A place in O'Connell Street Dublin is chosen for a statue of trade union leader Jim Larkin.
A site opposite the General Post Office (GPO) has been selected for a memorial to Jim Larkin, trade unionist and founder of the Workers Union of Ireland (WUI), and one of the founders of the Irish Labour Party.
A plaque has been unveiled where a bronze statue of 'Big' Jim Larkin is to be erected in 1976.
The unveiling was performed by Mr John Foster General President of the WUI.
Among those in attendance were Denis Larkin, General Secretary of the WUI, Mr Tully Minister for Local Government, Mr O'Leary Minister for Labour, Dr Cruise O'Brien Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Mr Paddy Cardiff Deputy President of the WUI, and Jim Larkin (son of Mr Denis Larkin).
Speaking at the event, John Foster said that Jim Larkin's name would always be identified with the Irish working class struggle and the growth of the trade union movement.
We know that his vision was that of an Ireland with a political, social and economic system serving the real needs of the Irish people.
The plaque recalls the memory of Jim Larkin as the man who formed the Workers Union of Ireland but history will remember him as the man who formed the earlier union the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) and the man that for six months during 1913 led twenty thousand Dublin workers against a combination of employers determined to break that union.
He immortalised himself in the task of forming a new social conscience amid the gaslights and tenements of Dublin.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 17 September 1974. The reporter is Pat Sweeney.
