Seán South

Seán South was born in Limerick where he was educated at Sexton Street Christian Brothers School, later working as a clerk in a local wood-importing company called McMahon's. He was a member of a number of organisations, including Clann na Poblachta, Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and the Legion of Mary. In Limerick he founded the local branch of Maria Duce,[1][2] a rabidly conservative and anti-Semitic Roman Catholic organisation led by Father Denis Fahey, where South also edited both An Gath and An Giolla. While not a formal member, South is also suggested to have been associated with the fascist Ailtirí na hAiséirghe political party, whose members he met through the Irish language organisations Croabh na hAiséirghe and Glún na Buaidhe, which were run and controlled by Ailtirí na hAiséirghe.[3]

He had received military training as a lieutenant of the Irish army reserve, the Local Defence Force (LDF), which would later become An Fórsa Cosanta Áitiúil (the FCA), before he became a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army.[1] The IRA of the 1940s and 1950s had swung considerably to the political right due to the influence of Ailtirí na hAiséirghe as well as the failure of 1930s left-wing groups such as the Republican Congress and Saor Eire to advance the Republican agenda. Despite Denis Fahey's suspicion that the IRA were still left-wing, South would have entered a version of the IRA now receptive of his views until the organisation swung back to the left in the 1960s.

Being a member of An Réalt (the Irish-speaking chapter of the Legion of Mary),[4] South was a devout Catholic and a conservative, even by the standards of the day.[5] It was at a meeting of An Réalt that he met his only serious girlfriend, Máire de Paor. She was a schoolteacher from Limerick and was a great lover of the Irish language.[6] He was also a member of the Knights of Columbanus.

In 1949, South wrote a series of letters to his local newspaper, the Limerick Leader. These letters condemned Hollywood films for what South regarded as their immoral messages. South accused these films of promoting a "stream of insidious propaganda which proceeds from Judeo-Masonic controlled sources, and which warps and corrupts the minds of our youth."[7][8] South also claimed that the American film industry was controlled by "Jewish and Masonic executives dictating to Communist rank and file."[7] In his letters, South also denounced Irish trade unions, and praised the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the United States.[8] In other writings in later years, South quoted material from A. K. Chesterton, a member of the British Union of Fascists and the founder of the League of Empire Loyalists, which later merged with British National Party in 1967 to become the National Front.[3]

On New Year's Day 1957, 14 IRA volunteers crossed the border into County Fermanagh[9] to launch an attack on a joint RUC/B Specials barracks in Brookeborough. During the attack a number of volunteers were injured, two fatally. South and Fergal O'Hanlon died of their wounds as they were making their escape. Their bodies were brought into an old sandstone barn by their comrades. The stone from the barn was used to build a memorial at the site.[10] A young Catholic constable, John Scalley, was killed in the ensuing gun battle between the IRA unit and the RUC.

South's legacy remains a controversial and contested issue, particularly in Northern Ireland where South died. In 2019 Rosemary Barton of the Ulster Unionist Party denounced Martin Kenny of Sinn Féin for praising South's legacy at an annual memorial held for South in Limerick. Barton suggested South's 1957 raid on the Brookeborough barracks was a terrorist act and called South "a well-known fascist and an anti-Semite".[11]

Commemoration

The attack on the barracks inspired two popular rebel songs: ‘Seán South of Garryowen' and ‘The Patriot Game '.[12]

• "Sean South", also known as "Sean South of Garryowen", written by Sean Costelloe from County Limerick, to the tune of another republican ballad "Roddy McCorley"[13] and made famous by the Wolfe Tones.
• South is also mentioned in the Rubberbandits' song "Up Da Ra", which pokes fun at the concept of armchair republicanism using the literary device of the unreliable narrator.
• There is a plaque dedicated to him outside his birthplace on Henry Street, Limerick.[14]

Monument in Moane's Cross, Fermanagh to South and O'Hanlon