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Blueshirt members

  • 12-11-2019 5:39pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 2,531 ✭✭✭


    Is there an online record anywhere of blueshirt membership?


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 954 ✭✭✭caff


    List here for both sides that went to fight in the Spanish civil war http://irelandscw.com/band-dufflist.htm


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,531 ✭✭✭Seanachai


    caff wrote: »
    List here for both sides that went to fight in the Spanish civil war http://irelandscw.com/band-dufflist.htm

    Thanks, this fella didn't go the Spain, there's probably a list in the National Library.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    It's a pitty they all didn't go to Spain to stay there and take their Fine Gael "allies" with them.

    I know Britain had Mosely's BUF at the time, but it's shameful seeing old pictures from the the 30's of Irish people in SA style uniforms giving the Fascist salute or the "Roman" salute as revisionists call it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,531 ✭✭✭Seanachai


    It's a pitty they all didn't go to Spain to stay there and take their Fine Gael "allies" with them.

    I know Britain had Mosely's BUF at the time, but it's shameful seeing old pictures from the the 30's of Irish people in SA style uniforms giving the Fascist salute or the "Roman" salute as revisionists call it.

    I don't think a lot of those guys were overly political or genuinely devoted to fascism, it seemed to be more of a Catholic vs atheism thing, the clergy may have had something to do with encouraging young fellas to fight for Franco.

    My grandfather is the one I'm researching about, I've only ever heard snippets of information, I think it could be a source of shame. He married my grandmother as an older man, she strangely enough came from a very prominent republican family.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,678 ✭✭✭donaghs


    It's a pitty they all didn't go to Spain to stay there and take their Fine Gael "allies" with them.

    I know Britain had Mosely's BUF at the time, but it's shameful seeing old pictures from the the 30's of Irish people in SA style uniforms giving the Fascist salute or the "Roman" salute as revisionists call it.

    You can still see shadowy groups in Ireland in marching with quasi-military attire. Usually at funerals.

    Ireland was a lot more conservative then, most people took the lead of the Catholic Church and favoured Franco over the legitimate Spanish government (obviously there were exceptions). The attacks on churches in Spain would have been enough to make up some people's minds.

    I'm no fan of Eoin O'Duffy. But to suggest that he was some sort of proto-Hitler is laughable. If you look the actual Blueshirt ideology, stated aims, it basically boils down to following the catholic church and opposing communism. O'Duffy made lots of contradictory statements and positions, e.g. opposing ant-Antisemitism at a Fascist conference. He seemed to have been an effective IRA commander , but clearly was mentally past his prime by the 1930s.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,531 ✭✭✭Seanachai


    donaghs wrote: »
    You can still see shadowy groups in Ireland in marching with quasi-military attire. Usually at funerals.

    Ireland was a lot more conservative then, most people took the lead of the Catholic Church and favoured Franco over the legitimate Spanish government (obviously there were exceptions). The attacks on churches in Spain would have been enough to make up some people's minds.

    I'm no fan of Eoin O'Duffy. But to suggest that he was some sort of proto-Hitler is laughable. If you look the actual Blueshirt ideology, stated aims, it basically boils down to following the catholic church and opposing communism. O'Duffy made lots of contradictory statements and positions, e.g. opposing ant-Antisemitism at a Fascist conference. He seemed to have been an effective IRA commander , but clearly was mentally past his prime by the 1930s.

    That's interesting, do you mean funerals of elderly people? I heard stories that my grandad and his brother were involved in some sort of fighting too and they used to hide in a basement that a local farmer had in a shed. Again it's very hard to get my relatives to talk openly about it, I assume it was the civil war and they were pro-treaty.

    My nan's family were heavily involved in the anti-treaty IRA, my grandad became a postman later on and I heard that he was badly beaten and had his bike smashed up, at least one of the attackers was supposed to be related to my nan, possibly even a brother!


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,678 ✭✭✭donaghs


    Seanachai wrote: »
    That's interesting, do you mean funerals of elderly people?

    No I thinking more along the lines of present day groups that describe themselves "republican" , or "loyalist".


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,531 ✭✭✭Seanachai


    donaghs wrote: »
    No I thinking more along the lines of present day groups that describe themselves "republican" , or "loyalist".

    Ah okay, I thought you meant like there was some sort of continuity ACA knocking around. I've seen the older early and Official IRA guys at funerals, never saw any blue shirts on display though.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    Seanachai wrote: »
    I don't think a lot of those guys were overly political or genuinely devoted to fascism, it seemed to be more of a Catholic vs atheism thing, the clergy may have had something to do with encouraging young fellas to fight for Franco.

    My grandfather is the one I'm researching about, I've only ever heard snippets of information, I think it could be a source of shame. He married my grandmother as an older man, she strangely enough came from a very prominent republican family.

    Yeah, that's a big reason I hate the Catholic church so much, obviously along with it's abuse of children & women in Ireland, but also leading clergy were big supporters of Fascist & Phalangist movements in Europe in the 1930's & 40's, and in South America in the 1960's & 70's.

    Obviously Mussolini's regime in Italy but also for other Fascist movments in Europe like the Ustase regime in the Independent State of Croatia which was infamously brutal, having special Concentration camps for children were forced conversion to Catholicism took place. I'm not saying these clergy were Fascists (I mean they might have been I don't know) but like with Franco, they helped to legitamize these Fascist regimes & gave them a certain amount of respect in society.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    donaghs wrote: »
    You can still see shadowy groups in Ireland in marching with quasi-military attire. Usually at funerals.

    Ireland was a lot more conservative then, most people took the lead of the Catholic Church and favoured Franco over the legitimate Spanish government (obviously there were exceptions). The attacks on churches in Spain would have been enough to make up some people's minds.

    I'm no fan of Eoin O'Duffy. But to suggest that he was some sort of proto-Hitler is laughable. If you look the actual Blueshirt ideology, stated aims, it basically boils down to following the catholic church and opposing communism. O'Duffy made lots of contradictory statements and positions, e.g. opposing ant-Antisemitism at a Fascist conference. He seemed to have been an effective IRA commander , but clearly was mentally past his prime by the 1930s.

    That's true, but it would have been equally laughable in the 1920's to think Oswald Mosley a leading Labour member would have become Britain's Hitler by 1931. It probably would have been laughable to think Mussolini when he was in a Social Democratic party would have become Europe's first Fascist Dictator.

    Pretty much the whole of Ireland followed the Catholic church & opposed Communism in the 1930's, but most didn't resort to dressing up in Stormtrooper style uniforms & giving the Nazi salute. They had a ideology known as clerical fascism, which was basically the economic & political doctrine of Fascism mixed with deeply held religious beliefs & strong social conservatism.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_fascism
    This was pretty much the aims of Sean South's organization Maria Duce in the 1950's, but they also wanted to make Ireland a constitutional Catholic state as well.

    And Fianna Fail were worried the Blueshirt planned march on Dublin would turn into another Mussolini March on Rome style situation & banned the Blueshirts. After the Blueshirts were banned Duffy formed the Greenshirts, the National Corporate Party, which was even more openly Fascist, and was affiliated to the Fascist International.

    There was also Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, formed in 1941 which was openly supportive of the Axis powers at a time when Nazi Germany controlled most of Europe & was before Stalingrad & looked like the Nazi's would soon have Britain.

    So I think you are under estimating maybe a little bit the threat posed by Fascists to Ireland in the 1930's & early 1940's.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,531 ✭✭✭Seanachai


    That's true, but it would have been equally laughable in the 1920's to think Oswald Mosley a leading Labour member would have become Britain's Hitler by 1931. It probably would have been laughable to think Mussolini when he was in a Social Democratic party would have become Europe's first Fascist Dictator.

    Pretty much the whole of Ireland followed the Catholic church & opposed Communism in the 1930's, but most didn't resort to dressing up in Stormtrooper style uniforms & giving the Nazi salute. They had a ideology known as clerical fascism, which was basically the economic & political doctrine of Fascism mixed with deeply held religious beliefs & strong social conservatism.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_fascism
    This was pretty much the aims of Sean South's organization Maria Duce in the 1950's, but they also wanted to make Ireland a constitutional Catholic state as well.

    And Fianna Fail were worried the Blueshirt planned march on Dublin would turn into another Mussolini March on Rome style situation & banned the Blueshirts. After the Blueshirts were banned Duffy formed the Greenshirts, the National Corporate Party, which was even more openly Fascist, and was affiliated to the Fascist International.

    There was also Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, formed in 1941 which was openly supportive of the Axis powers at a time when Nazi Germany controlled most of Europe & was before Stalingrad & looked like the Nazi's would soon have Britain.

    So I think you are under estimating maybe a little bit the threat posed by Fascists to Ireland in the 1930's & early 1940's.

    I heard from older fellas that the church was very hostile to any kind of co-ops, labelling them as communist infiltration. The bigger farmers were always front and centre in the church in our parish anyway.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Seanachai wrote: »
    I heard from older fellas that the church was very hostile to any kind of co-ops, labelling them as communist infiltration. The bigger farmers were always front and centre in the church in our parish anyway.
    That is going off-topic but .. From what I’ve read about the Co-op movement (mainly relating to Horace Plunkett) that assertion (RC Church against them) has no basis in fact.

    Plunkett, from an Anglo-Irish landlord family was the driving force behind the co-op movement. By the 1890’s there were just a few dozen co-op creameries and the Irish Agricultural Organization Society came into being with a coordinating role. Its committee was several big landlords, a couple of farmers and a Catholic bishop. In a friend's Tipperary family the grandfather - a ‘strong farmer’ – was one of those instrumental in setting up a local co-op A very RC family, his uncle was a bishop, his brother and several nephews were priests. Also, when, with London’s approval, the Black & Tans targeted the creameries during the WoI, the clergy were vociferously outspoken against that action.

    The main opponents of the co-ops were the big merchants – they had the most to lose e.g. fertilizer vendors, who formed an association to combat them.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    Seanachai wrote: »

    My nan's family were heavily involved in the anti-treaty IRA, my grandad became a postman later on and I heard that he was badly beaten and had his bike smashed up, at least one of the attackers was supposed to be related to my nan, possibly even a brother!

    Sadly brother was put against brother in the civil war.

    Probably the greatest Irish tragedy in the last century.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,531 ✭✭✭Seanachai


    tabbey wrote: »
    Sadly brother was put against brother in the civil war.

    Probably the greatest Irish tragedy in the last century.

    From what I heard my grandad 'arrested' a neighbour and relative of my gran during the civil war and brought him to the Curragh, but my father says they were friendly till the end of their lives.

    There was supposed to be a book launched about local history and there were objections raised about 'dragging up that s**te again'.


  • Registered Users Posts: 957 ✭✭✭BloodyBill


    Yeah, that's a big reason I hate the Catholic church so much, obviously along with it's abuse of children & women in Ireland, but also leading clergy were big supporters of Fascist & Phalangist movements in Europe in the 1930's & 40's, and in South America in the 1960's & 70's.

    Obviously Mussolini's regime in Italy but also for other Fascist movments in Europe like the Ustase regime in the Independent State of Croatia which was infamously brutal, having special Concentration camps for children were forced conversion to Catholicism took place. I'm not saying these clergy were Fascists (I mean they might have been I don't know) but like with Franco, they helped to legitamize these Fascist regimes & gave them a certain amount of respect in society.

    No 1 you shouldn't hate anybody. That's a rabbit hole thats not worth going down. And at the end of the day Franco winning was better than the alternative. Similarly in Ireland the Blueshirts as an organisation were keeping Communism in check and promoting conservative values. And communism was kept down. We could do with a Blueshirt revival today.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,592 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    BloodyBill wrote: »
    No 1 you shouldn't hate anybody. That's a rabbit hole thats not worth going down. And at the end of the day Franco winning was better than the alternative. Similarly in Ireland the Blueshirts as an organisation were keeping Communism in check and promoting conservative values. And communism was kept down. We could do with a Blueshirt revival today.

    Without Franco helping the plotters to rebel against the democratically elected government there would might have been no large war in the first place, sparing many hundreds of thousands of lives, not to mention the 100-200,000 he had killed in the White Terror


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    BloodyBill wrote: »
    No 1 you shouldn't hate anybody. That's a rabbit hole thats not worth going down. And at the end of the day Franco winning was better than the alternative. Similarly in Ireland the Blueshirts as an organisation were keeping Communism in check and promoting conservative values. And communism was kept down. We could do with a Blueshirt revival today.
    A very odd take. The Blueshirts were a singularly ineffective organisation. It's very hard to point to anything at all that they acheived, either good or bad.


  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators Posts: 9,921 Mod ✭✭✭✭Jim2007


    BloodyBill wrote: »
    No 1 you shouldn't hate anybody. That's a rabbit hole thats not worth going down. And at the end of the day Franco winning was better than the alternative. Similarly in Ireland the Blueshirts as an organisation were keeping Communism in check and promoting conservative values. And communism was kept down. We could do with a Blueshirt revival today.

    Take off the rose coloured glasses, there's a good chap and stop trolling.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    BloodyBill wrote: »
    No 1 you shouldn't hate anybody. That's a rabbit hole thats not worth going down. And at the end of the day Franco winning was better than the alternative. Similarly in Ireland the Blueshirts as an organisation were keeping Communism in check and promoting conservative values. And communism was kept down. We could do with a Blueshirt revival today.

    The people, in the main controlled by the RCC could keep down 'godless communism', together with business interests and sucessive governments who have always cosied up to the United States, and could have done so more successfully than a minority bunch of men who liked playing dress up and marching.

    It's curious that there are a few memorials to Irish who fought on the Republican side of the Spanish CW here and just one iirc for those who fought on the opposing side, the Republicans are more fondly remembered in song and lore.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Seanachai wrote: »

    There was supposed to be a book launched about local history and there were objections raised about 'dragging up that s**te again'.

    I think it's a shame that this thinking still exists, people need to stop hiding this and presenting a false narrative.

    It's almost insignificant compared to what the Spanish have been and still are coming to terms with; we don't have the thousands of killings and mass graves yet to be discovered that they had.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 28 w.b. yokes


    Up the Blueshirts


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭BalcombeSt4


    BloodyBill wrote: »
    No 1 you shouldn't hate anybody. That's a rabbit hole thats not worth going down. And at the end of the day Franco winning was better than the alternative. Similarly in Ireland the Blueshirts as an organisation were keeping Communism in check and promoting conservative values. And communism was kept down. We could do with a Blueshirt revival today.

    The alternative of the democratic Spanish Republic reclaiming power? Em, no it wasn't a better alternative. About 6,000 Jews would agree with me.

    Are you also of the opinion Fascist Dictator Pinochet's bloody coup & tortorus aftermath was a better alternative to the Social Democratic President Chile already had?


  • Registered Users Posts: 14 Hyus


    Were there any foreign-born members of the Blueshirts or the NCP? I know membership of the NCP was restricted to Catholics, but I'm not sure if it also limited membership to Irish-born people, or what Blueshirt membership criteria was.

    O'Duffy was a big admirer of Fascist Italy, and there was already an Italian diaspora here at that time, so that was one of the things which made me wonder whether he allowed resident foreigners into his movement.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    As far as I know, the Blueshirts weren't into ethnonationalism at all. It certainly wasn't a big thing for them. As you point out, they were much closer in spirit to the Italian Fascists, who were also not ethnonationalists, than to the Nazis.

    Plus, even if they were ethnonationalists, place of birth was not a useful proxy for ethnicity. The great majority of people who were born abroad but had settled in Ireland would themselves have been ethnically Irish - James Connolly, Jim Larkin, Tom Clarke are well-known examples . Ireland was of course characterised by substantial net emigration, so the number of non-Irish people who immigrated to and settled in Ireland was pretty small. Most of those who did would have been British, and I imagine the Blueshirt's nationalism and aim of reunification would make it unattractive to British people settled in Ireland, who tended to be sympathetic to unionism.

    Short answer: I imagine the question of whether to exclude non-Irish people from the Blueshirts did not arise in practice very often.

    (I hadn't heard that the National Centre Party was open only to Catholics. Given the strongly anglophile tendencies of some of its leading members, I find this very surprising. Are you sure someone hasn't confused it with the Centre Party in Germany?)


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,636 ✭✭✭feargale


    It's a pitty they all didn't go to Spain to stay there and take their Fine Gael "allies" with them.

    I know Britain had Mosely's BUF at the time, but it's shameful seeing old pictures from the the 30's of Irish people in SA style uniforms giving the Fascist salute or the "Roman" salute as revisionists call it.

    A bigger pity that Hitler's IRA fellow-travellers didn't take up residence in Berlin and stay there. If they had innocent lives in London might not have been lost to ISIS-like atrocities.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14 Hyus


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    -snip-

    Thanks very much for your reply. I agree, the Blueshirts don't seem to have been heavily ethno-nationalist in the same way as, say, the Nazis. With the exception of the Brits, they don't seem to have had much beef with any foriengers. Eoin O'Duffy even spoke out against anti-semitism at the Montreaux Fascist Conference in 1934, saying that he couldn't subscribe to the persecution of any specific race.

    Sorry for the confusion, by NCP I was referring to the National Corporate Party, Eoin O'Duffy's successor to the Blueshirts, not the National Centre Party.


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,907 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Hyus wrote: »
    . . . Sorry for the confusion, by NCP I was referring to the National Corporate Party, Eoin O'Duffy's successor to the Blueshirts, not the National Centre Party.
    Oh, I should have thought of that. Makes much more sense.

    Googling suggests that membership was limited to Christians, not just Catholics. And this wasn't an original requirement; it was added some time after the party was founded. It would tie in with O'Duffy's anticommunism and increasing antisemitism.

    In any event, the question of whether the National Corporate Party would admit non-Christians or non-Catholics was probably a fairly academic one. By all accounts their problem was not turning away applicants they didn't want; it was getting any applicants in the first place.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14 Hyus


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Googling suggests that membership was limited to Christians, not just Catholics.


    I was pretty sure the requirement was Catholic, but maybe I'm getting it confused with his Irish Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (who I'm 90% sure were all Catholic).


    In any case, you're right as far as the NCP's main problem being lack of membership, rather than members of the wrong "type". It was just something I got curious about, I can believe it was never really something that came up for discussion at the time.


  • Registered Users Posts: 130 ✭✭DrSerious3


    That's true, but it would have been equally laughable in the 1920's to think Oswald Mosley a leading Labour member would have become Britain's Hitler by 1931. It probably would have been laughable to think Mussolini when he was in a Social Democratic party would have become Europe's first Fascist Dictator.

    Pretty much the whole of Ireland followed the Catholic church & opposed Communism in the 1930's, but most didn't resort to dressing up in Stormtrooper style uniforms & giving the Nazi salute. They had a ideology known as clerical fascism, which was basically the economic & political doctrine of Fascism mixed with deeply held religious beliefs & strong social conservatism.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_fascism
    This was pretty much the aims of Sean South's organization Maria Duce in the 1950's, but they also wanted to make Ireland a constitutional Catholic state as well.

    And Fianna Fail were worried the Blueshirt planned march on Dublin would turn into another Mussolini March on Rome style situation & banned the Blueshirts. After the Blueshirts were banned Duffy formed the Greenshirts, the National Corporate Party, which was even more openly Fascist, and was affiliated to the Fascist International.

    There was also Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, formed in 1941 which was openly supportive of the Axis powers at a time when Nazi Germany controlled most of Europe & was before Stalingrad & looked like the Nazi's would soon have Britain.

    So I think you are under estimating maybe a little bit the threat posed by Fascists to Ireland in the 1930's & early 1940's.

    Sinn Fein were the main Irish group which showed sympathy to the Nazis. Not all of them of course, but quite a few. I would not use this as a stick to beat the modern day party with but on the other I think its laughable to constantly refer to fascism when discussing Fine Gael in those days when you need only look at the records of the various parties throughout the Emergency to see who was really in bed with the fascists.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,636 ✭✭✭feargale


    DrSerious3 wrote: »
    Sinn Fein were the main Irish group which showed sympathy to the Nazis. Not all of them of course, but quite a few. I would not use this as a stick to beat the modern day party with but on the other I think its laughable to constantly refer to fascism when discussing Fine Gael in those days when you need only look at the records of the various parties throughout the Emergency to see who was really in bed with the fascists.

    Not forgetting Dan Breen. But if you look in other "republican" threads you will see that now we are supposed to forget SF/IRA's dalliance with Hitler, even the IRA atrocities of 1969- now while the "patriots" are free to talk about the Blueshirts, the Black and Tans, the Famine, Cromwell, oh ffs they whinge and harp on about the 800 years of oppression.
    And some of them can't let go when the talk is of something such as Brexit. Thay have to bring all that stuff into it.


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