PREVIEW: BANKNOTES 31 MAY & 1 JUNE

When the British Army declared Limerick a ‘Special Military Area’ at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence in April 1919, it set off a chain of resistance that took various forms.

One of those was the establishment of a series of workers councils, or soviets, in protest at the measures. The soviets were set up to control the supply and price of food and supplies during a strike, printing their own money in the process.

One of those was the Limerick ‘Soviet’ Trades & Labour Council, an organisation that lasted for just under two weeks from 15 to 27 April.

Events had snowballed after a failed attempt on 6 April by the IRA to liberate Robert ‘Bobby’ Byrne, a prominent trade unionist and IRA figure who was facing court-martial for possession of a revolver and ammunition. A policeman was fatally wounded, while Byrne, already weakened by his hunger strike, died later the same day.

On 9 April, the British Army responded with the Special Military Area declaration, forcing those who wanted to enter or leave Limerick to produce official permits from 14 April.

Two days after the declaration, Sean Dowling, who represented the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), agitated for the trade unions to take over the Town Hall – a move not undertaken, but one that was followed the next day by an ITGWU vote to strike at the Cleeve's factory in Lansdowne. By the Sunday, this had given rise to a general strike was called by the city's United Trades and Labour Council.

The soviet was established by 14 April to run the strike, having adopted its name from the committee in the 1913 Dublin general strike.

The soviet attracted international press attention as the strike, boycotting the British Army, set out to run a parallel economy, including its own newspapers, with businesses agreeing to trade in its strike currency.

Sympathies across Ireland were split, as even the strikers themselves could not agree whether the strike was political or simply about their rights – and the notionally Marxist approach to private property of the soviet potentially put the businesses of shopkeepers and others at risk.

This ‘New Jerusalem’ was not to last – its sudden rise had not been planned or thought through and its objectives were not clear enough to be sustainable after the Lord Mayor and Bishop of Limerick both called for the strike to end. The soviet declared the strike over on 27 April.

While the events themselves were short-lived, they formed part of the longer campaign that led to Irish independence and are commemorated today in incredibly rare surviving examples of the ‘soviet’s’ currency.

This sale offers three examples, covering all the notes produced by the Limerick soviet. Each estimated at £2,000-2,600, they include extremely rare One, Five and Ten Shilling denominations – the One Shilling unsigned and uncirculated.

The Five and Ten Shilling notes are signed by the soviet’s chairman, John Cronin, and its treasurer, James Casey, who went on to serve as Limerick’s Mayor two years later following the murder of the incumbent, George Clancy.