Eoin O'Duffy

General Eoin O'Duffy (20 October, 1892 - 30 November, 1944), was in succession a Teachta Dála (TD), the Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, the second Commissioner of the Garda Síochána, leader of the quasi-fascist Blueshirts and then the first (extra-parliamentary) leader of Fine Gael (1933 - 1934), before leading the Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. He once proclaimed himself the "third most important man in Europe" after fellow Fascists Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Early Life

Eoin O'Duffy was born in Lough Egish, near Castleblayney, County Monaghan. O'Duffy did an apprenticeship as an engineer in Wexford before working as an engineer and architect in Monaghan. In 1919 he became an auctioneer. O'Duffy was a leading member of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ulster in the 1910s. A stand in a ground in Clones, County Monaghan, is named after him.

War of Independence

In 1917 O'Duffy joined the Irish Republican Army and took an active part in the War of Independence. In February 1920, he (along with Ernie O'Malley) was involved in the first capture of a Royal Irish Constabulary barracks by the IRA in Ballytrain, in his native Monaghan. He was imprisoned several times but became director of the army in 1921. In May 1921, he was returned as a Sinn Féin TD for the Monaghan constituency to the Second Dáil. In January of the following year he became IRA Chief of Staff, replacing Richard Mulcahy. O'Duffy was the youngest general in Europe until Francisco Franco was promoted to that rank.

Civil War General & An Garda Síochána

In 1921 he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He served as a general in the Free State Army in the ensuing Irish Civil War and was one of the brains behind the Free State's strategy of seaborne landings into Republican held areas. He successfully took Limerick city for the Free State in July 1922, before being held up in heavy fighting south of the city. The emnities of the civil war era were to stay with O'Duffy throughout the rest of his political career.

After the war, O'Duffy became Commissioner of An Garda Síochána (the Civic Guard) when the Irish Free State was established in 1922. It has been claimed, though not substantiated, that O'Duffy was Michael Collins's choice as his successor. However neither W.T. Cosgrave nor Richard Mulcahy viewed him as fit for national leadership. It has also been suggested that Cosgrave and Mulcahy intended to remove him as Garda Commissioner had Cumann na nGaedhael won the 1932 general election. However Cumann na nGaedhael lost power in 1932 to Fianna Fáil under Eamon de Valera.

Following another general election in 1933 Eamon de Valera dismissed O'Duffy as Garda Commissioner. In the Dáil de Valera explained the reason for his dismissal,

"he ^* was likely to be biased in his attitude because of past political affiliations".

O'Duffy refused the offer of another position in the public service.

Leader of the ACA, & Fascism

In July 1933 O'Duffy became leader of the Army Comrades Association, which had been set up to protect Cumann na nGaedhael public meetings, which had up to that point been disrupted under the slogan "No Free Speech for Traitors" by Irish Republican Army (1922-1969) men newly confident since the elections. He immediately changed its name to the National Guard. O'Duffy was an admirer of the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, and his organisation adopted outward symbols of European fascism, such as the straight-arm Roman salute and the distinctive blue uniform. It wasn't long before they became known as the Blueshirts. In August 1933 a parade was planned by the Blueshirts in Dublin to commemorate Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, both of whom who had died 11 years earlier. De Valera, remembering Mussolini's March on Rome, feared a similar coup d'etat, though no evidence has been found of plans for a coup. The parade was banned. By September the Blueshirts were declared an illegal organisation.

Fine Gael

In September 1933 Cumann na nGaedhael, the Centre Party and the Blueshirts merged to form Fine Gael. O'Duffy, though not a TD, became the first leader, with former President of the Executive Council, (prime minister) W.T. Cosgrave serving as parliamentary leader. The National Guard became the youth wing of the party. However, meetings were often attacked by IRA men. O'Duffy proved to be a weak leader - he was a military leader rather than political, and he was temperamental. In September 1934 O'Duffy suddenly and unexpectedly resigned as leader of Fine Gael as his extreme views and poor judgement became an embarrassment to his party.

Spanish Civil War

The Blueshirt movement had begun to disintegrate also, so much so that by 1935 the organisation no longer existed. In June 1935 O'Duffy launched the National Corporate Party. The following year O'Duffy organised an Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Despite the declaration by the Irish Government that participation in the war was illegal, 700 of O'Duffy's followers went to Spain to fight on Franco's side (around 250 other Irishmen went to fight for the Republicans). The Irish contingent refused to fight the Basques for Franco, seeing parallels between their recent struggle and Basque aspirations. They saw their primary role in Spain as fighting communism, rather than defending Spain's territorial integrity. O'Duffy's men saw little fighting in Spain and were sent home by Franco after being accidentally fired on by Spanish Nationalist troops. A contingent of O'Duffy's domestic enemies (IRA men and left wing activists) fought on the opposite side in the Spanish Civil War, see the Connolly Column.Thomas Gunning, former secretary to O'Duffy, was also a "suspect" for Irish military Intelligence (G2) having remained in Spain after the rest of the Irish volunteers for Franco departed under a cloud of recrimination. Gunning worked as a newspaper correspondent in Spain for a short time then made his way to Berlin where he worked for the Propaganda ministry until his death in 1940.

Retirement and Death

O'Duffy returned to Ireland from Spain in disarray. He retired from politics completely, apart from a low-level dalliance with Nazism. He is thought to have met with IRA figures and members of the German consul's in the summer of 1939. See main article. In the summer of 1943 O'Duffy approached the German Legation in Dublin with an offer to organise an Irish Volunteer Legion for use on the Russian Front. He explained his offer to the German ambassador as a wish to "save Europe from Bolshevism". He requested an aircraft to be sent from Germany so that he could conduct the necessary negotiations in Berlin. The offer was "not taken seriously". See Stephan, Enno: Spies in Ireland (1963) P.232 By this time his health had begun to seriously deteriorate and he died on 30 November, 1944, aged 52.

Events after his death

O'Duffy had remained a bachelor all his life. Following his death rumours began to circulate that hinted at O'Duffy's involvement in a homosexual relationship with the actor Micheál MacLiammoir in the 1930s. MacLiammoir confirmed that they had had a relationship to Mary Manning, a playwright and editor of a magazine associated with the Gate Theatre founded by MacLiammoir. A biographer of MacLiammoir, Denis Staunton, stated that MacLiammoir and O'Duffy remained friends after the affair ended, and that the relationship was well known within the actor's circle of friends and colleagues.

Another MacLiammoir biographer, Christopher FitzSimons, who did not mention the relationship in his 1994 biography of the actor and his longtime partner, Hilton Edwards, The Boys, said subsequently that he had heard rumours of the affair "from many sources".Irish Independent review of the Odd Couple. The existence of the relationship was first revealed in an RTÉ documentary, The Odd Couple, broadcast in July 1999. A 2005 biography of O'Duffy by Fearghal McGarry provided more evidence, including that O'Duffy was assaulted on a boat travelling to the United Kingdom when he propositioned a man.

References

Further Information/Sources

Fearghal McGarry, Eoin O'Duffy: A Self-Made Hero (Oxford University Press, 2005)

For material on the Irish Bandera
For material on the International Brigadiers from Ireland.
Eoin O'Duffy: A Self-Made Hero - Fearghal McGarry interviewed
A review of McGarry's book by Dermot Bolger in the Sunday Independent, (Dublin) 27th Nov. 2005.
A collection of documents on O'Duffy's Spanish adventure.

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