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IRELAND & THE WAR: DOWNLOAD TEXT - BUSINESS

Guinness: Many men left their jobs to enlist. Guinness who employed approx. 3,500 in 1914 lost 645 to recruitment. However they were given the added incentive of getting their jobs back if they survived the war. 542 returned to their employment. 103 of them were killed. A total of 72 Guinness employees joined the Dublin Fusiliers, 20 lost their lives and 4 were awarded military decorations, one of whom was 2nd Lieut. Alec Haines, the only son of the London Manager of Guinness.

Workers Volunteer: Building workers who enlisted were allowed to train on site by their employers. The involvement of large employers such as Dockrell’s the builders suppliers, distillers, such as Jameson’s and John Powers, joined in the recruiting campaign which led to allegations that they were forcing men to enlist by making them redundant or threatening to do so. Incentives were offered for working men to enlist such as half pay and their job back when they returned. The Dublin and Wicklow Manure Company lost two hundred of their men to the army.
 
Effects on Industry: Initially the war brought prosperity to large Irish Farmers. Landless labourers and small farmers however did less well during the war. The big farmers who employed the labourers were unwilling to raise their wages in line with rising prices. Farmers with small holdings, due to their lack of capital, were unable to take advantage of the rising demand. Farm labourers joined the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) which expanded rapidly in the last years of the war. In the north of Ireland, extra orders for army tents and uniforms together with extra work in the shipyards, added to the prosperity of the citizens of Belfast and surrounding towns. In 1916 an Output of Beer (Restriction) Act was passed and by the end of the year, arrangements were in hand for the Ministry of Munitions to take over all distilleries for the conversion and adaptation to produce products such as acetone used in the manufacture of explosives. By April 1917 distilleries were closing down resulting in hundreds of men losing their jobs. Many employers, particularly Guinness, carried out work study programmes throughout the factories to establish if women could replace men who had enlisted in some of the jobs the men did.