An Introduction to “Mr. Bernard Shaw on Syndicalism”

On 30 March 1912, a short article that purported to be an interview of Shaw, “Mr. Bernard Shaw on Syndicalism,” appeared in the four-page Dublin labor weekly, The Irish Worker. The paper was the organ of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) and was then edited by its founder, and the union's general secretary, James Larkin.¹ Dan Laurence lists the article in his bibliography, but he and David Greene did not include its text in The Matter with Ireland. The short article is most decidedly a self-interview, with its creation of a scene, as if a play, with the “characters” of Shaw and “O. R.,” the paper's “our representative.” Given the financial restraints of Larkin's paper in March 1912, it is highly unlikely that the paper could have sent a representative to London. However, it is unclear if Larkin wrote to Shaw for his views...