RMT’s guest speaker to deliver this year’s Charles Watkins’ Memorial Lecture will be Labour historian Francis Devine who will be talking on the 1913 Dublin Lockout. For more background information click here.

This promises to provide an interesting lecture and discussion following on from a series of events that will have taken place commemorating the centenary of the lockout.

This free event will be held at Unity House and refreshments will also be provided.

The Memorial Lecture was initiated in 2009 as a result of an Annual General Meeting resolution. It commemorates the role of Charles Watkins, a key founding activist of the National Union of Railwaymen in 1913, who was a student at Ruskin College in 1909 and took part in the Ruskin strikes of that year.

The 2009 AGM resolved that a Memorial Lecture should be a first step towards re-establishing a tradition of independent working class education and that a leading academic or cultural figure should speak on the question of education and class struggle.

I would like to encourage members to attend what should be an enjoyable and informative evening.