Army Comrades Association
Blueshirts (ACA), Irish Cumann Chomrádaithe to airm and later National Guard (ir. An Garda Náisiúnta ) or colloquially Blue Shirts (dt. Blue shirts, ir. Na Léinte Gorma ), was the name of a political organization in Ireland of 1930 years .
introduction
The Blueshirts were founded in the 1930s by former IRA leader, police chief and general in the Irish Army , Eoin O'Duffy . The opponents of the blueshirts often referred to them as the equivalent of Hitler's brown shirts or Mussolini's "black shirts", all of which were members of the fascist movement in Europe. The nickname comes from the leaders' habit of wearing blue shirts, which looked quite similar to those of the fascist groups. The Blueshirts saw their role in protecting the political parties they supported and in political struggle.
origin
In 1932 Eamon de Valera , once leader of the faction of the opposing parties to the Anglo-Irish Treaty , became President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State . One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to remove the IRA from being an illegal organization. De Valera also released many Republican prisoners from prison. After the illegality was lifted, clashes began between the IRA and the former ruling party Cumann na nGaedheal .
The ACA was founded in February 1932 and was intended to support the interests of the ex-Free State Army. In August the Cumann-na-nGaedheal- TD Dr. Thomas F. O'Higgins leader of the ACA - his brother was the murdered MP Kevin O'Higgins . The ACA's original goals were to fight communism , but over time the group assumed the role of defending Cumann-na-nGaedheal assemblies. Conflicts with the IRA were the order of the day and tensions grew noticeably. In April 1933, the ACA began wearing the distinctive blue shirts so that the members recognized each other.
Leader O'Duffy
After de Valera was re-elected in February 1933, he dismissed Eoin O'Duffy as police officer. In July of the same year, O'Duffy took over the leadership of the ACA and renamed it the National Guard ( National Guard ). He changed the organization and introduced many fascist symbols from the rest of Europe, including the "Roman salute" (also: Hitler salute ). Members of the newly designed organization could only be Irish or those whose parents “practiced the Christian faith”.
The "March on Dublin"
In August 1933, de Valera banned a blueshirt (as they were now called) parade in Dublin . Reminiscent of Mussolini's march on Rome , de Valera feared a coup d'état and decades later told Fianna Fáil politicians about his fear at the time that the Irish army might support the blueshirts instead of obeying his orders; after all, the Blueshirts included many ex-soldiers. However, O'Duffy recognized the ban on the parade in Dublin, however some local rallies to commemorate the deaths of Arthur Griffith , Kevin O'Higgins and Michael Collins took place. De Valera saw this as a violation of his ban and so he declared the Blueshirts an illegal organization.
Opponents of Fianna Fáil, who recalled the statement by de Valera's right-hand man Seán Lemass in 1929 that Fianna Fáil was " a bit of a constitutional party, " saw it as a first step towards dictatorship . While the defenders of Cumann na nGaedheal were banned, the IRA, which threatened politicians and opposition supporters, remained a legal organization. In response to the ban, the National Center Party and Cumann na nGaedheal merged into a new political party and on September 3, 1933, Fine Gael was formed.
Eoin O'Duffy became its first president and William Thomas Cosgrave and James Dillon became vice-presidents (Cosgrave was the parliamentary leader, however, since O'Duffy was not in the lower house). The National Guard was renamed the Young Ireland Association ( Cumann Óige na hÉireann ) and became the party's youth wing. The party's aim was to create an independent, united Ireland as a member of the Commonwealth . Fine Gael also proposed social reforms and an end to proportional representation .
O'Duffy, however, turned out to be a weak leader of the new party, spirited, incompetent and with poor political judgment. Cosgrave planned to fire him as police officer if he won the 1932 election. At the party meeting on the occasion of the party's one-year existence in September 1934, O'Duffy was finally urged to resign. He was succeeded by WT Cosgrave. O'Duffy tried unsuccessfully to keep the Blueshirts alive as an independent organization, but gave up the project quickly.
reception
Although the blueshirts adapted various fascist traits, historians today do not assume that they were a serious fascist movement, even if Eamon de Valera feared just that in his day. All high-ranking members behind O'Duffy turned against the introduced racist traits within a short time. Although the blueshirts supported the concept of the corporatist state, this was largely due to an encyclical by Pius XI. and not to the political system of Mussolini and Hitler. O'Duffy himself, however, founded the clearly fascist National Corporate Party ( Páirtí Náisiúnta Corparáidíoch ) in 1935 , whose members were called Greenshirts . However, only 80 of the former blueshirts joined her.
450 former blueshirts, however, fought on the side of the Franco troops in the Irish Brigade ( Briogáid na hÉireann ) under O'Duffy's leadership during the Spanish Civil War . The reason for this can be seen against the historical background of Ireland, which was particularly shaped by the Catholic Church. The great influence of the Catholic Church in Spain and the agricultural structure of the country led primarily to support for the putschists around Franco, who were in alliance with the Catholic Church.
Nowadays the term blueshirts is mostly used as a political denigration of the Fine Gael party .
Literature (all in English)
- J. Bower Bell, 1983 The Secret Army: The IRA 1916-1979 , Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-52090-7
- Tim Pat Coogan, De Valera
- Michael Cronin, The Blueshirts and Irish Politics
- Maurice Manning. The Blueshirts
- Angela Berg. "The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939", Essen (2005).
supporting documents
- ↑ Angela Berg: The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War 1936 - 1939. 1st ed. Essen (2005). P. 16.