Frank Robbins

Frank Robbins (5 July 1895 – 31 January 1979) was an Irish trade unionist. Robbins came to prominence as a member of James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army, taking part in the Dublin Lockout in 1913 and the Easter Rising in 1916. Although Robbins did not involvement himself in the ensuing Irish War of Independence or Irish Civil War, he continued to influence events in Ireland through his leadership in the trade union movement and as part of the Labour Party. During the Irish revolutionary period, Robbins was frustrated by the notion that Labour was considered outside of Irish Republicanism, rather than a strand within it. He was also frustrated by the lack of willingness by the labour movement to involvement themselves directly in the War of Independence. Although Robbins was a disciple of the syndicalist Connolly, he himself rejected communism and hardline socialism, to the point that in 1944 he followed William O'Brien and his supporters out of the Labour party and into the splinter group the National Labour Party when they accused the mainline of the party of allowing communists such as Jim Larkin into the Dublin branches of the party. Biography Born Francis Robbins to William and Mary Robbons, "Frank" was the fifth of nine siblings brought up at 3 Upper Buckingham Street, Dublin. At age 13, he began working at Barrington's soap works before moving to a job on Dublin's dockyards. In 1911, he joined the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, which would lead to his participation in the Dublin Lockout of 1913, a mass strike by trade unions members in Dublin which ended up lasting six months. Robbin's participating in the Lockdown led to him joining James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army, a paramilitary group initially formed to defend striking workers. In 1916, as part of the ICA, Robbins participated in the Easter Rising, when Irish republicans and socialists staged a rebellion against the United Kingdom in Dublin. Robbin was a part of the St Stephen's Green garrison, which occupied the College of Surgeons. In the aftermath Robbins was arrested and then interned at Knutsford detention barracks and then at Frongoch internment camp, both in Great Britain. Following his release in August 1916, Robbins procured a job on a transatlantic cargo ship. Soon, the ITGWU asked Robbins to go to the United States to ask James Larkin, the high-profile Irish labour leader, to return to Ireland. Larkin had left Ireland following the defeat of the Dublin Lockout.