Eoin O’Duffy was born at Cargaghdoo, near Lough Egish, Co Monaghan, on October 20, 1892. He became an engineer and worked as a surveyor for Monaghan County Council in the Clones area.
Eoin O'Duffy
He was active in the IRA during the War of Independence and was imprisoned several times. He led “Siege of Ballytrain” barracks in February 1920, resulting in the RIC garrison surrendering. In March 1921 he was made commander of the IRA’s 2nd Northern Division and in May of that year was elected as a Sinn Féin Dail deputy for Monaghan.
He took the Treaty side and served as a general in the new Irish Army in the ensuing Irish Civil War. In September 1922 he was appointed Commissioner of the recently formed Garda Siochana. The first Commissioner, Michael Staines, had only lasted a short time in the post.
He was Garda Commissioner until 1933 when Eamon de Valera, as head of the new Fianna Fail Government, dismissed him. In the Dáil de Valera offered as reason for the dismissal – “he [O'Duffy] 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.
Soon after, Eoin O’Duffy became leader of the Army Comrades Association, which soon became the National Guard, complete with fascist-style uniforms. It protected meetings of the pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedheal party from attacks by republicans. Its members became known as the Blueshirts.
Events moved quickly in the summer of 1933. In August, de Valera banned a planned march in Dublin, fearing that it could turn into a repeat of Mussolini’s infamous march on Rome in 1922.
By September the Blueshirts were declared an illegal organisation. O’Duffy was arrested while trying to address a meeting in Westport, Co Mayo, in December on the grounds he was a member of a banned organisation. He successfully sued the two Garda superintendents who had arrested him for wrongful imprisonment and assault.
To circumvent the ban the movement changed its name to the League of Youth.
Then on September 8, 1933, the Fine Gael United Ireland party was formed from O’Duffy’s National Guard, Cumann na nGaedheal and the National Centre Party. O’Duffy became the first leader of the new party, while WT Cosgrave was its parliamentary leader. Cosgrave had been instrumental in founding Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923 as the pro-Treaty wing of Sinn Fein.
But O’Duffy was erratic and extremely right wing in his views and within a year he was ousted from the leadership of Fine Gael and replaced by Cosgrave. The Blueshirt movement had begun to disintegrate also, so much so that by 1935 the organisation no longer existed. Eoin O’Duffy formed the National Corporate Party.
He went on to take 700 of his supporters to Spain to fight on Franco’s side in the Spanish Civil War. However they saw little fighting and deciding they had nothing to contribute, Franco ordered them home in June 1937. O’Duffy returned to Ireland from Spain in disarray and more or less retired from politics.
In his youth he was active in Monaghan GAA and became secretary of the Ulster Council and was treasurer from 1925 until 1934. He later became president of the NACA, the body controlling Irish athletics, and held this position until his death. He was also a chronic alcoholic.
Remarkably, when he died at the end of November 1944 at the age of 52, de Valera ordered that he be given a State funeral.
The distant political events of Ireland of the 1930s linger on in just one word – Blueshirt, still used to denounce the Fine Gael party.