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Thomas Johnson Collection

Thomas Johnson

Thomas Johnson

UCD Library Special Collections holds the Thomas Johnson pamphlet collection.
The Collection

The Thomas Johnson collection consists of over 200 political pamphlets, mainly from the late 19th-early 20th century. It is rich in material relating to Labour and socialist politics in Ireland and Europe, as well as conscription and the Irish Civil War. This collection was purchased in 1975 by the UCD Library.

Collection Highlights
  • A Handbook for Rebels (1918);
  • V. I. Lenin, Les problèmes du pouvoir des soviets (1918); 
  • John Reed, Red Russia: The Triumph of the Bolsheviki (1919); 
  • Draft constitution of the Irish Free State: to be submitted to the Provision Parliament (1922); 
  • Various texts by Alice Stopford Green, George Russell (AE), James Connolly, The O’Rahilly, and Patrick Pearse. 
  • Pamphlets relating to conscription in Ireland, the Spanish Civil War, and the global Labour movement. 
Biographical History

Born in Liverpool, Thomas Johnson, (1872-1963), was a trade unionist and politician. His interest in socialism was propelled by his experience of living and working conditions in that city; he was encouraged by his father and through nonconformist church teachings. Working for a fish merchant’s firm based in Liverpool and Kinsale, Johnson joined the Liverpool branch of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, while also becoming involved with the Fabian Society and the Liverpool Parliamentary Debating Society. In 1903, he moved to a London firm with branches in Ireland, and soon relocated with his family to Belfast. There, Johnson quickly became involved with trade union movements, supporting and assisting James Larkin and James Connolly. In 1912, Johnson joined Connolly and William O’Brien as a founder of the Irish Labour Party. The following year, Johnson and his wife, Marie Johnson (née Tregay, a teacher, socialist and suffragist) toured the north of England to raise funds for strikers and locked-out workers in Dublin. From 1914 – 16, Johnson was president of the Irish Trades Union Congress and Labour Party; a pacifist, he campaigned against conscription before and during the First World War. Dismissed by his employer for this stance in 1918, he became secretary of the Mansion House anti-conscription committee, publishing A Handbook for Rebels: A Guide to Successful Defiance of the British Government. Johnson agreed that Labour should not contest the 1918 election, on the basis that it would split the Sinn Féin vote. Still active in politics, however, Johnson drafted the Democratic Programme, adopted by Dáil Éireann in 1921. Elected as a TD in 1922, he also severed as Senator from 1928–36 and remained active in trade union and political circles until the mid-1950s.

Access and Use
More Information

Find more information on Thomas Johnson:

  • Thomas Johnson in the (opens in a new window)Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (UCD only). The Dictionary of Irish Biography also contains entries on Thomas Johnson and Marie Johnson.
  • Gaughan, J. A. (1980) Thomas Johnson 1872-1963. Dublin: Kingdom Books, shelved on Level 2 of James Joyce Library at 941.5082 JOH.

The Thomas Johnson Papers are held by the (opens in a new window)National Library of Ireland.

UCD Special Collections

James Joyce Library, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
T: +353 1 716 7149 | E: special.collections@ucd.ie