Conor Reddy
AS PRESIDENT of the Postgraduate Workers’ Organisation of Ireland (PWO), Conor Reddy is no stranger to politics, both on campus and further afield. Although he failed to get elected for People Before Profit in Dublin North-West (DNW) at the last general election, Reddy has not given up or slowed down in his political aspirations. A well-known name in social activist circles, how is Reddy changing the culture of postgraduate study in Ireland and will he be sitting in the Dáil sooner rather than later?
The PWO was founded in January 2023 after the merger of the PhDs’ Collective Action Union (PCAU) and Postgraduate Workers’ Alliance Ireland (PWAI). This was a significant and surprisingly popular move amongst postgraduate students, especially considering that, usually, no leftist solidarity movement worth its salt exists without some long-lasting and often esoteric infighting between different groups ostensibly fighting for the same thing. For Reddy, a social immunology researcher in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and the PWO’s first president, it has been a productive if occasionally frustrating year in charge.
Reddy was well known in Dublin activist circles long before he took control of the PWO. As an undergraduate studying genetics, Finglas-born Reddy was the treasurer of TCD People Before Profit. TCD-PBP is wholly unique in student politics as it is not merely the youth wing of a main political party, such as Ógra Sinn Féin or Young Fine Gael, but rather a regular branch of the main PBP organisation.
TCD-PBP has consistently been one of the most active political societies on Trinity’s campus over the years, from recruitment at the Fresher’s Fair to numerous major campaigns each year. While he was an undergraduate, Reddy was involved with the 2018 Take Back Trinity campaign against supplemental exam fees and he was a driving force behind TCD Students’ Union (TCDSU) committing to support the Boycott, Divest Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel in support of Palestine in 2017. But amongst these and other worthy causes, one issue stands out above all – housing.
Student activists have long made housing the major tenet of their work and Conor Reddy is no exception. He was arrested in 2018 for occupying a house on North Frederick Street as part of the Take Back the City campaign. After being released from custody, he ended up in hospital overnight and required treatment for injuries allegedly sustained as a result of rough behaviour from the gardaí who arrested him.
In September of the following year Reddy founded Cut the Rent TCD, which advocated for those in Trinity’s student accommodation to go on rent strike in a protest against the housing crisis.
In more recent years, Reddy has focused a lot of his time and energy on postgraduate workers’ rights, advocating for his community, which has been in upheaval in recent years.
Until 2022, TCD supported postgraduate students via the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) which, like TCDSU, received funding for its work. However, in September 2022, Trinity’s board announced it was cutting all ties with the GSU after financial mismanagement on the union’s part that saw no accounts filed for over a year.
The board announced instead that funding for postgraduate issues would be funnelled through TCDSU.
During Reddy’s time as a postgraduate student in Trinity, he has seen his union be dissolved into nothing; he co-founded a workers’ rights group, aptly named TCD PhD Workers’ Rights Group, in 2019 (not to be confused with the PWO, PCAU or PWAI. Got it? Okay); he was instrumental in the merging of unions to form the Postgraduate Workers’ Organisation; and he was elected president. His postgraduate study has been eventful, to say the least, but it doesn’t stop there.
The relationship between TCDSU and the PWO has rarely been harmonious (that leftist infighting). Autumn 2023 saw numerous quarrels break out between the groups over alleged harassment and intimidation of union members by PWO members during class elections.
A motion proposed by TCDSU’s education officer to remove that union’s mandate to support PWO campaigns only narrowly failed to pass at a council meeting.
The PWO denied all allegations of wrongdoing and, while it succeeded in keeping its tie to TCDSU, relationships remain fraught.
Amongst all of this drama and activism, as well as completing his undergraduate degree and beginning a job as a research assistant in Trinity, Conor Reddy also found the time to plan a campaign and run for PBP in the general election in 2020.
He announced his candidacy on social media in early 2020, posting: “After a lot of deliberation and strong support from family, friends, and fellow activists, I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be running as the People Before Profit candidate for Dublin North-West in the upcoming General Election. Like most young people, I’m sick of struggling to get by and I’m angry that we live under a system that so cruelly denies us a future. Young and old alike, we live in a society that cruelly privileges the interests of a wealthy few over the struggling many… We have a hell of a fight ahead of us but together we can break the cycle of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael rule and build a fairer, more equal society!” Right on, Conor.
Despite running a spirited campaign, Conor Reddy narrowly lost out on a Dáil seat. SF’s Dessie Ellis came out on top in DNW, with a massive 14,375 votes (the quota was 8,097). Although a large amount of Ellis’s transfers went to Reddy – Ellis’s transfers were greater than the first-preference votes Reddy polled – it was the Social Democrats’ Róisín Shorthall who swooped in after the fourth count. Reddy only lost out on a seat by just over 1,000 votes to FF’s Paul McAuliffe, who served as lord mayor of Dublin from 2019 to 2020.
Undeterred, over the past four years Reddy has continued to engage with not only his college community but also his local Finglas and he has become a recognisable and respected figure in the locality. With Taoiseach Leo Varadkar insisting that Ireland will not see another general election until next year, Reddy will have an extra half-decade worth of experience to bring to the table in DNW next time around.
He will, of course, also have to cope with a beefed-up SF slate of two candidates to take advantage of the party’s electoral resurgence.
Students such as Reddy are a counterblast to those who say that today’s young people are apathetic and naïve in their politics.
