Blueshirts

In February 1932, the Fianna Fáil party was elected to lead the Irish Free State government. On 18 March 1932, the new government suspended the Public Safety Act, lifting the ban on a number of organisations including the Irish Republican Army. Some IRA political prisoners were also released around the same time. The IRA and many released prisoners began a "campaign of unrelenting hostility" against those associated with the former Cumann na nGaedheal government. Frank Ryan, one of the most prominent socialists in 1930s Ireland, active in the IRA and Republican Congress, declared "as long as we have fists and boots, there will be no free speech for traitors".[5] There were many cases of intimidation, attacks on persons, and the breaking-up of Cumann na nGaedheal political meetings in the coming months. In view of the increased activities of the IRA, National Army Commandant Ned Cronin founded the Army Comrades Association in early 1932. As its name suggested, it was designed for Irish Army veterans, a society for former members of the Free State army. The Blueshirts felt that freedom of speech was being repressed, and began to provide security at Cumann na nGaedheal events. This led to several serious clashes between the IRA and the ACA. In August 1932, Thomas F. O'Higgins became the leader of the ACA. O'Higgins was joined in the organisation by fellow Cumann na nGaedhael TDs Ernest Blythe, Patrick McGilligan and Desmond Fitzgerald.[4] O'Higgins had been chosen as leader partially because his brother Kevin O'Higgins, who had been Cumann na nGaedheal Minister for Justice, had been assassinated by the IRA in 1927.[6][7]

By September 1932 the organisation claimed it had over 30,000 members.[8] The historian Mike Cronin believes the Blueshirts regularly embellished their numbers and the actual amount was closer to 8,000 at that point.[1]

O'Duffy with Blueshirts

In January 1933, the Fianna Fáil government called a surprise election, which the government won comfortably. The election campaign saw a serious escalation of rioting between IRA and ACA supporters. In April 1933, the ACA began wearing the distinctive blueshirt uniform. Eoin O'Duffy was a guerrilla leader in the IRA in the Irish War of Independence, a National Army general in the Irish Civil War, and the Garda Síochána police commissioner in the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1933. After Fianna Fáil's re-election in February 1933, President of the Executive Council Éamon de Valera dismissed O'Duffy as commissioner; that July, O'Duffy was offered and accepted leadership of the ACA and renamed it the National Guard. He re-modelled the organisation, adopting elements of European fascism, such as the Roman straight-arm salute, uniforms and huge rallies. Membership of the new organisation became limited to people who were Irish or whose parents "profess the Christian faith". O'Duffy was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and the Blueshirts adopted corporatism as a chief political aim. According to the constitution he adopted, the organisation was to have the following objectives:[9]

• To promote the reunification of Ireland.
• To oppose Communism and alien control and influence in national affairs and to uphold Christian principles in every sphere of public activity.
• To promote and maintain social order.
• To make organised and disciplined voluntary public service a permanent and accepted feature of our political life and to lead the youth of Ireland in a movement of constructive national action.
• To promote of co-ordinated national organisations of employers and employed, which with the aid of judicial tribunals, will effectively prevent strikes and lock-outs and harmoniously compose industrial influences.
• To cooperate with the official agencies of the state for the solution of such pressing social problems as the provision of useful and economic public employment for those whom private enterprise cannot absorb.
• To secure the creation of a representative national statutory organisation of farmers, with rights and status sufficient to secure the safeguarding of agricultural interests, in all revisions of agricultural and political policy.
• To expose and prevent corruption and victimisation in national and local administration.
• To awaken throughout the country a spirit of combination, discipline, zeal and patriotic realism which will put the state in a position to serve the people efficiently in the economic and social spheres.

The National Guard planned to hold a parade in Dublin in August 1933. It was to proceed to Glasnevin Cemetery, stopping briefly on Leinster lawn in front of the Irish parliament, where speeches were to be held. The goal of the parade was to commemorate Irish leaders Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins and Kevin O'Higgins. It is clear that the IRA and other fringe groups representing various socialists intended to confront the Blueshirts if they marched in Dublin.

On August 22nd 1933 the Fianna Fáil government, remembering Mussolini's March on Rome, and fearing a coup d'état, invoked article 2A of the constitution and banned the parade[4] Decades later, de Valera told Fianna Fáil politicians that in late summer 1933 he was unsure whether the Irish Army would obey his orders to suppress the perceived threat, or whether the soldiers would support the Blueshirts (who included many ex-soldiers). O'Duffy accepted the ban and insisted that he was committed to upholding the law. Instead, several provincial parades took place to commemorate the deaths of Griffith, O'Higgins and Collins. De Valera saw this move as defying his ban, and the Blueshirts were declared an illegal organisation.[4]

Eoin O'Duffy speaking at a rally in 1934

Ned Cronin had been with the Blueshirts from the start, before O'Duffy joined. Following O'Duffy's failed attempt to control Fine Gael, the Blueshirts split into pro-O'Duffy and pro-Cronin factions. Cronin's faction remained in Fine Gael while O'Duffy's departed

In response to the banning of the National Guard, Cumann na nGaedheal and the National Centre Party merged to form a new party, Fine Gael, on 3 September 1933. O'Duffy became its first president, with W. T. Cosgrave and James Dillon acting as vice-presidents. O'Duffy was chosen as leader instead of Cosgrave and MacDermot in order to avoid the idea that Fine Gael would simply be a continuation of Cumann na nGaedhael.[4] The National Guard changed its name to the Young Ireland Association, and became part of a youth wing of the party. The new party's stated aim was to create a united Ireland within the British Commonwealth,[4] although its programme made no mention of a corporatist state.[10] In fact, the original name considered for the party was "The United Ireland Party" until Fine Gael was settled on.[4] Labour Party leader William Norton was unimpressed; he surmised the new entity as "an attempt to put old wine in new bottles”. [4] Sean Lemass dismissed this triple alliance as "the cripple alliance".[11]

In March 1934 the Minister for Justice PJ Ruttledge of Fianna Fáil brought forward a Wearing of Uniforms (Restriction) Bill which specifically sought to ban political uniforms in Irish public life. Badges, banners and military titles that were considered at odds with public peace were also to be prohibited. Ruttledge outright said as much that part of the aim was to end the Blueshirts, although said that in practice it would apply to every part of the political spectrum. However, following bitter debates in the Dáil, the bill was voted down in the Seanad 30 to 18.[4]

The 1934 local elections were a trial of strength for the new Fine Gael and the Fianna Fáil government. When Fine Gael won only six out of 23 local elections, O’Duffy lost much of his authority and prestige.[4] The Blueshirts had peaked by mid-1934 and rapidly began to disintegrate.[8] The Blueshirts began to flounder on the plight of farmers in the Economic War, as the Blueshirts failed to provide a solution.[4] In response to this, O'Duffy began to ramp up his extremist rhetoric. However, this prompted elements of Fine Gael such as Ernest Blythe, Michael Tierney and Desmond FitzGerald to begin working to remove O'Duffy from power.

Following disagreements with his Fine Gael colleagues, O'Duffy left the party in September 1934, although most of the Blueshirts stayed in Fine Gael. Following O'Duffy's ascent to leadership of Fine Gael, control of the Blueshirts had been left to original Blueshirt founder Ned Cronin. When O'Duffy left Fine Gael, he attempted to resume this position, however, Cronin resisted, resulting in the Blueshirts splitting into pro-O'Duffy and pro-Cronin factions. Cronin and his faction wished to remain within Fine Gael while O'Duffy's faction left entirely. Cronin's faction seemed to have been the majority of the membership.[12][13]

In December 1934, O'Duffy attended the Montreux Fascist conference in Switzerland. He then founded the National Corporate Party, and later raised an Irish Brigade that took General Francisco Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War, with disastrous results.[14] Meanwhile, Fine Gael was brought back under the leadership of WT Cosgrove who had previously lead Cumann na nGaedhael. Now acting as Deputy Leader was James Dillon, formerly of the National Centre Party, who helped reinforce pro-democratic views into the party. Dillion was a staunch defender of liberal democracy[15] who in later years denounced Nazism as "the devil himself with twentieth-century efficiency".[16] He resigned from Fine Gael in 1942 due to his belief that Ireland should break neutrality and join the Allies to fight against Hitler.[17] He later rejoined the party and became its leader after Richard Mulcahy.