thanks we could offer those who went before and raised the Irish working class from their knees was to press forward with determination and enthusiasm towards the ultimate goal of their efforts, a Co-operative Commonwealth for Ireland.

  James Larkin

• Stop at home. Arm for Ireland. Fight for Ireland and no other land.

  James Larkin

• Russia is the only place where men and women can be free.

  James Larkin

• No, men and women of the Irish race, we shall not fight for England. We shall fight for the destruction of the British Empire and the construction of an Irish republic.

  James Larkin

• Man must be associated with his fellows.

  James Larkin

• It means that the men who hold the means of life control our lives, and, because we workingmen have tried to get some measure of justice, some measure of betterment, they deny the right of the human being to associate with his fellow.

  James Larkin

James Larkin (32)

Birth:	21st January, 1876
Death:	30th January, 1947
Nationality:	Irish
Profession:	Union Leader

About

James (Jim) Larkin was born in Liverpool, England. He was an Irish trade union leader and socialist activist. From 1893, he developed an interest in socialism and became a member of the Independent Labour Party. In 1905, he was one of the few foremen to take part in a strike on the Liverpool docks. He moved to Belfast in 1907 and founded the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, the Irish Labour Party, and later the Workers' Union of Ireland. Perhaps best known for his role in the 1913 Dublin Lockout, "Big Jim" continues to occupy a significant place in Dublin's collective memory.

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