Saor Éire

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Saor Éire ([ s̪ˠeːɾˠ eːɾʲə ] or [ s̪ˠiːɾˠ eːɾʲə ], Irish for Free Ireland ) was a left-wing political organization during the Irish Free State (1922–1937).

history

Saor Éire was founded in September 1931 by communist members of the Irish Republican Army with the backing of the IRA leadership, after the leadership had rejected plans two years earlier. Among the founders was Peadar O'Donnell , once editor of the IRA magazine An Phoblacht . The underlying idea was to set up a workers 'and small farmers' organization. The poorer rural communities of Ireland should be drawn into the opposition to British imperialism and Irish capitalism, which Saor Éire saw as allies.

On September 26 and 27, 1931, Saor Éire held a first conference in Dublin, attended by 150 delegates from the Free State and Northern Ireland . Séan Hayes was the chairman, while David Fitzgerald was the general secretary. During its existence, the organization used An Phoblacht as a publication organ .

The organization was described by the bourgeois press and the Catholic Church as a dangerous communist group and banned by the government of the Free State in the same year. The violent reactions prevented Saor Éire from becoming a representative political party. In 1933 , two years later, O'Donnell tried to create a similarly oriented party under the name Republican Congress - and failed again.

Later, in the 1940s, Fianna Fáil accused the Clann na Poblachta party , a successor organization to Saor Éire . From 1967 to 1975 a left-wing republican splinter group also called itself Saor Éire .

ideology

Saor Éire saw himself in the tradition of the Irish labor leader James Connolly . Peadar O'Donnell's goals were, first, the building of a revolutionary leadership that would organize the workers and working peasants, second, the establishment of a socialist republic of Ireland, and third, the promotion of the Irish language and culture. To achieve these goals, a two-stage plan was envisaged, with a first stage of organizing and propaganda that would lead to mass resistance, and a second stage of power consolidation for the purpose of establishing an Irish republic and a socialist economy.

additional

Between 1967 and 1975 a militant group existed in Ireland and Northern Ireland, which also called itself Saor Éire .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cronin, Sean: Frank Ryan - The Search for the Republic. , Dublin 1980, p. 34.
  2. ↑ Bell, J. Bowyer: The Secret Army. A History of the IRA 1916-1970 , London 1970, p. 98.
  3. ↑ Cronin, Sean: Irish Nationalism. A History of its Roots and Ideologies. Dublin 1980, p. 156
  4. ^ To Phoblacht , October 10, 1931.