Background to the Plays


The Battle of Cable Street in 1936 was an example of ‘people power’  when ordinary working class men and women of the East End came out on the streets in their thousands to stop Oswald Mosley and his black-shirted British Union of Fascists from marching through their neighbourhood.
In those days the Irish and Jewish two communities, both regarded with suspicion by their English hosts, lived uncomfortably side by side, crammed into the streets around Stepney and Whitechapel. There were roads housing Irish tenants adorned with handmade signs proclaiming “No Jews in Our Street”.
Who was Oswald Mosley?


Meanwhile, back in Ireland, the all-powerful Catholic church was actively encouraging the development of Ireland’s own version of the Italian fascists as a bulwark against communism, and they weren’t shy about equating Communism with Judaism. That year the Dean of Cork told a crowd of 40,000 people that the civil war in Spain was nothing but the work of a “gang of murderous Jews from Moscow”.

Battle of Cable Street
The march of 5,000 Blackshirts through the largest Jewish community in the UK was a cynical and provocative act. When attempts to convince the police to ban Mosley’s rally failed, mainstream leaders, from the Labour Party to the Jewish Deputies, advised people in the area to stay indoors. And deny the BUF the confrontation they were seeking.
It was a call that was ignored. On the morning of Sunday October 4th, when an estimated 20,000 protesters flooded out into the streets. They were met by around 6,000 uniformed policemen, who battled to break the human blockade and allow the BUF to carry out their march.
The demonstrators fought back with sticks, rocks, chair legs and other improvised weapons. Rubbish, rotten vegetables and the contents of chamber pots were thrown at the police by women in houses along the street. After a series of running battles, Mosley agreed to abandon the march to prevent bloodshed