On 29 September 1913 trade unionist Jim Larkin and industrial magnate William Martin Murphy came face to face for the first time in an attempt to bring an end to the Dublin Lockout. The Lockout, in which employees locked out workers belonging to (or refusing to pledge not to join) the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, had already been in effect for several weeks, sparking a series of demonstrations brutally suppressed by police and leaving thousands of families around the capital in desperate poverty and close to starvation.
Bosco Hogan (In the Name of the Father) is Murphy and Stephen Murray plays the impassioned firebrand Larkin in The Inquiry, a docu-drama that brings to life the dramatic events of that encounter, when the two most notorious figures in Irish public life hurled accusations at one another in front of the international press. Turlough Kelly’s script draws on British Parliamentary reports and contemporary newspapers to provide a gripping account of events, going behind the scenes at the meeting to explore the tensions within both camps.
Alistair Daniel
Jameson Dublin International Film Festival
