Author's new book inspired by 'lifetime of struggle and strife'
By Cathal McGuigan
A Kerry man living in Co Derry has published a book about his 50-year involvement with trade unions in London, strikes and a “very nasty” battle with the media.
John Flavin left Ballylongford for England in 1963, having won an All-Ireland minor football medal the previous year. Kerry’s semi-final against Offaly in 1962 saw John score some of the first points on live TV.
He said that the book – called ‘To Fight is to Win – A Kerryman’s life in British and Irish Trade Unionism’ was inspired by “a lifetime of struggle and strife” working in England as a leading member of the Union of Construction, Allied Trade and Technicans (UCATT).
He worked in construction in London and faced opposition as an Irish man working in England, particularly when tasked with working on a supermarket in Worcestershire.
“On the day that they arrived, the chief of police turned up. He gathered us around him. ‘Look, Paddies,’ he said, ‘if any of you step out of line your feet will not touch the ground and you will be locked up.”
He met his wife, Glenullin woman Maureen O’Hagan, in London and was involved in union action in the UK and Ireland for five decades.
“I was involved in the national strike in 1972, that lasted for 13 weeks, when they closed down the industry in the major cities,” he said.
“For a time after that conditions were good, but then the contractors and the employers changed the way the industry was run.”
John was a member of UCATT from its formation in 1971. He served as president of the union from 1993 to 1995 and held every role except general secretary. John is now an honorary member of the union, which merged with UNITE and will have achieved fifty years’ membership in 2017.
He believes that working conditions have ‘slowly improved as far as construction is concerned in the UK’ over the past 50 years.
“The days of Irish navvies jumping on the backs of lorries and digging trenches all day and being badly treated are finished,” he said.
John (pictured above in the 60's) was also involved in a court case against Building magazine and The Sunday Times, in what he described as an attempt to “blacken his name with allegations of corruption and financial criminality.”
“It was David-versus-Goliath,” John said.
“They don’t come any bigger than Rupert Murdoch and the Sunday Times and they tried everything but I had a clean slate and a good solicitor.”
John said that the book’s title ‘To Fight is to Win’ sums up his attitude to the work of unions and towards life in general. He revealed that the title is a quote from Patrick Pearse.
“I got that from the 1916 uprising,” he said.
“You had a ramshackle bunch of people taking on the greatest force in the world. They had no chance, but he said to fight is to win. He said if I hadn’t started this fight, we would never have a free Ireland”
John now lives in Glenullin and spoke about his links with County Derry over the years, taking part in marches with NICRA in the 1970s.
“I was here when the Civil Rights movement started. Where I come from, we had British tyranny in the 1920s, long before anything happened here,” he said.
John said that people have expressed interest in the book as far afield as Australia and Canada. To order a copy of ‘To Fight is to Win’ visit johnflavin.org, send an email to [email protected] or call 07929205354.
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