Blueshirt members

#1 · 12-11-2019 6:39pm #1

Is there an online record anywhere of blueshirt membership?

caff · 12-11-2019 6:42pm

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

Seanachai · 13-11-2019 10:28am

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.

BalcombeSt4 · 13-11-2019 6:09pm

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.

Seanachai · 14-11-2019 4:27pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

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.

donaghs · 14-11-2019 7:24pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

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.

Seanachai · 15-11-2019 11:04am

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!

donaghs · 15-11-2019 11:42am

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".

Seanachai · 15-11-2019 12:05pm

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.

BalcombeSt4 · 15-11-2019 6:11pm

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.

BalcombeSt4 · 15-11-2019 6:47pm

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.

Seanachai · 20-11-2019 10:48am

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

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.

pedroeibar1 · 20-11-2019 12:24pm

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.

tabbey · 21-11-2019 11:27pm

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.

Seanachai · 22-11-2019 3:15pm

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'.

BloodyBill · 22-04-2020 3:21pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

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.

riffmongous · 22-04-2020 11:32pm

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

Peregrinus · 23-04-2020 2:29am

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.

Jim2007 · 23-04-2020 11:14am

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.

whisky_galore · 23-04-2020 11:31am

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.

whisky_galore · 23-04-2020 11:56am

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.

w.b. yokes · 25-05-2020 1:37pm

Up the Blueshirts

BalcombeSt4 · 29-05-2020 7:59pm

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?

Hyus · 28-08-2020 8:00pm

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.

Peregrinus · 01-09-2020 2:29am

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?)

feargale · 01-09-2020 3:22am

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

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.

Hyus · 01-09-2020 9:26am

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.

Peregrinus · 01-09-2020 10:12am

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.

Hyus · 01-09-2020 10:16am

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.

DrSerious3 · 01-09-2020 5:50pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

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.

feargale · 01-09-2020 11:49pm

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.

BloodyBill · 02-09-2020 10:21am

feargale wrote: »

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.

Never a truer word was wrote. And Sinn Fein are successfully bringing their 'victim' culture down South and infecting our politics with it. Always painting themselves as oppressed . No matter what conversation is on they ll throw in the '800 years if oppression' 'Imperialism ' . You never hear the English going on about their 900 years of Oppression since the Norman invasion of 1066. They know that victimhood is in the long term poisonous.

Jim2007 · 02-09-2020 12:29pm

BloodyBill wrote: »

You never hear the English going on about their 900 years of Oppression since the Norman invasion of 1066. They know that victimhood is in the long term poisonous.

That would be because they embrace it as part of their culture and they have 900 years of racism built in that makes them feel superior to the peoples of the old empire. That’s why their happy to accept immigration from the old empire but not Europeans, can’t keep up the pretense there - reality breaks in.

meathstevie · 04-09-2020 3:49am

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.

A lot of people seem to be getting this wrong but fascism itself, although not very nice to say the least, was not necessarily anti-Semitic in it’s early days. As the alliance Mussolini and Hitler grew closer anti-Semitism became the norm although the Italians weren’t too hot on holding razzia’s and organising the mass murder of Italian Jews.

After the Allied invasion of Italy and the fall and propping up of Mussolini as a figurehead by the Nazi’s very significant amounts of Jewish folks were deported from Italy and previously Italian occupied parts of France.

Hyus · 04-09-2020 10:17am

meathstevie wrote: »

A lot of people seem to be getting this wrong but fascism itself, although not very nice to say the least, was not necessarily anti-Semitic in it’s early days. As the alliance Mussolini and Hitler grew closer anti-Semitism became the norm although the Italians weren’t too hot on holding razzia’s and organising the mass murder of Italian Jews.

After the Allied invasion of Italy and the fall and propping up of Mussolini as a figurehead by the Nazi’s very significant amounts of Jewish folks were deported from Italy and previously Italian occupied parts of France.

This is an important point. There were even Italian Jews who supported the Fascist movement in it's early days (e.g. Ettore Ovazza, who was sadly killed by the SS in 1943). At the Montreux Fascist Conference in 1934, O'Duffy and Eugenio Coselschi (acting president of the meeting) were against including any hardline anti-semitism into the principles of the "Fascist International", while delegates from some other countries like Romania wanted it to be a central point.

Overall, O'Duffy was certainly a right-wing nationalist and favoured an authoritarian form of government, but to imagine that his ideals were akin to Nazism is ridiculous. He may have favoured Catholics, but there was no talk of genocide or Nuremberg Laws in Ireland from his side. Anti-Communism and Catholic nationalism seem to have been the central tenets of his ideology by the time the National Corporate Party was founded, not European conquest or a crusade for racial supremacy.

Cyclingtourist · 05-10-2021 1:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/113244361#Comment_113244361

They protected CnG meetings from disruption by republican gangs, so you could argue that at least some of their activities helped preserve a fragile democracy.

banie01 · 05-10-2021 1:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117979092#Comment_117979092

Deleted, as I don't want to distract from the topic and tbh I should know better 😉

Peregrinus · 06-10-2021 1:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117979092#Comment_117979092

Meh. You could make the same argument that the Brownshirts, in protecting Nazi meetings from disruption by Communist gangs, were "helping to preserve a fragile democracy". I'm not convinced that rival gangs of political thugs slogging it out in the streets are ever doing much to preserve democracy, regardless of the colour of the shirts they wear.

Cyclingtourist · 06-10-2021 1:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117981886#Comment_117981886

Meh. You could make the same argument that the Brownshirts, in protecting Nazi meetings from disruption by Communist gangs, were "helping to preserve a fragile democracy"

You might.

I would just make the point that CnG were a centre-right democratic party whose candidates were being intimidated by marauding gangs of anti-treaty republicans who had no sense of allegiance to the Free State or its institutions.

BalcombeSt4 · 29-11-2021 7:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/114494873#Comment_114494873

Victim culture was already well established by the first few Fianna Fail governments from the early 1930s - early 70's when the Troubles started to come south, then they attempted to reverse engineer the process, by doing things like ban Republicans from the airwaves, stop annual trips to Bodenstown to Tones tomb, cancelling the yearly Easter Rising celebrations, and similarly stupid things which just mean't those things which state ministers used to attend now the Provos were the main attraction at Bodensttown or Easter celebration at the grave of some martyr.

BalcombeSt4 · 29-11-2021 7:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/114489598#Comment_114489598

Sure the IRA had some connections with the Nazi's at this time, I don't remember SF have any links with the Nazis maybe they did. But the IRA also had former members fighting in the Connolly Column in Spain for the left-wing Spanish Republic against Franco, Falagnists, Italian Fascists & German Nazi's. Really not all that different from some Easter Rising leaders being pro-German Monarchy, while others like Connolly were out & out Marxists.

And could you refresh my memory.

Was it a former SF, IRA or FG politician who made this famous speech in the Dail, and who's son is in the same party he was.

"I am very sorry that I cannot associate myself with this Bill or with anything relating to the public safety measures introduced by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government or by the present Fianna Fáil Government because I have seen that most of these Emergency Acts were always directed against Republicanism. How is it that we do not see any of these Acts directed against the Jews, who crucified Our Saviour nineteen hundred years ago, and who are crucifying us every day in the week?

How is it that there are thousands of well educated young men being forced to take the emigrant ship, not from Galway Bay or Cobh this time to take them to the greater Ireland beyond the Atlantic, but to take them from Dun Laoghaire and Rosslare to the land beyond the Irish Sea, the land of our traditional enemy, to help England in her war effort against Germany? There is one thing that Germany did, and that was to rout the Jews out of their country. Until we rout the Jews out of this country it does not matter a hair's breadth what orders you make. Where the bees are there is the honey, and where the Jews are there is the money."

Any idea?

Peregrinus · 30-11-2021 1:25am

It was Oliver J Flanagan. But, to be fair, at the time he was neither a former SF, IRA or FG politician, he was a member of the (openly anti-Semitic) Monetary Reform Party, which founded by Seamus Lennon, formerly of SF (Anti-Treaty). For what it's worth, Flanagan later apologised for the remarks. He was not to join FG for another nine years.

Virulent anti-Semitism of this kind was always pretty marginal in Irish politics but, if you want to link it to more mainstream movements, you can certainly link it to Sinn Féin. (Virtually all Irish political movements, apart from the Labour Party, can be traced back to Sinn Féin.) As noted above, the Monetary Reform Party had its roots in SF and, while the even more anti-Semitic Ailtirí na hAiséirghe had no organisational roots in SF, it did find support among republicans, including Gearóid Ó Broin (who was on the Army Council at the time), Kathleen Clark (who funded the party), Dan Breen and possibly Seán South. Ailtirí's extreme nationalism was appealing to many in SF.

I myself don't think these connections are particularly meaningful. But I do think that this particular can of worms should not be opened by anyone who would be bothered if any of the worms might turn out to be Sinn Féin worms. There's always a link to SF.

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