Thomas Carnduff

Thomas Carnduff, poet and playwright, was born on 30 January 1886 in Belfast and died in that city on 17 April 1956.[1] He was raised in the Protestant working-class district of Sandy Row; worked in the city's shipyards (where in 1920 he purportedly helped Catholic workers escape across the Lagan River from the fury of Protestant pogromists); was a member of the early labour-supporting Independent Orange Order; saw action in World War 1; and, after partition, served in the Northern Ireland police reserve, the B Specials.[2][3][4]

His first collection of poetry Songs from the Shipyards was published in 1924. In the 1930s, there were a series of plays,[2] four of which were staged both by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and by the Empire Theatre in Belfast. Workers, Traitors, Machinery and Castlereagh.[5]

In Castlereagh (1935). Carnduff celebrated the United Irishman, James (Jemmy) Hope,[3] the weaver from Templepatrick who insisted that the real causes of social disorder in Ireland were "the conditions of the labouring class".[6] Carnduff was a friend of Peadar O'Donnell,[2] socialist and "somewhat erratic republican",[7] and was drawn to the left-republican Connolly Association formed in 1938.[2]

From 1951 to 1954, he was the resident caretaker for the Linen Hall Library in Belfast where he is commemorated with a Blue Plaque and a portrait.[8]

References
  1. James Quinn. "Carnduff, Thomas". Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Eds.)James Mcguire, James Quinn. Cambridge, United Kingdom:Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  2. Devlin, Patrick. "Thomas Carnduff (1886 - 1956): Poet and playwright -'The Shipyard Poet'. The Dictionary of Ulster Biography". www.newulsterbiography.co.uk. Retrieved 18 June 2023.
  3. Maxwell, Nick (2018). "Inventing the Myth: Political Passions and the Ulster Protestant Imagination". History Ireland. Retrieved 18 June 2023.
  4. Parr, Conal (12 January 2021). "Thomas Carnduff — the shipyard worker, Orangeman and poet who could be a face for Northern Ireland to mark its centenary". News Letter.
  5. Production, March 1991 (9 May 2023). "The Writings of Thomas Carnduff". Tinderbox Theatre Company. Retrieved 18 June 2023.
  6. Madden, Robert (1900). Antrim and Down in '98 : The Lives of Henry Joy m'Cracken, James Hope, William Putnam m'Cabe, Rev. James Porter, Henry Munro. Glasgow: Cameron, Ferguson & Co. p. 108.
  7. Longley, Edna (1994). The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe Books. p. 124. ISBN 1852242175.
  8. Fischer, William (2019). "Thomas Carnduff". Ulster History Circle. Retrieved 18 June 2023.



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