The debate is under way: what to do about Liberty Hall? It is a historically important building in Dublin, for though it might not have much architectural merit, it tells a real truth about 1960s Ireland, writes Kevin Myers.
For urban buildings make the truest statement of where power lies. The cathedrals of Christ Church and St Patrick's in Dublin, St Canice's in Kilkenny, St Mel's in Longford were built on hills, from which they overlooked the entire community.
The great constructions raised by Georgian Dublin - the Custom House, the GPO, the Four Courts, the House of Parliament - had the same purpose: they were the most imposing buildings in the city, and were architectural assertions of authority by the major institutions of the Anglo-Irish state.
From independence on, virtually no buildings were erected in Dublin. However, despite the massive over-supply of workers in the Irish labour market - which logically should have crippled trade unionism - the economy was dominated by unions. They still controlled labour supply, and access to jobs. When the Lemass-Whitaker economic revolution began in the late 1950s, trade union membership rocketed. Workers were obliged to buy the indulgence which allowed them into employment; and with this mandatory peter's pence, the unions built a cathedral in their own honour, which they called Liberty Hall.
At 15 storeys, it was easily the tallest building in Dublin, towering over everything and visible from everywhere. It was brash and modish, and shimmering with arriviste vulgarity. Some innocent Dubliners even called it "the skyscraper".
Liberty Hall: what a misnomer. This was the headquarters of organisations which ruthlessly promoted the closed shop and which actively obstructed non-union workers from getting jobs, using coercion, boycott and the strike. Some trade unions operating out of "Liberty" Hall actively campaigned against women being allowed to be bus-drivers or conductors; others vigorously defended both different pay rates for women and the ban on married women from employment in the public service.
So Liberty Hall was not a cathedral to freedom but, like any medieval church, was a overwhelming, ever-visible architectural statement of authority. Indeed, after the Catholic church, the trade union movement was the most powerful force in Irish life, its authority enduring no matter who was in office.
Banks closed at lunchtime because the unions insisted on it. But hold on: lunchtime was the only available time for many people to go to the bank, so how could they ever get to the bank? Well, they couldn't. For banks were not there for their customers but for their staff and their shareholders. They were sources of employment and dividends, not of service to the public.
Large semi-state organisations such as RTÉ, the ESB, CIÉ, the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, were trade union paradises where management was not about managing the company but managing the demands of rival trade unions. RTÉ had about 20 unions, including the Seamen's Union for the two men who climbed the mast, but the good old ESB did better, with some two dozen.
Trade unions in the one company endlessly warred with each other over parity, differential and demarcation disputes. Truly wise men became monks and contemplated the sea; ambitious fools set out to run the major state enterprises of Ireland and ended up contemplating the four walls of John of God's or St Patrick's.
Yet all this trade union power didn't help working-class people get richer, but instead, made the unions and their leaders exceptionally powerful; and by inhibiting flexibility both of labour and of work practice, they actively restricted the creation of wealth. Workplaces became battlefields, with a myriad of endless boundaries where one worker's duty ended and another began. Here in The Irish Times, in the days of paper copy, reporters would put their work in a tray marked "chief sub", which would be collected by a messenger who would carry it the 10 feet to the chief sub's desk. If, for the sake of speed, you decided to hand the copy directly to the chief sub, it was a potentially strike-causing deed.
Thus trade union idiocy governed the everyday lives of ordinary people through countless and uncountable rules, most of them retained solely in people's heads. Working relationships were based on an intricate local folklore of who might do what and how, and all maintained by a mandatory system of union dues which kept a parasitic caste of bureaucratic drones in permanent employment in the Vatican that was Liberty Hall.
Now, only fools would say there is never a place for trade unions. Human nature is too inclined to bully when in power, and collectively workers can oppose a tyrannical employer in a way no individual can. But conversely, trade union power was often deployed for non-economic reasons. Bricklayers' unions were as much about keeping hod-carriers in their place as they were about increasing bricklayers' pay; and the union to which I have the melancholy honour of belonging often seems more interested in enforcing the aridities of political correctness than in defending journalistic freedom of speech.
When I see "Liberty" Hall, what do I see? Do I see a building which symbolises freedom? Does it stand for my right to work for this newspaper without being obliged to be a member of the National Unionist of Journalists? It does not. For Liberty Hall is not about liberty, but trade union power. It tells us as much about Ireland of the 1960s as Christ Church does about Ireland in the middle ages - the difference being that Christ Church is worth preserving, and Liberty Hall is not.