The business-owners lived comfortably, with servants and fine homes. They barely knew of the lives of the poor workers, crowded into ramshackle tenement buildings where disease and hunger were rife. These two worlds collided when 'Big Jim' Larkin, took on the might of the business world. Opposing him was wealthy businessman William Martin Murphy, who refused to employ Larkin's Union members and organised a Lockout to break the spirit of the striking workers.