Term of political abuse or a badge of honour

The Blueshirts And Irish Politics, by Mike Cronin, Four Courts Press, hardback 220pp £19.95

The Blueshirts And Irish Politics, by Mike Cronin, Four Courts Press, hardback 220pp £19.95

The Blueshirt movement lasted little more than a couple of years yet it has continued to be one of the truly controversial episodes of modern Irish politics. The reasons for this are twofold - the intrinsic interest of the episode itself and the fact that the term "Blueshirt" can be used as a single transferable term, either of political abuse or indeed as a badge of honour. One way or other the topic continues to be seen by some as an item on the current political agenda rather than as a subject of sober historical analysis.

Twenty-six years have passed since the first, and up to now, only major study of the Blueshirt movement appeared, written by this reviewer. Plenty of time for revisionism to have set in.

The earlier work on the Blueshirts did not have access to State papers as the 30-year rule was still many years off, and the National Archive merely a gleam in the eye. It did, however, have access to many of the principal actors on both sides. Dr Cronin in his book had full access to the trove of archival material, though survivors in his case were scarce on the ground, and twenty-six years older.

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At the outset it has to be said Dr Cronin has written a scholarly, well-researched and fair-minded book. This work began its life as a doctoral dissertation under Prof Roy Foster but it shows few of the signs of a dissertation - it is lively and well-written - and Dr Cronin, one of the new generation of English-born Irish historians cannot be accused of bringing any personal baggage to his study.

There is always a danger in studying a movement such as the Blueshirts in over-intellectualizing or over-contextualizing it. Participants in major or minor political events must often look back in some bewilderment at motives or rationale attributed to them by subsequent historians, and if this book has a fault, it lies here. At times Dr Cronin does push his evidence too far in an attempt to fit his work into a wider European pattern, and at times he is too timid in coming to conclusions, as for example when he says that it is not possible to come down definitely as to whether or not the Blueshirts were pro-British. They were not. The only evidence ever produced was de Valera's claim in the Dail that Mulcahy had a secret meeting with Lord Hailsham. He did not have any such meeting, something which de Valera acknowledged in the Dail a few days later, blaming an Irish Press reporter. Nor was there ever any connection between the Blueshirts and Mosley's Blackshirt movement, something which Dr Cronin again finds difficult to fully accept.

Dr Cronin is on firmer ground in his examination of the overall movement. The following is as good a description of the movement as we will get: "The members were a young group of men and women drawn from a heritage which traditionally backed Cumann na nGaedheal. They believed fully in the role of the Blueshirts as a part of the Party. What they did not envisage, and what they did not support (and in many cases did not understand), was the apparent fascistisation of the movement by O'Duffy. "The members were personally motivated. The issues which concerned them were issues close to home. These included the question of free speech, the effect of the economic war and agricultural reforms, and the threats posed by the de Valera government. They had no time for Quadragesimo Anno, Mussolini, the Corporate State or the ideas of the intellectuals. "This dissonance created great divisions, and explains why, after the dismissal of O'Duffy, the great majority of them returned to locally based party political support."

The Blueshirt movement also raises the question as to whether, or to what extent, the movement was a fascist one. Dr Cronin provides a very useful review of the literature to date on this subject. Prof Joe Lee, for example, rejects the notion of the Blueshirts as fascists: "part of the traditional right, with few, if any, of the trappings of fascism". Prof Dermot Keogh's work on the Italian archives leads him to the view of the Blueshirts as a movement lacking the credentials of fascism. Prof Paul Bew's analysis of the Blueshirts distinguishes between a core leadership dedicated to a fascism of a peculiarly Irish form, but whose members were not the raw material of fascism.

My own view of the movement, which is not substantially altered by Dr Cronin's analysis, is that it was a movement which came into existence for indigenous Irish reasons but which an opportunistic leadership saw possibilities of turning into something else. Some, like Hogan and Tierney, attempted to impose on it contemporary Vatican ideas, others like O'Duffy, were genuinely enamoured of full blown fascism, but all the time with Cosgrave, Dillon and, perhaps most of all, McDermot in the background to call a halt to all their gallops. Perhaps the last word should be with O'Duffy. He was the one who felt betrayed. He had no takers worth talking about.

Senator Maurice Manning's first work of fiction will be published next month.