Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy was an Irish revolutionary, general, Garda, politician and fascist activist. O'Duffy was the leader of the Monaghan Brigade of the Irish Republican Army and a prominent figure in the Ulster IRA during the Irish War of Independence. In this capacity, he became Chief of Staff of the IRA in 1922. He accepted the Anglo-Irish Treaty and as a general became Chief of Staff of the National Army in the Irish Civil War, on the pro-Treaty side.
He had been an early member of Sinn Féin and was elected a Teachta Dála for Monaghan in the Second Dáil in 1921, supporting pro-Treaty Sinn Féin in the split of 1922. In 1923 he became associated with Cumann na nGaedheal.
He was appointed as the second Commissioner of the Garda Síochána in 1922, the police force of the new Irish Free State, serving until 1933. In 1924, during the Irish Army Mutiny, he was appointed as General Officer Commanding of the Irish Army, holding both roles until 1925.
In the 1930s O'Duffy became attracted to the various fascist movements on the continent. In 1933 O'Duffy took control of the paramilitary movement called Army Comrades Association, also known as the Blueshirts. When the Blueshirts merged with Cumann na nGaedhael and National Centre Party to form Fine Gael, O'Duffy began as the new party's first leader, remaining as such for 13 months. He subsequently raised the Irish Brigade to fight for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War as an act of Catholic solidarity and was inspired by Benito Mussolini's Italy to create the National Corporate Party. During the Second World War, he was clandestinely involved in pro-Axis circles but focused mostly on athletic administration in his capacity as president of the National Athletics and Cycling Association. He died in 1944.
O'Duffy was active in multiple sporting bodies, including the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Irish Olympic Council.
Early life
Eoin O'Duffy was born Owen Duffy in Lough Egish, near Castleblayney, County Monaghan, on 28 January 1890 to an impoverished smallholder family. He was the youngest of seven children. His father, also named Owen Duffy, had inherited his farm from his father Peter in 1888; however, the family were forced to farm conacre land and work on the roads to make ends meet. O'Duffy attended Laggan national school. He graduated to a school in Laragh where he developed an interest in the Gaelic Revival and attended night classes hosted by the Gaelic League. He was close to his mother, Bridget Fealy, who died of cancer when he was 12. O'Duffy was devastated by her death and he wore her ring for the rest of his life.In 1909, he sat the king's scholarship examination for St Patrick's College, Dublin, but as a place was not assured, he applied to become a clerk in the county surveyor's office in Monaghan. O'Duffy decided to pursue a career as a surveyor and came fifth in the local government board examination in 1912. O'Duffy was appointed and moved to Newbliss to take up his new position. He later secured a post as an engineer.
Involvement in sport
Ulster GAA
O'Duffy was a leading member of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ulster. He was appointed secretary of the Ulster Provincial Council in 1912. He later served as Treasurer of the GAA Ulster Council from 1921 to 1934. His important role in developing the GAA in Ulster is memorialised by the O'Duffy Terrace at the principal provincial stadium, St Tiernach's Park in Clones, County Monaghan. In December 2009 a plaque was erected in memory of O'Duffy in Aughnamullen. The plaque was unveiled by the President of the Ulster GAA Council, Tom Daly.He was also a member of Harps' Gaelic football club.
Other sports
As well as being a prominent figure in Ulster GAA he was also active in other sports. He was President of the Irish Amateur Handball Association from 1926 to 1934, the National Athletic and Cycling Association from 1931 to 1934, and the Irish Olympic Council from 1931 to 1932.O'Duffy believed in the ideal of "cleaned manliness". He said sport "cultivates in a boy habits of self-control self-denial" and promotes "the cleanest and most wholesome of the instincts of youth". He said a lack of sport caused some boys to have "failed to keep their athleticism, but became weedy youths, smoking too soon, drinking too soon".
Political activities
Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin
In 1917, O'Duffy joined the Irish Volunteers and took an active part in the Irish War of Independence, after that organisation became the Irish Republican Army. He rose rapidly through the ranks. He started as the Section Commander of the Clones Company, then Captain, then Commandant and finally appointed Brigadier in 1919. He came to the attention of Michael Collins, who enrolled him in the Irish Republican Brotherhood and supported his advancement in the movement's hierarchy. One year later, Collins described O'Duffy as "the best man in Ulster". O'Duffy's senior involvement in the GAA and knowledge of Monaghan from his job as a surveyor proved invaluable for organisation and recruitment.In 1918 O'Duffy became secretary of Sinn Féin's north Monaghan area council. On 14 September 1918 he and Daniel Hogan were arrested after a GAA match and charged with "illegal assembly". He was imprisoned in Belfast Prison and released on 19 November 1918. After his release O'Duffy focused on organising his brigade and built an effective intelligence network by cultivating contacts with susceptible RIC men. He was forced to go on the run after a RIC raid on his house in September 1919 but continued to draw his salary from the Monaghan County Council.
On 15 February 1920, he was involved in the first capture of a Royal Irish Constabulary barracks by the IRA in Ballytrain, in his native Monaghan. The raid boosted local IRA recruitment, shook RIC morale and resulted in the closure of many barracks in rural Monaghan. O'Duffy was once again arrested and imprisoned in Belfast Prison, where he went on hunger strike. He was released in June and arranged which Sinn Féin candidates would stand in Monaghan during the 1920 Irish local elections.
O'Duffy's brigade started raiding the homes of Protestants for arms, increasing sectarian tensions. The raids were not necessarily targeting protestants but unionists as Fearghall McGarry writes "the raids were also motivated by sectarian tensions and the Volunteers’ resentment of Protestant support for the authorities: ‘They gave information concerning the IRA to Crown forces and maintained a most hostile attitude to everything republican.’" The raids were immensely unpopular even amongst the volunteers and "Local Protestants, many of them isolated in rural nationalist areas, were outraged....In contrast, one Protestant, whose ‘dog was very friendly with the raiders’ received a polite apology for the disturbance, while another paid ‘tribute to the pleasant way that the raiders visited him. They came and parted on the happiest terms.’" Armed Orangemen began parading the roads of Unionist areas and tit-for-tat killings occurred in reprisal for IRA casualties incurred during raids. He supported the Belfast Boycott and his brigade began harassing of Protestant stores, burning delivery vans from Belfast, raiding trains carrying northern goods and sabotaging rail tracks.
O'Duffy became more ruthless in 1921, intensifying attacks on British forces and executions of suspected informers and other opponents of the IRA. When a Protestant trader named George Lester held up and searched two boys he suspected of being dispatch carriers for the IRA in February 1921, O'Duffy ordered his death. Lester was shot but survived his injury. In retaliation, the B Specials invaded Rosslea on 23 February and sacked the Catholic part of the town. One month later the IRA, commanded by O'Duffy, raided the town in reprisal, burning fourteen houses and killing three Protestants, two of them B Specials.
In March 1921, he was made commander of the IRA's 2nd Northern Division but was unpopular with the ordinary Volunteers due to his "...high handed attitude, self-promotion, frequent complaints of local incompetence and general lack of camaraderie.".
On 5 April 1921 O'Duffy ordered that all armed patrols were to be attacked. IRA units across Tyrone carried out attacks to include Carrickmore, Mountfield, Pomeroy, Coalisland and Dromore. The RIC suffered a total of 10 members wounded in that nights operations. In April and May 1921 three raids on barracks and 13 ambushes were reported. Charlie Daly took command of the 2nd Northern Division in May 1921. Following the Truce with the British in July 1921, he was sent to Belfast. After the rioting known as Belfast's Bloody Sunday, he was given the task of liaising with the British to try to maintain the Truce and defend Catholic areas against attack. During this time he gained the nickname "Give 'em the lead" after delivering a belligerent speech in South Armagh threatening that if unionists "decided they were against Ireland and against their fellow countrymen" the IRA would "have to use the lead against them". He was Director of Organisation in Ulster and Chief Liaison officer for Ulster at the time the treaty was signed.
See The Troubles in Ulster
He 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. He was re-elected at the 1922 general election.
In January 1922 he became IRA Chief of Staff, replacing Richard Mulcahy. O'Duffy was the youngest general in Europe until Spanish general Francisco Franco was promoted to that rank.
Civil War General and Garda Síochána
In 1921 he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty, being pessimistic about the IRA's chances should the war resume and seeing the treaty as a stepping stone to a republic. Frank Aiken, a future military and political opponent, stated that from the signing of the treaty to the attack on the Four Courts in June 1922, O'Duffy did Herculean work for the pro-treaty cause. Further, Aiken felt that without those endeavours, aided by Mulcahy and Eoin MacNeill, the Civil War would not have taken place.On 14 January, Dan Hogan was arrested in Derry by the B Specials. In response, O'Duffy proposed the kidnapping of a hundred prominent Orangemen in Fermanagh and Tyrone to Collins. The raid was executed on 7 February. On 22 April, O'Duffy accused Liam Lynch's 1st Southern Division of retaining arms intended for the Northern IRA. Lynch in turn blamed O'Duffy for the arms not reaching the north.
He served as a general in the National Army and was given control of the South-Western Command. In the ensuing Irish Civil War he was one of the architects behind the Free State's strategy of seaborne landings in Republican-held areas. He took Limerick for the Free State in July 1922, before being held up in the Battle of Killmallock south of the city. The enmities of the Civil War era were to stay with O'Duffy throughout his political career.
In September 1922, Minister for Home Affairs Kevin O'Higgins was experiencing indiscipline within the recently formed Garda Síochána and O'Duffy was appointed Garda Commissioner after resigning from the army to take up the position. O'Duffy was a fine organiser and has been given much of the credit for the emergence of a largely respected, non-political and unarmed police force. He insisted on a Catholic ethos to distinguish the Gardaí from their Royal Irish Constabulary predecessors, and regularly told members of the force they were not just men working an ordinary job, but policemen fulfilling their religious duty. He was also a vocal opponent of alcohol in the force, instructing Gardaí to avoid it in his first public address as Garda Commissioner. He encouraged Garda members to join the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart. Although Garda were not allowed to wear pins on their uniform, O'Duffy made an exception for the Pioneer pin. In 1924 during the Irish Army Mutiny he was appointed as General Officer Commanding of the Irish Army, holding both roles until 1925.
In February, following a general election in 1933, Executive Council President Éamon de Valera dismissed O'Duffy as Garda Commissioner. In the Dáil de Valera explained the reason for his dismissal, stating " was likely to be biased in his attitude because of past political affiliations". The true reason, however, appears to have been the new government's discovery that shortly after the 1932 election, O'Duffy was one of the voices urging the Cumann na nGaedheal government of W. T. Cosgrave to resort to a military coup rather than to turn over power to the incoming Fianna Fáil administration. O'Duffy refused the offer of another position of equivalent rank in the public service. Ernest Blythe said many years later that Cosgrave had become so alarmed by O'Duffy's conduct that had he returned to power he would have also sacked O'Duffy as De Valera had done. However O'Duffy's dismissal was criticised in the Dáil at the time by Cumann na nGaedheal politicians.