77 Facts About Eoin O'Duffy

Eoin O'Duffy 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.

Eoin O'Duffy had been an early member of Sinn Fein and was elected a Teachta Dala for Monaghan in the Second Dail in 1921, supporting pro-Treaty Sinn Fein in the split of 1922.

Eoin O'Duffy was appointed as the second Commissioner of the Garda Siochana in 1922, the police force of the new Irish Free State, serving until 1933.

In 1933 Eoin O'Duffy took control of the paramilitary movement called Army Comrades Association, known as the Blueshirts.

Eoin O'Duffy 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.

Eoin O'Duffy was active in multiple sporting bodies, including the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Irish Olympic Council.

Eoin O'Duffy was born Owen Duffy in Lough Egish, near Castleblayney, County Monaghan, on 28 January 1890 to an impoverished smallholder family.

Eoin O'Duffy's father, named Owen Duffy, had inherited his six-hectare 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.

Eoin O'Duffy graduated to a school in Laragh where he developed an interest in the Gaelic Revival and attended night classes hosted by the Gaelic League.

Eoin O'Duffy was close to his mother, Bridget Fealy, who died of cancer when he was 12.

Eoin O'Duffy was devastated by her death and he wore her ring for the rest of his life.

Eoin O'Duffy decided to pursue a career as a surveyor and came fifth in the local government board examination in 1912.

Eoin O'Duffy was appointed and moved to Newbliss to take up his new position.

Eoin O'Duffy was a leading member of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ulster.

Eoin O'Duffy was appointed secretary of the Ulster Provincial Council in 1912.

Eoin O'Duffy later served as Treasurer of the GAA Ulster Council from 1921 to 1934.

Eoin O'Duffy was a member of Harps' Gaelic football club.

Eoin O'Duffy 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.

Eoin O'Duffy said sport "cultivates in a boy habits of self-control [and] self-denial" and promotes "the cleanest and most wholesome of the instincts of youth".

Eoin O'Duffy 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".

In 1917, Eoin 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.

Eoin O'Duffy started as the Section Commander of the Clones Company, then Captain, then Commandant and finally appointed Brigadier in 1919.

Eoin O'Duffy came to the attention of Michael Collins, who enrolled him in the Irish Republican Brotherhood and supported his advancement in the movement's hierarchy.

In 1918 Eoin O'Duffy became secretary of Sinn Fein's north Monaghan area council.

Eoin O'Duffy was imprisoned in Belfast Prison and released on 19 November 1918.

Eoin O'Duffy 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.

Eoin O'Duffy was arrested and imprisoned in Belfast Prison, where he went on hunger strike.

Eoin O'Duffy was released in June and arranged which Sinn Fein candidates would stand in Monaghan during the 1920 Irish local elections.

Eoin O'Duffy's brigade started raiding the homes of Protestants for arms, increasing sectarian tensions.

Eoin O'Duffy 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.

Eoin O'Duffy became more ruthless in 1921, intensifying attacks on British forces and executions of suspected informers and other opponents of the IRA.

One month later the IRA, commanded by Eoin O'Duffy, raided the town in reprisal, burning fourteen houses and killing three Protestants, two of them B Specials.

On 5 April 1921 Eoin O'Duffy ordered that all armed patrols were to be attacked.

Eoin O'Duffy was Director of Organisation in Ulster and Chief Liaison officer for Ulster at the time the treaty was signed.

Eoin O'Duffy was the youngest general in Europe until Spanish general Francisco Franco was promoted to that rank.

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, Eoin O'Duffy did Herculean work for the pro-treaty cause.

Eoin O'Duffy served as a general in the National Army and was given control of the South-Western Command.

Eoin O'Duffy took Limerick for the Free State in July 1922, before being held up in the Battle of Killmallock south of the city.

In September 1922, Minister for Home Affairs Kevin O'Higgins was experiencing indiscipline within the recently formed Garda Siochana and Eoin O'Duffy was appointed Garda Commissioner after resigning from the army to take up the position.

Eoin 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.

Eoin O'Duffy insisted on a Catholic ethos to distinguish the Gardai 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.

Eoin O'Duffy was a vocal opponent of alcohol in the force, instructing Gardai to avoid it in his first public address as Garda Commissioner.

Eoin O'Duffy encouraged Garda members to join the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart.

The true reason 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 Fail administration.

Eoin O'Duffy refused the offer of another position of equivalent rank in the public service.

However Eoin O'Duffy's dismissal was criticised in the Dail at the time by Cumann na nGaedheal politicians.

Eoin O'Duffy soon changed the name of this new movement to the National Guard.

Eoin O'Duffy established a weekly newspaper, the Blueshirt, and published a new constitution that promoted corporatism, Irish unification and opposition to "alien" control and influence.

In July 1933, Eoin O'Duffy announced plans for a parade by the Blueshirts in Dublin to commemorate Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Kevin O'Higgins.

On 24 August 1933, representatives of Cumann na nGaedheal and the National Centre Party approached Eoin O'Duffy, offering that the Blueshirts join their ranks in exchange for Eoin O'Duffy becoming their leader.

Fine Gael meetings were often attacked by IRA members and Eoin O'Duffy's touring of rural towns resulted in tensions and violence.

On 6 October 1933 Eoin O'Duffy was involved in disturbances in Tralee during which he was hit with a hammer on the head and had his car torched as he attempted to attend a Fine Gael convention.

Eoin O'Duffy responded with a speech in Ballyshannon where referred to himself as a republican and declared that "whenever Mr de Valera runs away from the Republic and arrests you Republicans, and puts you on board beds in Mountjoy, he is entitled to the fate he gave Mick Collins and Kevin O'Higgins".

Eoin O'Duffy was initially released on appeal but was summoned to appear before the Military Tribunal two days later and charged with membership of an illegal organisation and incitement to murder the president of the executive council they were unable to convict him of either charge.

Eoin O'Duffy proved an unsuitable leader: he was a soldier rather than a politician and was temperamental.

Eoin O'Duffy resented Cumann na nGaedheal's drift from republicanism following Collins' death in 1922, and insisted that Fine Gael would not "play second fiddle to anybody in the matter of Nationality".

Whereas Fine Gael favoured a return to pasture farming and free trade, Eoin O'Duffy was supportive of the experiments in tillage and protectionism implemented by his Fianna Fail rivals, and was forced to attempt to compromise between the two.

Eoin O'Duffy's prestige was damaged when Fine Gael only won majorities on six councils to Fianna Fail's fifteen in the 1934 Irish local elections after Eoin O'Duffy had predicted taking twenty.

On 5 and 7 September 1934 Cosgrave, Ned Cronin and James Dillon met Eoin O'Duffy resulting in an agreement that Eoin O'Duffy could "deliver only carefully prepared and concise speeches from manuscripts" and give interviews "only after consultation and in writing".

At first, Eoin O'Duffy announced to the press that "he was glad to be out of politics", but in October 1934 he announced his intentions to lead the Blueshirts as an independent movement.

In June 1935, Eoin O'Duffy launched the National Corporate Party, a fascist political party inspired by Italy's Mussolini.

Eoin O'Duffy was motivated to do so by Ireland's historic link with Spain, his devout anti-communism and a will to defend Catholicism, stating "It is not a conflict between fascism and anti-fascism but between Christ and antichrist".

In London in September 1936, Eoin O'Duffy met Juan de la Cierva and Emilio Mola, promising he would recruit an Irish contingent to fight against the Republicans.

Eoin O'Duffy later stated he had received over 7,000 applications but several complications meant only 700 of these made it to Spain.

Eoin O'Duffy's men saw little fighting and were sent home by Nationalist leader Francisco Franco, returning in June 1937.

Eoin O'Duffy wrote a book, Crusade in Spain, about the Irish Brigade in Spain.

In 1936 Eoin O'Duffy attended the founding meeting of Cumann Poblachta na hEireann but never became a member.

Eoin O'Duffy was put under surveillance by the G2.

Berardis assessed Eoin O'Duffy as being a committed fascist and noted his approval of the S-Plan and his opposition to de Valera's coercion against the IRA.

Eoin O'Duffy is thought to have met with several leading IRA figures and German diplomat Eduard Hempel in a remote corner of County Donegal during the summer of 1939.

G2 suspected Eoin O'Duffy was "flirting with the IRA" by acting as a negotiator between them and the Germans.

At one point Eoin O'Duffy was offered a position as an IRA intelligence officer and on another occasion, he was invited to join former IRA Chiefs of Staff Moss Twomey and Andy Cooney in a protest against the "Yankee invasion of the Six Counties" in the summer of 1941.

In early November 1940, Eoin O'Duffy spoke with German spy Hermann Goertz in a meeting arranged by Seamus O'Donovan.

Eoin O'Duffy made a good impression on Goertz and put him in contact with General Hugo MacNeill, who met with Eoin O'Duffy and German diplomat Henning Thomsen the next month to draw up a bilateral understanding between the Irish army and Germany in the event of a British invasion of Ireland.

In February-March 1943, transmissions were sent using Goertz's code to the Abwehr in Berlin purportedly from an associate of Eoin O'Duffy which offered to raise a 'Green Division' of volunteers to fight alongside the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front to "fight against Bolshevism".

The telegram was sent by Joseph Andrews, a man unconnected to Eoin O'Duffy, who had been attempting to extract money from the Germans.

Eoin O'Duffy was unaware of the proposal made in his name by Andrews.