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Sat 05 May 2007The legacy of LabourHistoryIn 1941 "Big" Jim Larkin, at a protest meeting about the government's controversial Trade Union Bill, dramatically struck a match on the seat of his pants and set the offending document alight.What his wildly enthusiastic audience did not know, and what we might not have known without Andrée Sheehy Skeffington's memoir (quoted by Niamh Purséil), was that he had earlier taken the precaution of affixing a piece of sandpaper to his trousers, and of dousing his copy of the Bill in paraffin.