[2] Born in Liverpool, Johnson worked on the docks for an Irish fish merchant, spending much of his time in Dunmore East and Kinsale.

[3] It was this way that he picked up ideas about socialism and Irish nationalism, joining in 1893 a Liverpool branch of the Independent Labour Party.

In 1900 he started work as a commercial traveller, then moved in 1903 with his family to Belfast where he became involved in trade union and labour politics.

During the Easter Rising, he noted in his diary that people in Ireland paid little heed to the fate of the defeated revolutionaries.

When the British government tried to enforce conscription in Ireland in 1918, Johnson led a successful strike in conjunction with other members of the Irish anti-conscription movement.