1923 Dublin general strike (Napoleon's World)

The January 1923 Dublin general strike was a general strike organized by various labor factions in the city of Dublin during the fall of 1922 and executed starting on January 1, 1923. Intended as a temporary and peaceful strike to force employers to the table in an effort to reconcile differences on wages, working conditions and the ban on unions within the city limits of Dublin, after four days Dublin's police violently broke the strike, instigating two separate riots and forcing even more protesters into the streets. On January 7, 1923, a third riot raged and two army regiments were called into Dublin to make peace, resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries.

The harsh response to the strike is regarded by historians as being inspired by the reaction to the successful Socialist Revolution in England, which conservative Irish leaders had watched with fear. Deep into the late 1920's, the Irish government imprisoned, harassed and occasionally executed organized labor activists and socialists within the country, regarding them as the nation's greatest threat. Following the victory over England in the 1935-37 Irish War, however, organized labor was legalized in Ireland due to the contributions of blue-collar workers to the war effort.