Yeates, Padraig

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Yeates, Padraig

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dublin, Ireland.

CAREER:

Freelance journalist; media advisor to unions, including the Services, Industrial, Professional, and Technical Union and the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union; served as industry and employment correspondent for the Irish Times.

WRITINGS:

(With Sean Flynn) Smack: The Criminal Drugs Racket in Ireland, Gill & Macmillan (New York, NY), 1985.

Michael Collins: An Illustrated Life, Tomar (Dublin, Ireland), 1989.

Lockout: Dublin, 1913, Gill & Macmillan (Dublin, Ireland), 2000, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Tim Hastings and Brian Sheehan) Saving the Future: How Social Partnership Shaped Ireland's Economic Success, Blackhall Publishing (Dublin, Ireland), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Padraig Yeates works as a freelance writer based in Dublin, Ireland, and also takes on various nonprofit media advisory jobs, such as public relations for several unions, including Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union and the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union. Prior to his freelance work, Yeates worked on the staff of the Irish Times, where he was an industry and employment correspondent. His background and the research he conducts for various stories makes him knowledgeable about the labor and union situations in Ireland, as well as the corruption that exists in many of the organizations in the nation. Yeates's experiences have served as a strong foundation for his books, including Smack: The Criminal Drugs Racket in Ireland, which he wrote with Sean Flynn, Lockout: Dublin, 1913, and Saving the Future: How Social Partnership Shaped Ireland's Economic Success, written with Tim Hastings and Brian Sheehan.

In Lockout, Yeates offers readers an overview of Irish labor history, focusing on the historic Dublin Lockout of 1913 and providing a step-by-step account of the events as they took place. In the book, Yeates compares the lockout to a revolution, dubbing the uprising as the nearest Ireland came to a true socialist revolution similar to what was steadily taking place in a number of oppressed nations. For a moment, it seemed as if the nation would unite in a common cause, for a shared, national identity, rather than split down the center in an ongoing battle between Irish and English or Catholic and Protestant citizens. A shared goal, though, united the Irish populace during this time, which made for a memorable moment in history. The lockout is best known as a war between two men, William Martin Murphy and Jim Larkin. Larkin is better known than Murphy, despite being defeated by Murphy in this particular battle. Larkin was a labor leader, striving for change and attempting to unite workers in various industries to provide them with unions and thereby more power in the workplace. He approached a number of groups, including tramway workers, Guinness beer carters, and boat crews, in the months leading up to the lockout. In targeting these groups, Larkin understood that by focusing on the individuals responsible for transportation in the city, he could bring all of Dublin to a halt and use that as leverage. Murphy was, in contrast, a wealthy businessman, who, despite his relative anonymity now, was quite well known at the time of the lockout. He belonged to the local golf club and the musical society, and was often seen sailing his luxurious yacht. Yeates gives an overview of the backgrounds and history of both men, providing a strong image of where they developed their ideals and how they rose to their societal positions in 1913.

The lockout started in relatively simple terms, but soon swelled to a major event. Individuals on strike felt summarily dismissed, which ultimately led to a struggle between the various factions involved. Yeates describes the entire process in detail, including not just the workers' and business owners' points of view, but also the families' perceptions of the event. Yeates also describes how the lockout affected every level of Irish citizens' lives. He delved deeply into the records, finding endless newspaper reports and other accounts in order to provide readers with a vivid image of the lockout from start to finish. Robert G. Lowery, in a review for the Irish Literary Supplement, remarked that "it's hard to see anyone surpassing Yeates's scholarship, and this will be the definitive treatment for many years." Dermot Keogh, in a review for the Historian, concluded that "this volume is essential reading for anyone interested in Irish labor, the history of industrial relations, or the study of Dublin society in the early twentieth century."