Dock work was treated as casual labour in Dublin Port right up to the 1970s. As such, men would gather at the docks each day in the hope that they would be called to work by the foreman in a daily address known as 'The Read'. Foremen from different…

This poem looks back at what working life was like for one of the thousands of casual labourers who worked at the Dublin docks in the mid-twentieth century. The foreman, or Stevedore, allocated work to men daily. Those labourers would often be left…

The wives and families of dockers had to face deprivations that often went unnoticed or unreported. Because of the dangerous nature of work in and around the docklands areas, work accidents where very common. Almost on a daily basis, men were…