Victor Halley

'''Victor Halley''' (15 January 1904 – 24 October 1966)<ref name=":0" /><ref name="CENSUS FORM">[http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai002208077/ Halley Family 1911 Census Form]</ref> was an Irish trade unionist and socialist in Northern Ireland, who identified the cause of labour with the achievement of an all-Ireland republic.

A Presbyterian,<ref name="CENSUS FORM" /> Halley was born in 1904 at 19 Carew Street, Belfast, the son of James Halley, a soldier, and Julia McCormick. He became an official, and eventually Vice-Chairman, of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union.<ref name="AGTWU" />

Haley joined the Independent Labour Party, and when in 1932 this disaffiliated from the British Labour Party, he became a founder member of the Socialist Party of Northern Ireland, which retained its Northern Ireland Labour Party affiliation.<ref name="notes">[https://web.archive.org/web/20091028150410/http://geocities.com/irelandscw/docs-SPNI.htm Notes on the Socialist Party of Northern Ireland]</ref> A mainly Protestant organisation, it had around 150 members in the Shankill and Newtownards Road districts of Belfast,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tallon |first=Ruth |url=https://www.visitwestbelfast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/winnie-and-george-low-res.pdf |title=Winnifred and George |date=2016 |publisher=Failte Feirste Thiar |location=Belfast}}</ref><ref name="munck1472">Ronaldo Munck and Bill Rolston, ''Belfast in the thirties: an oral history'', p. 147</ref> Included were Jack Macgougan,<ref name="saothar2">"[http://irelandscw.com/docs-SPNI.htm Letting Labour Lead: Jack Macgougan and the Pursuit of Unity, 1913-1958]", ''Saothar'', No. 14</ref> and the married couple, Ulster Volunteer veteran George McBride and his wife, 1916 Easter Rising veteran Winifred Carney.<ref name=":42">{{Cite web |last=Quinn |first=James |date=2009 |title=Carney, Winifred (‘Winnie’) {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography |url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/carney-winifred-winnie-a1489 |access-date=2024-03-09 |website=www.dib.ie |language=en}}</ref>

In 1934, along with Macgougan, the original Irish Citizen Army organiser Jack White and other northern trade unionists and socialists, he attended the convention in Athlone that established the broad "anti-imperialist" Republican Congress, an initiative of a left split from the Irish Republican Army.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Byrne |first=Patrick |url=https://www.leftarchive.ie/workspace/documents/22057-ir-rep-cong-94.pdf |title=The Republican Congress Revisited (with a foreword by Nora Harkin) |publisher=Connolly association Pamphlet |year=1994 |isbn=0952231700 |location=Dublin |pages=5, 15.}}</ref> From 1936 he was active, alongside Betty Sinclair, Macgougan, McBride, Carney and others, in organising relief aid for the Spanish Republic during the civil war with Franco.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Courtney |first=Robert |title=Dissenting Voices: Rediscovering the Irish Progressive Presbyterian Tradition |publisher=Ulster Historical Foundation |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-909556-06-5 |location=Belfast |pages=331–332}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Tallon |first=Ruth |url=https://www.visitwestbelfast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/winnie-and-george-low-res.pdf |title=Winnifred and George |date=2016 |publisher=Failte Feirste Thiar |location=Belfast |pages=10}}</ref>

In 1944, with other Protestant trade unionists in west Belfast, Halley joined Nationalist Party dissidents around Harry Diamond, and ex IRA volunteers in forming the Socialist Republican Party.<ref name="AGTWU">Matt Merrigan, ''Eagle Or Cuckoo?: The Story of the ATGWU in Ireland''</ref> He stood for the party at the 1946 Belfast Central by-election for the party, but was defeated by Frank Hanna of the NILP by 5,566 to 2,783 votes.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.election.demon.co.uk/stormont/belfast.html |title=Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results: Boroughs: Belfast |access-date=9 August 2007 |archive-date=22 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180722074311/http://www.election.demon.co.uk/stormont/belfast.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1948, along with MacGougan and the writer Denis Ireland, Haley was a member of the Belfast 1798 Commemoration Committee.<ref>Courtney (2013), p. 342.</ref> After the government blocked a rally in the city centre, a crowd of 30,000 gathered in Corrigan Park in nationalist west Belfast where they heard Halley declare: "The people who destroyed Tone in Ireland were those who feared the Protestant tradition of association with America, French Republicanism, Freedom and Democracy".<ref name=":0" />

In 1950 and 51, with Diamond he led efforts within the Irish Labour Party to persuade it to organise north of the border.<ref name=":0" />

He died in 1966 in County Westmeath, Ireland.<ref>{{cite news |title=Mr. V. Halley |work=Belfast News-Letter |date=26 October 1966 |page=105}}</ref>

== References == {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Halley, Victor}} Category:1904 births Category:1966 deaths Category:Irish Presbyterians Category:Irish socialists Category:Trade unionists from Belfast Category:Northern Ireland Labour Party politicians Category:Protestant Irish nationalists Category:20th-century Irish trade unionists