This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Frances Clarke. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 6 September 1864, United Kingdom
Died: 26 September 1928
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
Galway, Mary (1864–1928), trade unionist, was born 6 September 1864 in Taglanneg, Moira, Co. Down, daughter of Henry Galway and Elizabeth Galway (née Magennis), linen weavers. She later moved with her family to Belfast, living initially in 85 Leeson St., before settling in 31 Crocus St., off the Springhill Road, after her father’s death. She and her sisters all found work in the linen industry (which then dominated Belfast), describing themselves as handkerchief stitchers in the 1901 census. She subsequently told a government inquiry that she had worked for eleven years as a machinist. A member of the Textile Operatives Society of Ireland (TOSI; the only women’s trade union in the linen industry) from its earliest days, she evidently became active soon after joining, given her attendance at the Trade Union Conference held in Belfast in 1893. This continued throughout the period that followed, so that by January 1897, when Belfast’s linen workers went on strike, she had come to occupy a central role in the union. It was as president of TOSI (an elected and voluntary post) that she represented the Belfast trades council in the ensuing negotiations between workers and employers on the implications of the 1896 truck act, during which she and her colleague Susan Cockbill secured concessions from employers. Having made a favourable impression during these negotiations, she was appointed TOSI’s general secretary after Cockbill left the job in the summer of that year. At the time of her appointment she faced a difficult task, given the appalling conditions faced by many working women. She later recalled how women of ‘long experience and skill’ received a mere ten shillings for a fifty-four-hour week (Moriarty MS, p. 12). Added to such problems was the fact that her union’s membership remained relatively small, and though it reached a pre-war peak of 3,000 in 1908, it never had anything close to a majority of the workforce. While poorly represented in the larger mills, it gained a greater foothold in the smaller factories such as Kennedy’s, where Galway organised a successful strike in 1900. She has been accused by some of concentrating her recruiting efforts on the more skilled workers in the ‘making-up’ section of the industry; nevertheless she was a familiar figure to most mill-workers, who recalled her standing outside the factories as early as 5.45 a.m., urging employees to become unionised.
Her position within Belfast trade-union circles was further consolidated in 1898 when she was elected to the executive of the city’s trades council. A close colleague of William Walker, with whom she had a good working relationship, she earned a reputation for moderation. However, she could be extremely determined when pursuing the needs of her members, as is evident in her public attack on her own trades council at the Irish TUC for their perceived indifference to women workers (1901). She came to play a significant part in Belfast’s union campaigns, most notably during the 1906 linen strike, and in 1907 when she addressed rallies and collected funds on behalf of the striking carters and dockers led by James Larkin. At national level she was well known through her attendance at the ITUC from 1898, where she regularly contributed to the debates. As a member of its parliamentary committee (1907–13) and vice-president (1909–10), she was included in the trade union delegation that met the chief secretary, Augustine Birrell. Her conservatism could frustrate some colleagues: her opening address at the 1910 congress, in which she proposed a vote of condolences on the death of the king, infuriated William O’Brien (d. 1968), who opposed the motion on the grounds that ‘our sympathy had much better be extended to the victims of the colliery disaster at Whitehaven’ (ITUC annual report, 1910). Similarly, radical members of her own trades council at times voiced opposition to her conciliatory style.
Galway was, however, an extremely effective trade unionist. She was a persistent and influential campaigner in securing the first woman factory inspector in Ireland (having approached in person the president of the Board of Trade in London); her demands were finally met in 1905. She was similarly active in the campaign for outworkers, which came to a head in 1910 after the publication of a highly influential and much quoted annual report by Belfast’s medical officer, H. W. Bailie. She played a central role in the establishment of a trade board specifically for outworkers (1915), to which she was subsequently appointed. Among the other issues she addressed were the need for improved sanitation and safety in the workplace, the system of fining employees for allegedly spoiled work, and the question of ‘half-timers’ (whereby children divided their week between school and the factory). An early member of the Belfast branch of the Worker’s Education Association, in 1924 she contributed an article on the significance of the linen industry in Ulster to William G. Fitzgerald’s The voice of Ireland, in which she highlighted the contribution made by skilled women workers.
Despite these contributions, Galway is probably best known for her very public clash with James Connolly in the autumn of 1911. The conflict initially arose when Connolly, then recently settled in Belfast, agreed to represent striking workers from the York St. mill. This in turn led to his establishing a rival union for the women, which he named the Irish Textile Workers Union. Galway clearly regarded it as unwanted competition, and felt threatened enough to organise a counter-demonstration to denounce the strike. In December 1911 she asked the trades council to disaffiliate the new union, but Connolly repudiated her claims of poaching members, and pointed out that she had left the vast bulk of textile workers unorganised. The council took no decisive action, and the dispute simmered on at the 1912 congress, where she repeated her claims of poaching and accused Connolly of organising his union along sectarian lines.
With the setting up of the government of Northern Ireland in 1921, Galway was appointed to a number of parliamentary committees associated with her industry. She remained general secretary of TOSI at the time of her death in Crocus St., Belfast, 26 September 1928. She was buried in the Galway family plot in Hillsborough, Co. Down.