Social Networks and Social Change: The Role of Individual Agency and Cross-Movement Alliances in the 1913 Dublin Lockout

Filippo Barsi, Scuola Normale Superiore

Social networks are essential for social change, serving as spaces for ideological exchange, mobilization, and collective identity formation. This paper examines how the interplay between socialist, Republican, and feminist networks in early 20th-century Ireland shaped political radicalization, focusing on the Dublin Lockout of 1913 as a critical turning point in developing cross-movement alliances. The Lockout, an industrial dispute led by the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), rapidly transcended labour concerns to become a broader struggle against social and political oppressions. Crucially, it created a space where activists from different backgrounds—socialists like James Connolly, republicans like George Russell, and feminists like Constance Markievicz and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington—converged in a shared fight against the structures of colonial and capitalist domination. By employing Alberto Melucci’s analytical categories of “latency” and “submerged networks”, this study highlights the role of individual agency in shaping social movements, demonstrating how key figures overcame their political and ideological differences and laid the groundwork for future political collaborations, as it happened during the demonstrations against the First World War and during the 1916 Easter Rising. The Lockout not only strengthened ties between Irish labour, nationalist, and feminist networks but also cultivated a radicalized generation of activists who would later play a pivotal role in the Rising. The solidarities forged in the streets of Dublin in 1913—through shared struggles, mass mobilization, and violent repression—created the conditions for a broader revolutionary movement. Furthermore, these networks were embedded in transnational socialist and anti-imperialist movements and cultural-epistemic networks, drawing on British, American, and European political traditions. By analysing the 1913 Dublin Lockout as a catalyst for cross-movement alliances, this paper underscores the importance of individual agency and social networks in sustaining activism, developing political and cultural relationships between different groups of activists, and ultimately driving radical political campaigns.

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 Presented in Session 218. Worker and Community Activism