Victor Halley

{{short description|Irish trade unionist}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Victor Halley (15 January 1904 – 24 October 1966)[http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai002208077/ Halley Family 1911 Census Form] 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, 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.

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.[https://web.archive.org/web/20091028150410/http://geocities.com/irelandscw/docs-SPNI.htm Notes on the Socialist Party of Northern Ireland] A mainly Protestant organisation, it had around 150 members in the Shankill and Newtownards Road districts of Belfast,{{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}}Ronaldo Munck and Bill Rolston, Belfast in the thirties: an oral history, p. 147 Included were Jack Macgougan,"[http://irelandscw.com/docs-SPNI.htm Letting Labour Lead: Jack Macgougan and the Pursuit of Unity, 1913-1958]", Saothar, No. 14 and the married couple, Ulster Volunteer veteran George McBride, and 1916 Easter Rising veteran Winifred Carney.{{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}}

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.{{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.}} 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.{{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}}{{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}}

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.Matt Merrigan, Eagle Or Cuckoo?: The Story of the ATGWU in Ireland 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.{{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 }}

In 1948, along with MacGougan and the writer Denis Ireland, Haley was a member of the Belfast 1798 Commemoration Committee.Courtney (2013), p. 342. 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".

In 1950 and 51, with Diamond he led efforts within the Irish Labour Party to persuade it to organise north of the border.

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