‘To Thrive Is an Impossibility Now’: Policing Recession and Public Unrest

Abstract

The political unrest of the 1880s and 1890s affected Dublin and Irish society at all levels. Marked disintegration of local industries, dispossession of tenant farmers and cheap foreign crop imports crippled Dublin’s economy; larceny of basic necessities became commonplace. As Queensland slipped into a deep economic recession after a significant drop in wool exports, local summary courts mirrored the Dublin trend. Brisbane city police courts disposed of charges for larceny of food and clothing from shops and houses daily. A series of major strikes in addition to a significant rise in theft and vagrancy wore the scant police resources even thinner. Dukova reviews the Dublin police strike and the series of riots fuelled by the political and economic uncertainty in Dublin, Brisbane and Toronto.