The rise of General Eoin O’Duffy

To readers of a younger generation, the name General Eoin O’Duffy may not mean a lot but to an older group, he was either a hero or one of the great hate figures of the last century.
There were also times when he was a source of embarrassment to his political colleagues. Whatever else he was, he was an organiser par excellence and was in no small way responsible for having a well organised, unarmed police force in this country.
Born in Monaghan in 1892, O’Duffy trained as an engineer in Wexford and returned to work as a surveyor in his native county, where he joined the Irish Volunteers in 1917. He was active during the War of Independence and rose to be chief of staff of the army following the death of Michael Collins.
He supported the Treaty and following the foundation of the State, he fulfilled a number of roles. He succeeded Michael Staines and was appointed second Commissioner of the Garda Síochána. During his tenure he implemented the policy of an unarmed force and also conducted the inquiry following the army mutiny in 1924.
His “military personality” was never far from the surface and when two gardaí were killed in 1926 he wanted the force armed. He was a great advocate of sports within the gardaí and one of his supporters in this was Eamonn Broy. Broy succeeded O’Duffy as commissioner and both men went on to become presidents of the NACAI and later the Olympic Council of Ireland.
This was ironic because both were also associated with some of the questionable activities in the politics of the era – O’Duffy with the Blueshirts and Broy giving his name to the “Broy Harriers”. O’Duffy organised collective training in Ballybunion for the athletes who were going to the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles.
He can claim the credit for having Bob Tisdall on the team. The Olympic final was only Tisdall’s sixth hurdle race and he had made a personal plea to O’Duffy to be included. 
His organisational abilities were used for the Eucharistic Congress in 1932 when he was chief steward.
Following the 1933 election, he was removed as Garda commissioner and replaced by Broy. He then became leader of the Army Comrades Association. He renamed it the National Guard and they were very active in preventing Fine Gael meetings being broken up by IRA sympathisers. 
Fascism was on the rise in Europe at the time and O’Duffy adopted many of the trappings, particularly a uniform, which gave the organisation its name – Blueshirts.  
In 1933, Cumann na nGael, the Blueshirts and other groups opposed to Fianna Fáil merged to form Fine Gael and O’Duffy was elected leader, although he was not a member of the Dáil. The other leaders soon distanced themselves from him and he resigned within a year.
He founded his own party and organised his Irish Brigade to fight for the rebels under Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Seven-hundred followers sailed to Spain but O’Duffy returned soon afterwards and went into retirement. On his death he was given a State funeral and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
General Eoin O’Duffy, a man who left his mark on the early years of the State, died on November 30, 1944 – 65 years ago this week.

Michael Torpey