Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Eoin O'Duffy and the Blueshirts: Ireland’s Fascist Gamble
52 Plays1 month ago
Episode seven of the new season of Pieces of History takes us into the tumultuous world of early 20th-century Ireland, where revolution, political upheaval, and shifting ideologies shaped the nation’s future. In this episode, we examine the life and legacy of General Eoin O’Duffy - one of Ireland’s most controversial figures.
Joining me is historian Jack Traynor, author of General Eoin O’Duffy: The Political Life of an Irish Firebrand. Together, we explore O’Duffy’s rise from his role in the Irish War of Independence and Civil War to his tenure as the first Commissioner of An Garda Síochána. We also examine his leadership of the Blueshirts, his embrace of fascist politics, and the broader European influences on his ideology.
From revolutionary hero to political pariah, O’Duffy’s legacy remains divisive. In this episode, we uncover the complexities of his character, the turbulent era that shaped him, and how his actions reflected both Ireland’s struggles and the wider political currents of the 1930s.
Email: piecesofhistorypod@outlook.com
Facebook: Pieces of History podcast
Instagram: @pieceofhistorypod
General Eoin O'Duffy: The Political Life of an Irish Firebrand
https://www.amazon.co.uk/General-Eoin-ODuffy-Political-Firebrand/dp/1476693269
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to General Owen O'Duffy
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pieces of History, I'm Colin McGrath. In each episode explore both the renowned and the lesser known events that have shaped our world. Today we turn our focus to a controversial and complex figure in Irish history, General Owen O'Duffy.
00:00:28
Speaker
A man who played a significant role in Ireland's struggle for independence, the early years of the Irish Free State and the rise of the Blue Shirts, O'Duffy remains a decisive character in Irish political history.
Jack Treanor's Academic Journey
00:00:39
Speaker
To help us unpack his life and legacy, I'm joined by Jack Treanor, historian and author of General Owen O'Duffy, The Political Life of an Irish Farbrand.
00:00:48
Speaker
His work delves into the turbulent periods of Irish history that shaped O'Duffy, from his involvement in the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War, to his leadership of the Blue Shirts and his foray into fascist politics in the In this episode, we'll explore the political and social conditions that give rise to the Blue Shirts, O'Duffy's controversial leadership, and how his actions reflected broader European trends at the time.
00:01:12
Speaker
Jack provides expert insight into a man who is at the centre of some of Ireland's most pivotal and contentious moments. I hope you enjoy. Thanks very much for joining me Jack, I really appreciate it um So before we um get into the story of Owen O'Duffy, you mind giving us a background to yourself, your academic background and and how you ended up writing about Irish history and and this particular figure?
00:01:35
Speaker
Well Colin, obviously thanks very much for having me on the podcast today, it's it's a great pleasure to be here with you. and so Yeah, I'm very happy to talk about my background, course. um So I primarily would consider myself a political historian of 20th century Ireland mostly.
00:01:51
Speaker
But my focus would actually be on the international side of that. So A lot of the research I've done previously has been into the international links of Irish republicanism. um So I'm currently doing a PhD in Trinity, which is looking at some of the German links between Irish republicanism um and groups that were based in Germany in the Weimar period.
00:02:13
Speaker
So separate to what we're talking about today, but that's just to kind of give you an understanding of where I'm coming from. I'm always looking at the international aspect. So and I approach O'Duffy somewhat with that international aspect too.
00:02:24
Speaker
china trying to contextualize them within a broader world of fascism in the interwar period. and So yeah, my my background is is that I did history as an undergraduate in Trinity.
00:02:34
Speaker
Then I did a master's in history up in Queens in Belfast. And now I'm currently in the final stages of my PhD in Trinity.
O'Duffy's Historical Context and Early Life
00:02:44
Speaker
um And I published the book on O'Duffy.
00:02:47
Speaker
So my my book is called General Owen O'Duffy, The Political Life of an Irish Firebrand. That was published last year by Macfarlane & Co. It can be bought online if anybody's interested. And I've also written few articles, bits and pieces online, um generally about Irish history, the Irish Civil War, um and those sorts of things.
00:03:08
Speaker
Jack, I'll have to say something up front here. It's probably a bit of naivety on my part as well. This particular area in Irish history, and Owen O'Duffy in particular as well, is someone who I had never heard of before, which I found really strange because I was reading your ah your article, O'Duffy's Green Division Factor effect Fiction, which was fantastic, by the way.
00:03:29
Speaker
And it's just whenever I was reading it, I thought to myself, surely yeah you kind of know all of the key figures around that time period, you know, around especially around 20s, 30s, Irish history.
00:03:40
Speaker
And it was just a ah massive blind spot for me. So can you go into the background of who Owen O'Duffy was and then roll it into um the Rise of the Blue Shirts in Ireland? Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I think that a lot of people, when they think of O'Duffy, if they had heard of him, they would probably associate him with the Blue Shirts and with the Spanish Civil War. Those are really two key points in his life.
00:04:03
Speaker
But when you think about it, those are actually only a few years in his life. He had a long career before that. He was the Guarda Commissioner for 11 years. And before that, he played a significant role.
00:04:14
Speaker
in the War of Independence period, particularly in Ulster, and also in the Irish Civil War. So how i became interested in O'Duffy actually wasn't through the blue shirts of the Spanish Civil War.
00:04:25
Speaker
It was actually through the Irish s Civil War. and I started researching the disproportionately high pro-treaty allegiance among the Northern Irish IRA during that period of the truce. So the truce is signed in July 1921, or it's agreed in July 1921.
00:04:43
Speaker
And from July 1921 until the actual signing of the treaty in December 1921, there's a big stretch of time there where There's things happening. Obviously, there's things happening, but it's not particularly well known. People know about the key events of the Civil War of Independence. They know about the treaty, but they forget about those months there in the summer and autumn.
00:05:03
Speaker
Odofie plays a huge role there, particularly trying to ensure that General headquarters has its um has its men in place so that when a compromise comes or when some sort of deal needs to come, that they can bring them along with it, that there won't be this splinter. They're trying to avoid a splinter as best as possible. And O'Duffy was really key there, particularly in regards to Ulster and the North, because during the War of Independence, he and really...
O'Duffy's Military Leadership
00:05:32
Speaker
created a lot of ties there which were which were very much based on personality very much based on um you know the the own the individuals rather than ideology so I will give you a bit of a background about who he was and how he managed to facilitate that but that's just curiously how I became interested interested in wasn't to do with fascism wasn't to with Spanish Civil War which is what he's probably best known for was actually to do with his role in the Civil War itself who he was he was from County Monaghan, outside Casa Blaney.
00:06:02
Speaker
He was some an ordinary son of a farmer. um He was the youngest of several sons. So because of that, there was a little bit of a division. The older sons were doing the grueling farm labor, whereas O'Duffy was kind of doted upon.
00:06:16
Speaker
He was given more of a chance at education, these kind of things, because of the age difference there, small age gap. O'Duffy was educated in Monaghan. He later... was a guy who tended to invent things about himself, um had a lot of identities.
00:06:32
Speaker
and That's a central theme of of my book. It's also a central theme of Fergal McGarry's book, who who wrote ah another really, really good study of O'Duffy. But O'Duffy was a guy who was always cultivating his public image.
00:06:44
Speaker
And to try and boil down at who he actually was is sometimes a bit of a difficult task. But he was from County Monaghan. and He seems to have been, like a lot of people of his generation, swept up in all that revolutionary fervour, or I should say maybe the cultural nationalist fervour rather than necessarily political. So think the GAA, for example, the Gaelic League, he joined both those organisations.
00:07:08
Speaker
and By his professional background, initially he trained to become a teacher, but he decided to abandon that career path and instead and He became and a surveyor for Monaghan County Council.
00:07:19
Speaker
He was very much involved the
Role as Garda Commissioner
00:07:21
Speaker
GAA. When the Easter Rising happened, he had been in the Irish Volunteers, which was founded in 1913, but wasn't particularly active in them. When the Easter Rising happened, it seemed to have blindsided him. He was actually in and Dublin on the Sunday, the Easter Sunday, for a GAA conference and had gone home.
00:07:39
Speaker
so he doesn't seem to have been aware of the plans for and the Rising on the Easter Monday. um He only became involved in advanced nationalism, republicanism after the Easter Rising, like many people.
00:07:52
Speaker
So he becomes quite quickly involved in the Irish volunteers and reorganising that as a force. after the Easter Rising. um From that point onwards, he commits himself to that absolutely, really. It's it's it's his it's his biggest passion.
00:08:09
Speaker
and And obviously, politics gets very, very interesting in Ireland at this period. and The 1918 general election, he was looking for a nomination to stand in the elections, but there was disputes in Monaghan over who should be the candidate. So instead, they decided the safest thing to do for Sinn Féin would be to bring Ernest Blyth in who being from the north and from a Protestant background, he wasn't going to cause any local divisions in Monaghan.
00:08:34
Speaker
So O'Duffy then is involved centrally in the IRA, organizing the Irish Frontiers, later the IRA as a force in Monaghan, essentially becomes commander of the entire Monaghan IRA.
00:08:47
Speaker
um And he really gets a reputation as one of these talented young men of a certain age who general headquarters of the IRA really admires. So He's a contemporary of people like Collins and Richard Mulcahy.
00:09:01
Speaker
And like a lot of these guys, he's very interested in writing reports. He's quite meticulous. He's quite um he's quite bureaucratic, really.
00:09:12
Speaker
So he's actually talent spotted by Ernie O'Malley, who's well known, of course, for later being a memoirist. But um at the time, he was involved in central headquarters and he went around the country.
00:09:23
Speaker
Seemed to inspect units to make sure they were up to scratch and O'Malley's reports are glowing of O'Duffy. thinks that he was an excellent commander of of the Monaghan IRA. So he's talent spotted by General Headquarters, breveted up the ranks.
00:09:37
Speaker
um And just before the truce in July 1921, he was actually appointed um as Director of Operations in GHQ, which brings him to Dublin. From then on, and from the truce onwards, he's sent back to the north, and back to, well, he's not sent back to Monaghan, he's actually making ma the um he's made the liaison officer of the entire IRA for the province of
Political Shifts and the Blue Shirts
00:10:01
Speaker
Ulster. So he's liaising with the British officers, he's trying to keep the truce in in existence.
00:10:06
Speaker
But of course, there's huge violence, famously pogroms, in what is Northern Ireland. um particularly in Belfast. So Duffy says that he finds the city in a state of veritable siege.
00:10:19
Speaker
He thinks that there's huge violence against Catholics. And it's really around that time, talking about autumn 1921, that he begins to cement this reputation for himself as this ardent defender of Northern nationalists. So people who are being burnt out of their homes, they're being discriminated against, they've been locked out of their jobs and shipyards, places like this.
00:10:38
Speaker
He gives the speech, um very famous speech in Armagh, and where he kind of plays a bit of a double act with Michael Collins. Collins and makes a somewhat conciliatory speech ah towards Northern Unionists, whereas Zaduffi says that if they don't begin to behave themselves, ah they're going to get the lead.
00:10:59
Speaker
So that was seen as a, I mean, is it even a veiled threat? Hardly. It's seen as a threat against northern Protestants if they don't submit to United Ireland or if they at least don't stop persecuting Catholics.
00:11:11
Speaker
So he gets this reputation as quite a hardliner, which actually serves him quite well as that period progresses, because he's able to... and persuade a lot of those Northern Irish and IRA men that supporting the treaty by no means is equal to giving up the North or going soft or anything like it.
00:11:32
Speaker
In fact, if someone as strong as O'Duffy can support the treaty, then, you know, of course, there must be some evil or some sort of, you know, serious plan here. You know, Collins is able to is is is is going to be able to, um you know, pull it off and pull it but off a united Ireland in due course.
00:11:52
Speaker
So O'Dooghue really distinguishes himself at that period. um He's seen as somebody who can deal with crises when they arise. So, for example, there's... some When the Civil War breaks out, there's a three-man military council, which is formed of Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy and Owen O'Duffy. Those three people are essentially running the country from somewhere until Collins' death.
00:12:18
Speaker
in August 1922. So O'Duffy is very, very significant figure in the Civil War, in the early Civil War period. He sent a limerick, he captures limerick from Liam Lynch, um which was an impressive enough feat, but it was more so O'Duffy was quite belligerent and Liam Lynch was not particularly prepared to defend the city.
00:12:38
Speaker
So They surrender it without much trouble. um But O'Duffy, you know, uses that to to really enhance his reputation. um And then after Collins' death, however, O'Duffy's no longer in the military. He's actually transferred to the Guard, to the to the Civic Guards.
00:12:56
Speaker
So the Civic Guards had been set up earlier. um They were headed by a man, Michael Staines, but he wasn't regarded as particularly and effective as a commander of the guards. There was a mutiny under his watch and O'Duffy is asked in autumn to take over the guards and put manners on them, put them back onto a stable footing.
00:13:15
Speaker
And he seems to do that with great success. So he's in charge of the Guardee and and he's responsible for the unarmed policy, for example. So for the rest of the civil war, he's really in charge of the police force of the country, of the Free State anyway.
00:13:31
Speaker
And um he stays in that role for 11 years. He's the second Garda commissioner, but certainly the most prominent one.
Rise of the Blue Shirts
00:13:38
Speaker
So, I mean, it's 11 years. There's a, there's a lot to, there's a lot you could talk about in those 11 years, but it'd be safe to say that he would be regarded or he, if, if not for his activities in the 1930s, if he had retired quietly in 1932 or 33, or if he died or something like this, he'd probably be regarded as a,
00:13:57
Speaker
estate builder and a patriot and he'd probably be commemorated endlessly but it's because of these activities that he got up to in the 1930s the blue shirts the spanish civil war that he seems to be and that he's quite rightly regarded as a a fascist figure that people don't want to commemorate or look up to Yeah, again, is that maybe why I maybe necessarily haven't heard about him, maybe as prominently as all those other figures who you've just touched on, Jack, because, ah again, like you just said, his activities in the 30s.
00:14:28
Speaker
If we can go into a bit more detail about the blue shirts in Ireland, when were they formed, who were the key characters, and then what happened to them? So, to talk about the blue shirts, and we kind of really need to talk about the background to them, because They are a quasi-fascist organisation. And the question, I preface that by saying quasi because in a sense the jury's still out on the extent which they were fascist or not.
00:14:56
Speaker
m So maybe we'll just talk a bit about the the social and political conditions that gave rise to them. um So the Blue Shirts, they come about on the 9th of February, 1932. That's their official creation.
00:15:10
Speaker
and But the context of that, of course, was that In February, 1932, there was a general election held in Ireland, um which saw Fianna Fáil come to power. And the fact that Fianna Fáil was going to come to power sent shockwaves through the pro-treaty establishment in the country.
00:15:28
Speaker
They'd fought a civil war against these people not very long ago. They anticipated that a new government led by Éamon de Valera would reverse all the potential advantages and advancements and everything that they'd put their work and their their time into could be all torn asunder and not only that but ah there also could be a massive amount of score settling persecution um you name it there could be mass sackings of people in civil service positions if not inquiries for some of the more um barbaric aspects of the civil war
00:16:08
Speaker
Bally Sidi, for example, most infamously, things like this. So the fact that Fianna Fáil was on the cusp of attaining political power prompted a lot of different pro-treaty interest groups to to really um get quite scared about this prospect.
00:16:23
Speaker
So the Blue Shirts were founded as the Army Comrades Association on on that date I mentioned, 9th of February, 1932. It was actually before the general election, but it was in anticipation of a Fianna Fáil victory.
00:16:35
Speaker
Now, the Army Comrades Association, is the name suggests, was a military um based veterans association. It wasn't a political association. It was quite genteel in theory.
00:16:49
Speaker
Their main concerns, as outlined in their program, which was adopted at that founding meeting in Wins Hotel, shows just how they perceived the conditions at the time and just how kind of mainstream they were.
00:17:01
Speaker
firstly just wanted to uphold the existence of the state. fairly uncontroversial pro-treaty. um And then secondly, they wanted to honour the men who fought in the Irish Volunteers and died during the Anglo-Irish War and to raise a national memorial to them.
00:17:16
Speaker
So its aims were generally to look after the welfare of veterans of the ah Irish War of Independence, the Civil War on the pro-treaty side, and then people who were in the defence forces.
00:17:27
Speaker
and And reflecting that extent to which it was a army-based group, and The first president of it was Austin Brennan, who was a colonel from Clare, and he was the brother of the chief of staff of the Defence Forces, Michael Brennan.
00:17:40
Speaker
So and he was the president of it, but really the main driver of the group was its secretary, Ned Cronin, who was from Cork. And um he was he later became quite a prominent figure within it.
00:17:53
Speaker
um The context behind it, of course, was was the the election of Fianna Fáil. When Fianna Fáil did come to power, um d The sky didn't fall down. There wasn't a um wasn't um a massive amount of of reaction against um the the people who who they just lost power to.
00:18:13
Speaker
um But that didn't stop some people from trying to discuss coup d'etats on the pro-treaty side, things like this, and ideas that Fianna Fáil came to power. um There would need to be there would need to essentially be an attempt to to stop them from from doing it, either some sort of rebellion or some sort of coup d'etat. So and the the Blue Shirts existed as a small sort of group, but that pro-treaty clique that existed within the within the army, which was quite militant, as distinct from, say, the Commonwealth Nail Party, which did hand over power.
00:18:47
Speaker
ah reasonably without much fuss. and Some brew ha-ha in the media about it, but there was no real attempt to stop Fianna Fáil from coming to power. There were some discussions and mootings of coups, and some of them did involve Oduffi. So some some examples of this was in March. Before Fianna Fáil,
00:19:06
Speaker
assumed power on the 9th March. and There had been some discussions by people like Paddy O'Dalley, who was the infamous leader of the Dublin Guard in Kerry during the Civil War.
00:19:16
Speaker
He encouraged the army to revolt, actually, if he would fall into power. um the army officer Hugo McNeill. um He also proposed a coup to Richard Mulcahy on the 17th of March on a Cayley in the mansion house, but he was rebuffed. He was told not to be such an ass and to propose such things.
00:19:35
Speaker
O'Duffy himself actually considered a coup um as early as December 1931. So even before the general election happened, he was thinking that there was a need for a coup and he proposed this to David Nelligan, who was the head of special branch in the mess hall at the Garda, Phoenix Park Depot,
00:19:51
Speaker
But this conspiracy didn't really come to anything. It's been written off as just a drunken dry run. and think that might be a little bit harsh for it. It was, it was um I suppose, how would you say it?
00:20:03
Speaker
It never came to anything. So it's hard to really separate rumor and innuendo from actual conspiracy. But nonetheless, it probably does indicate that O'Duffy was beginning to conceive himself as a bit of a strong man and a bit of a... um potential saviour of Irish society and that is kind of what he did see himself as.
00:20:20
Speaker
You can see that reflected in his involvement in athletics which was around the late 1920s he became heavily involved in Irish athletics um which was always wrapped around the rhetoric of saving the Irish youth from degradation and degeneration things like that. So the Blue Shirts um it's it's it's easy enough to say that a big part of their raison d'etre was opposition to Fianna Fáil, fears pro-treaty elite had, but sam as they developed and became the blue shirts, they became the blue shirts in April 1933 when they actually adopted the blue shirt as a uniform.
00:20:58
Speaker
They were still the Army Comrades Association. um By that point, I mean, the blue shirts, of course, was just a nickname the same way the black shirts was a nickname for Mussolini's fascist party in the same way that the brown shirts was just a nickname for Hitler's essay.
00:21:13
Speaker
um The blue shirts in Ireland, they did undergo several different names, mostly because they, as an organization, were banned repeatedly. But sam the actual blue shirt uniform was adopted on the 8th of April 1933 because rival groups of blue shirts are sorry, not rival groups of blue shirts, groups of blue shirts from different parts of the country were trying to steward a meeting and they mistook each other for people trying to disrupt the meetings.
00:21:41
Speaker
So they attacked each other, engaged in internecine conflict against each other um in Kilkenny. And this was obviously a disaster. So they decided after this point, we need some sort of uniform to distinguish ourselves from the enemy. and So their evolution, just to talk briefly a bit about their evolution, they're formed as this, let's say, genteel welfare association for veterans.
00:22:02
Speaker
By autumn 1932, they do begin to become far more political. and They elect... They elect a new president. T.F. O'Higgins is elected as president of the group.
00:22:15
Speaker
um It's also talking about meeting the national emergency. This is part of their agenda now, is to meet the national emergency. So that implies it's far more political.
00:22:27
Speaker
and They want to talk about protecting against free speech. So at the time, Fianna Fáil and the IRA were attacking common and nail meetings, um And obviously that required some sort of response from the pro treaty side, which that um which which led to the um impetus for the blue shirts to act as stewards and protect meetings.
00:22:48
Speaker
So they saw it anyway. And the IRA's famous slogan at the time was that there was no free speech for traitors. So, It underwent that revolution, evolution, I should say. And then the final evolution was was um when they became the National Guard in July 1933. That was when O'Duffy became leader of the Army Comrades Association.
00:23:08
Speaker
which was renamed the National Guard. And then he adopted the title of director general and it adopted a far more fulsome political program and which talked about corporatism and and different ideas like this, which was much more influenced by continental fascism.
00:23:23
Speaker
and and And really the the vacancy there in the presidency, which allowed O'Duffy to become leader of it, was that he was sacked as Guard to Commissioner by de Valera in 1933. in a instance which was seen by many, many people, including even Fianna Fáil supporters, as being a persecution of a man who was just doing his job, who was a decent servant of the state, who had served under the Commonwealth Nail government, loyally for many years, yes, but who had served a year under Fianna Fáil,
00:23:51
Speaker
um and seemingly without any any issue or causing any problems.
O'Duffy's Later Years and WWII Involvement
00:23:57
Speaker
So when he was when he was sacked, that was seen as a victimization of a political opponent, led to a huge amount of popularity for O'Duffy.
00:24:04
Speaker
And then after that, they saw and come in a nail and also the blue shirts, what became the blue shirts, saw that they could use this man's popularity to elect him as leader.
00:24:15
Speaker
and grow what was initially a small enough organization into a mass political movement. The primary aim of which was to fight against Fianna Fáil on the two fronts of obviously opposition to Fianna Fáil because of its anti-treaty background, but also the land annuities as well. And and so the the land annuities,
00:24:34
Speaker
They were annual payments collected from Irish farmers by the Free State Government. and They were stipulated in the treaty and they had to be paid to the British treasury as debts, which arose from the Wyndham Land Act of 1903.
00:24:46
Speaker
So the land annuities amounted to over 3 million and pounds per annum. So given that the total revenue intake in early 1930s was approximately 25 million pounds per annum, that was quite staggering amount of money that had to be paid.
00:25:01
Speaker
um So the average farmer had to pay around 10% of their net income towards the land annuities. um and then But because it was a fixed amount as well, it meant that in difficult times the burden increased.
00:25:13
Speaker
So opposition to the land annuities was obviously a key Republican idea throughout the 20s. um And initially was associated with Padre O'Donnell, who quite a left-wing Republican, and never joined Fianna Fáil, but was wass always on the the the left of the IRA.
00:25:30
Speaker
He identified opposition to the land annuities among farmers as key to just building this great social base for Republicanism. And then conversely, O'Duffy saw the land annuities campaign, opposition to it as a communist subversion tactic. That was when he was Garda commissioner. So, for example, in a report from 1927,
00:25:48
Speaker
ah He wrote that it was one of the first steps laid down in Soviet textbooks for the breaking the existing regime and bringing about the Soviet of working farmers and peasants.
00:25:59
Speaker
So the idea that the land annuities was a opposition to that was a tactic by communists, was something that obviously was like a red rag to a bull for Rodolfi and a lot of kind of conservative people within Cumberland Ale and the pro-treaty government.
00:26:13
Speaker
De Valera, of course, adopted this policy of stopping paying the land annuities. and thus really And that really shot up support for the Blue Shirts as a movement. So um because, of course, the thing was that once the annuities stopped being paid to Britain, they introduced tariffs on the the import of Irish beef, which obviously see increased the amount that Irish farmers had to pay to export their cattle to Britain.
00:26:41
Speaker
But at the same time, the Fianna Fáil government never stopped actually collecting the fixed rate of land annuities from Irish farmers. So they would take them, but they weren't paying them to Britain. They just held them in a special reserve fund.
00:26:52
Speaker
For many Irish farmers, particularly large farmers, ranchers, it felt like they were being double taxed. um And it was quite harsh. and And opposition to the land annuities really motivated people to get involved with the blue shirts, which was seen as a ah radical way to oppose Fianna Fáil.
00:27:11
Speaker
And of course, it was also a movement which had outpaced Common and Ale the more respectable mainstream parliamentary opposition to Fianna Fáil at the time. So that's a bit of a sketch of the the blue shirts and how it came about and the particular Irish context to it as well.
00:27:27
Speaker
That's absolutely fascinating, Jack. Thank you very much for that. I really appreciate it. Is it okay if we kind of move on to about 1940? When I was doing my research and reading read your article as well, again, another group that I'd never heard of before, the Irish Friends of Germany, were formed in O'Duffy's house.
00:27:44
Speaker
And reading from your research, he didn't necessarily take a major role within that group. He was kind of more of bystander. He could kind of see the way the winds were coming and he...
00:27:56
Speaker
And I suppose was he's become an old man as well. like There's a a photograph in your article as well and he's he's standing up and he's obviously addressing a crowd. And he does look quite frail.
00:28:07
Speaker
Could you maybe talk about the the Irish Friends of Germany and then maybe dovetail into the ah the Green Division? Yeah, so I mean, it's funny that you think he he looks like an old man. I mean, he died at the tender age of 54.
00:28:20
Speaker
So he was he never really lived to be an old man per se. and But there there was certainly a physical effect on him, which was associated with excessive alcohol consumption. So he was he was a heavy drinker.
00:28:32
Speaker
um It's hard to actually date exactly when he became a heavy drinker. The only thing to mention about the drinking and why it's relevant is because lot lot of people in Irish history have been heavy drinkers, but O'Duffy was such a strong moralist campaigner against drinking, against um you know the plight of Puccine and things like this.
00:28:52
Speaker
So that it was it was kind of wrapped up in the hypocrisy of O'Duffy that he himself was was quite a heavy drinker. So that's possibly a reason why he he looked frail. I just thought that was worth mentioning.
00:29:03
Speaker
Possibly one of the things that I'm a bit revisionist on is the idea of O'Duffy as um a prosaic kind of Nazi collaborator quizzling and waiting during the Second World War.
00:29:16
Speaker
Really, I think during the Second World War, O'Duffy is how you've kind of described him or what you've inferred. He's a bit of a broken man, really. And whilst he does allow his house to be used as the and the place where they officially founded this group, the Irish Friends of Germany, which, of course, is worth mentioning, was a group of school. It's a small fringe group made up of eccentrics in the underground of Dublin.
00:29:42
Speaker
It's not a yeah ah mass social movement. I mean. to to even compare it to the blue shirts, for example, completely completely different phenomenons. But the and the reality is that O'Duffy had and attached himself or other people had attached themselves to O'Duffy potentially more accurately, who were very, very pro-Nazi during the context of the Second World War. So one of these was a man called Captain Liam Walsh.
00:30:06
Speaker
and Liam Walsh is an interesting man in his own right. He's from Dundrum. he's um He lives with O'Duffy for a point. Despite having a wife and children, he's he's living in his house in Mount Merion.
00:30:18
Speaker
um Walsh was Free State Army background, joined the Blue Shirts, was O'Duffy's secretary then for a lot of the nineteen thirty s was very much involved in organizing the um the Spanish Civil War campaign, the recruitment and the um transportation of Irish men to Spain.
00:30:37
Speaker
and But Walsh seems to have been the primary driver but of, of and well, one of the key people, I should say, of a um pro-Nazi kind of opinion in Ireland during the during the Second World War.
00:30:49
Speaker
And for that, he's arrested. Now, O'Duffy is never arrested or interned, unlike lots of people who were, either from pro-Nazi collaborationist groups or from the IRA. A lot of people interned from the IRA during the Second World War.
00:31:03
Speaker
O'Duffy isn't because he minded his p's and g's. He's quite careful, actually. um His public statements throughout the war all favor neutrality. They all abhor the war and say it's this terrible, tragic loss of life. And thank God Ireland's not involved in it.
00:31:18
Speaker
So officially he supports a position which is quite similar to de Valera's um He's in fact, he lobbies for commissions um in the and in the Red Cross at one point.
00:31:31
Speaker
He wants to reintegrate himself into the mainstream of Irish society. So he's he's um he's always coming across, trying to come across as a conciliatory figure who officially supports neutrality. Now, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that he hangs around with people, associates with shady characters who are um pro-Nazi, like his secretary, Liam Walsh.
00:31:52
Speaker
um other figures as well. The fact of the matter is that he he doesn't seem to be particularly involved um and in my opinion he doesn't really see it as a runner that he's going to have much of a political career at this point.
00:32:05
Speaker
I think he was crushed by the Spanish Civil War, the defeat of that campaign, the humiliation that brought upon him. and and actually but At that point he actually re-enters the athletics and side of of of of his life so he's not personally put the administration of it so he's back um in sports administration and to be involved in sports administration at the time he needed to be non-political so it was almost an admission of the end of his political career that he got back involved in sports administration and he's advocating for things like building a stadium in Dublin
00:32:39
Speaker
and hosting the Olympics in Dublin. And mean these seem to be far more what he's interested in than plans about, you know, um prospective collaborationist cabinets with the Nazi Germany.
00:32:50
Speaker
So and he does he does have some some low level contacts as well with German spies. But um There are a few reasons to think and why I do think that some of his his Nazi collaboration during the Second World War, so-called, is a little bit overrated. And and and one of those is that the point of that, the the focus of that article like I did for History Ireland was that the whole incident about the Green Division that you brought up. So and this has been mentioned somewhat uncritically in a few studies of O'Dofi and the Blue Shirts in the Second World War.
00:33:22
Speaker
It hinges on this idea that there was a telegram sent by somebody allegedly on O'Duffy's behalf and with his informator, which asked for um asked Nazi Germany to and to send over represent to send over a submarine to transport a representative of O'Duffy to Berlin, where they could discuss the prospect of O'Duffy raising an Irish brigade called the Green Division, which would fight along the on the Eastern Front with the Nazis against the
00:33:53
Speaker
Soviet had Red Army in Operation Barbarossa. and So, that I mean, this idea is is obviously very much based on his escapades during Spain as well. um And because this telegram existed, it's sometimes just been taken at face value that it was genuine.
00:34:09
Speaker
And possibly as well, as I mentioned, O'Duffy had a reputation as a bit of an eccentric. um He was... quite a heavy drinker so I think people just thought he had form that this could indeed be true but the from my research into it anyway it appears that the origin of the telegram was a man called Joseph Gerald Andrews who was um pro-nazi collaborator I should say based in Dublin but very much an eccentric very much a fringe figure and really more of a char charlatan than anything ideological um
00:34:45
Speaker
He was involved with these circles, but I don't think he was particularly ideological. I think he was trying to extort money from the Germans and he had access to Goertz's code, it seems.
00:34:57
Speaker
Goertz had bragged, up with go sorry, just explain who Herman Goertz was. Herman Goertz was a German spy who'd been parachuted into Ireland during the during the war years.
00:35:07
Speaker
And um he was on the lam for a while, hiding in various different places. He had a radio transmission system for, um which was intended to to ah gain gain contact between the IRA and Germany and to keep in touch with them and things like this.
00:35:22
Speaker
um But Andrews was ah was in close contact with him, appears to have access to his code for his radio and sent these telegrams to the Germans, which which claimed that he was an associate of O'Duffy and he'd raised this division and would repeatedly ask for money. So,
00:35:41
Speaker
and And the the files are there to suggest anyway that Andrews was arrested and that this was to discovered. for It just hasn't fully been teased out in the historiography, I don't think.
00:35:52
Speaker
But the idea that O'Duffy was involved in such a scheme, it seems most likely to me anyway that O'Duffy was never aware who Andrews was, let alone that he was acting in his name and asking for and such a project.
00:36:05
Speaker
And it seems also to me just completely unrealistic that O'Duffy, at that stage in his life, um Again, O'Duffy dies in 1944, November 1944. So he was in no fit state to be off ah in the Eastern Front in Germany leading Irishmen on a suicide mission against the the Russian Red Army.
00:36:27
Speaker
I think he even knew that himself. So the the idea that it was genuine, I think is is um it's pretty far-fetched.
Conclusion and Book Promotion
00:36:34
Speaker
and Even if people regard O'Duffy as eccentric and not particularly making coherent judgments, i don't think that was I think that was a bit too too too eccentric for him, too outlandish. So it seems likely to me anyway, that it was Andrews on a solo run, trying to get money out of the Germans.
00:36:53
Speaker
And really it just, that incident, it's a small enough incident, but it does reflect um generally how the Irish pro-Nazi underground was a collection of very shady characters, people who were self-interested, people who were after money and after um advancement and things like this.
00:37:14
Speaker
There was not much sincerity involved. a lot of these people were cashiered out of the Free State Army like Walsh had been, or they had rap sheets for other crimes, petty crimes, these sorts of things.
00:37:27
Speaker
So I think it's just reflective generally of that of that scene and their their low status in general. That was Jack Treanor, historian and author of General Owen O'Duffy, The Political Life of an Irish Firebrand.
00:37:39
Speaker
A huge thank you to Jack for sharing his insight into one of the most controversial figures in modern Irish history and the turbulent era that shaped him. If you want to explore Duffy's life and the political landscape of 20th century Ireland in greater depth,
00:37:53
Speaker
You can pick up General Owen O'Duffy, The Political Life of an Irish Firebrand online or at your favourite bookstore. It's available on Amazon, through independent booksellers and directly from academic publishers.
00:38:06
Speaker
Make sure to subscribe and rate Pieces of History Podcast on iTunes and Spotify and you can contact me at piecesofhistorypod at outlook.com or on Instagram and Facebook at Pieces of History.
00:38:17
Speaker
Thanks for listening.