Dublin’s Centre of Social Anarchy
Liberty Hall has often been at the very core of radical action in Dublin. First the headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in the early 20th century it functioned as an important shelter and food kitchen for workers (run by two spectacular women, Maud Gonne and Countess Constance Markievicz) during the notorious lock-out of 1913. Liberty Hall also became the headquarters of the Irish Citizen Army, which hung a defiant banner saying, “We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser, But Ireland.” It was the first building shelled by the British during the Rising.
In May 1917, four women barricaded themselves in the building, and hung a large banner from the top window, referring to the previous year’s execution of one of the leaders: “James Connolly Murdered May 12th 1916.” It took the police almost an entire day to break in and tear the banner down. As The Irish Times noted, Liberty Hall was “the centre of social anarchy in Ireland, the brain of every riot and disturbance.”