Séamus Redmond, who was born 100 years ago on February 9th, served in the Army and Marine Service and for a time in the Royal Air Force but he would be remembered mainly as a very active trade unionist. He was also a keen painter and had a great interest in Irish labour history. He was born in Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital, the second son of James Redmond, a company sergeant, and Mary McLoughlin, and was raised at the Curragh and Spike Island before living in Whitehall in Dublin. After attending the Presentation Brothers School, Cobh, Co Cork, he got a diploma from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) and joined the Army at 18, afterwards joining the Cavalry Corps and the Marine Service. In 1945, he joined the RAF and spent three years in Palestine.
Back in Ireland, he worked for the Dublin Port and Docks’ Board as a traffic inspector. Joining the Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen, he became its secretary in 1957 and founded and edited its newspaper, the Flag. Now more involved in trade-union activities, he became a branch secretary of the Marine Port and General Workers’ Union (MPGWU) in 1963, was afterwards appointed chairman of Dublin Port and Docks’ Board group of trade unions and vice-chairman of the ESB group of trade unions. He also joined the advisory board of the National College of Industrial Relations, which had been established in 1966.
Appointed a full-time branch secretary of the MPGWU in 1970, he also became active in the Dublin Trades Council, and from 1973 until his retirement in 1991, he served as general secretary of the MPGWU. “He led the union with conviction and zeal through a troubled period,” according to Angela Murphy, who wrote the entry on him in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. His firm belief that workers should be free to join whichever trade union they wished led him into some difficulty with the National Engineering and Electrical Trade Union (NEETU), which accused his union of “poaching” some of its members. When the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) ordered him to return those members to the NEETU, he withdrew the MPGWU from congress.
Padraig Yeates, who wrote a tribute to him in this newspaper (January 10th, 1996) following his death, said that he “became a national figure for a much bigger ‘poaching’ row in 1977 at the Ferenka plant in Limerick” (Ferenka was a steel-cord manufacturing plant whose Dutch managing-director, Tiede Herrema, had been kidnapped by the IRA in 1975). The dispute this time, over the transfer of members at the plant, was with the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) and, according to Yeates, it “helped to close the plant”.
Assurance and zeal – Brian Maye on trade unionist Séamus Redmond
Hardebeck Edition – Frank McNally on an Anglo-German musician who became the “blind bard of Belfast”
Anti-social climber – Frank McNally on the pioneering cat burglar Robert Augustus Delaney
Digging Up History – Frank McNally on the McMahon, and other once-famous spades
Redmond led his union back into the ICTU following changes to the latter’s constitution in 1982, Angela Murphy tells us, but it was not until 1988 that he had “mended his fences with other unions” and brought the MPGWU back into congress, according to Padraig Yeates.
Both agree that he had many interests outside of his trade-union activities. The drug problem in Dublin greatly concerned him and he set up a committee within his union to explore the prevention of drug abuse, following which he formed a drug-awareness programme.
We saw above that he was a graduate of the NCAD and he always maintained an interest in art, setting up the MPGWU Art Group which held more than 30 exhibitions and which won the coveted Calor Kosangas Arts Award in 1994. Irish labour history was another of his great interests and he spent some time writing a history of his own union which, due to his sudden death, was incomplete. He also served on the Irish Labour History Society Committee, gave many talks on industrial relations and wrote many articles on labour-history subjects.
Padraig Yeates described him as “a distinctive figure, and not just for his impeccable dress sense and fondness for bow ties”, who “never failed to impress by his ability to argue his case”. Angela Murphy called him “a diligent and respected trade-union leader . . . who always made time for union members” and “a perfectionist who had an eye for detail”. She too recorded that “he dressed impeccably and was known for sporting bow ties”.
In 1950, he married Theresa Smith and they had two sons and two daughters and lived in Dublin. He had been ill for some months before his death on January 10th, 1996, a month short of his 71st birthday.
He was survived by Theresa, his daughters Myra and Hilda, and his son Barry. His eldest son, Paul, had died some years before.
