History of Sorts

With all this talk about the 1916 centenary celebrations I decided to go back to a bit of history which seem to have been forgotten outside of Limerick(and indeed in Limerick).

The era was called the Limerick soviet.

It was a self declared soviet that existed from 15 to 27 April 1919. At the beginning of the Irish War of Independence, a general strike was organised by the Limerick Trades and Labour Council, as a protest against the British Army’s declaration of a “Special Military Area” under the Defence of the Realm Act, which covered most of Limerick city and a part of the county. The soviet ran the city for the period, printed its own money and organised the supply of food

The general strike was extended to a boycott of the troops. A special strike committee was set up to print their own money, control food prices and publish newspapers…