THE ULSTERCONFLICT a while in 1906/7 it seemed possible that Protestant and Catholic workers might join together on a class basis. The Belfast Trades Council gave its support in the 1906 parliamentary election to a slate of three candidates (.fighting three of the four Belfast constituencies) representing, respectively, the Belfast Labour Party, the Independent Orange Order and the A.O.H. (Ancient Order of Hibernians - the Catholic nationalist political machine in Belfast). In 1907 these same political organizations climbed onto the back of a long series of strike actions in various sectors of Belfast industry, which had been strengthened by the arrival in the city of the Liverpool-born Irish Catholic syndicalist, James Larkin, who had come in his capacity of organizer for the British-based National Union of Dock Labourers. Larkin's tactical ability and determination to win seemed to herald the onset in Belfast of a non-sectarian industrial syndicalism, but the surface unity was illusory. Because of the way the industrial economy had developed in Ulster in the 19th century (as outlined in the .first part of this article), a semi-caste system operated in the labour market with Protestants getting a larger share of the skilled jobs than their simple proportion in the population would seem to predicate. By the same token, Protestant and Catholic workers tended to belong to different trades unions. Protestant skilled worhers were organized in the British-based craft unions whilst Catholic workers tended to belong to Irish-based unions, if they belonged to one at all. In times of prosperity (which the years up to 1908 were for Belfast) when the Home Rule issue was not prominent, it seems as though the two sets of workers could manage to "bracket" their religious differences sufficiently not to interfere with a compaign against the bosses, but organizationally they remained distinct entities. By 1908 when a general British recession had hit Belfast the workers were once again divided on sectarian lines. Joseph Devlin, the leader of the A.O.H., who had waited prudently for a month befare rapidly catching up with the 1907 strikes band waggon, had beaten an equally quick retreat to the relative safety of his Catholic nationalist soapbox when the (predominantly Catholic) dockers strike had failed, and had denied any involvement in the struggle. This blatant opportunism of his was a great factor in the increasing sectarian antagonism between the workers. Almost simultaneously the Independent Orange Order sloughed off the religious conciliatory skin which had been grafted onto it by participation in its leadership of a Dublin-based journalist, 43
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