James Baird (trade unionist)

James Baird was a trade unionist and politician in Northern Ireland.

An opponent of the partition of Ireland, Baird joined the Independent Labour Party. He was also active in the Boilermakers' Society, and was prominent in the Belfast strike, 1919. In 1920, he was elected to Belfast Corporation, representing the Belfast Labour Party.

Baird was expelled from the shipyard where he worked on account of his politics, alongside labour activists Sam Kyle, John Hanna and Charles McKay, and a substantial number of Roman Catholics. He stood for the Independent Labour Party in Belfast South at the Northern Ireland general election, 1921. Baird joined the ITGWU as an organizer, was active in the Waterford farm strike of 1923, and polled well as Labour candidate for Waterford. In 1924, he emigrated to Australia and died in Brisbane in 1948.

Emmet O'Connor, A Labour History of Ireland, 1824-2000 (Dublin, 2011).

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