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1930s-1940s Scrapbooks on Blueshirts

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1930s-1940s Scrapbooks (4) mainly cuttings on Blueshirts. This fascinating collection of 4 scrapbooks contains over 2000 press cuttings/clippings with reports and photos of Blueshirt activity and related matters pertaining to Irish political, commercial and social life in Ireland of the 1930s and 1940s. There are reports on General Eoin O'Duffy (who set up the organisation in 1932), meetings, assemblies, parades, skirmishes, fights, disputes, murders, assaults, unsavoury incidents, the banning of the Young Ireland Association ( a section of Fine Gael known as the Blueshirts) by the government, the imprisonment of Cronin, conflict in Kilmallock, workings of the Military Tribunal, Blueshirts in the Dáil, seizure and auction of cattle for the non payment of rates and so on. The "Blueshirts" was originally the nickname of The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later named National Guard, an organisation set up by General Eoin O'Duffy in 1932. He was a leader in the IRA in the War of Independence and a National Army General during the Civil War. He was Irish Police Commissioner in the Irish Free State from 1922-33. He was dismissed from his position by De Valera in 1933. He took control of ACA and remodelled the organisation. In the process he adopted a few of the elements and many of the symbols of European fascism. The use of the Roman right arm salute, the blue uniform and the holding of huge rallies became widespread. Membership was restricted to "Irish" people or those whose parents professed the Christian faith. O'Duffy admired Mussolini and the Blueshirts adopted the creation of a Corporate State as their principal aim. It has been said that O'Duffy's corporatism was closer to the Vatican than to Mussolini. In September 1933 the Blueshirts became part of the newly formed Fine Gael party with O'Duffy as the Fine Gael President and W.T. Cosgrave and John Dillon as Vice Presidents. The Blueshirts became the youth wing of the party.

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