69 Facts About Frank Aiken

Francis Thomas Aiken was an Irish revolutionary and politician.

Frank Aiken was chief of staff of the Anti-Treaty IRA at the end of the Irish Civil War.

Frank Aiken later served as Tanaiste from 1965 to 1969 and Minister for External Affairs from 1951 to 1954 and 1957 to 1969.

Frank Aiken was Minister for Finance from 1945 to 1948, Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures 1939 to 1945, and Minister for Defence from 1932 to 1939.

Frank Aiken was a Teachta Dala for the Louth constituency from 1923 to 1973, making him the second longest-serving member of Dail Eireann and the longest-serving cabinet minister.

Frank Aiken was born on 13 February 1898 at Carrickbracken, Camlough, County Armagh, Ireland, the seventh and youngest child of James Aiken, a builder from County Tyrone, and Mary McGeeney of Corromannon, Beleek, County Armagh.

Frank Aiken was a nationalist, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a county councillor, who refused an offer to stand as a member of parliament.

Frank Aiken was elected a lieutenant in 1914 when he joined the Camlough Company of Irish Volunteers and the Gaelic League.

Frank Aiken became secretary of the local branch in 1917 and joined Sinn Fein.

Frank Aiken's sister, Nano, married Phelim Magennis a Newry stockbroker, and was the last female republican prisoner to be released in Northern Ireland at the end of the Civil War.

Frank Aiken first met Eamon de Valera at the East Clare election in June 1917, riding despatches for Austin Stack.

In 1917, making an outward display of defiance, Frank Aiken raised the republican Irish tricolour, opposite Camlough Barracks in Armagh, a move designed as deliberate provocation.

Frank Aiken was responsible for setting up GAA Club, Gaelic League branch, a Cumann na mBan Camogie League.

Frank Aiken himself led a squad which blasted a hole in the wall of the barracks with gelignite and entered through it, exchanging shots with the policemen inside.

At a sports event in Cullyhanna in June 1920, Frank Aiken led a group of three men that demanded that three RIC men hand over their weapons.

Frank Aiken tried on a number of occasions to ambush USC patrols from the ruins of his family home.

Some accounts have reported that Frank Aiken took the Protestant Church congregation in the village hostage to lure the Specials out onto the road.

In June 1921, Frank Aiken organised his most successful attack yet on the British military, when his men derailed a British troop train heading from Belfast to Dublin, killing the train guard, three cavalry soldiers and 63 horses.

Frank Aiken was quickly promoted through the ranks, rising to commandant of Newry Brigade and eventually commander of 4th Northern Division from spring 1921.

Frank Aiken was named by Eoin O'Duffy as head of the newly formed IRA Ulster Council Command which was tasked with coordination of attacks and preventing the new northern government from functioning effectively.

Frank Aiken has been accused by unionists of ethnic cleansing of Protestants from parts of South Armagh, Newry and other areas of the north.

In particular, Frank Aiken's critics cite the killing of six Protestant civilians, on an incident called the Altnaveigh Massacre, on 17 June 1922.

Frank Aiken himself led an ambush against some of those who partook in the assault on McGuill's public house on the night of the Altnaveigh ambush.

Subsequently, Frank Aiken travelled to Limerick meet with anti-Treaty IRA leader Liam Lynch, and urged him to consider a truce in return for the removal of references to the British monarch from the constitution.

Frank Aiken was attempting throughout to avoid Civil War from breaking out and urging that all military remain together to push north to re-take the Six-Counties of Northern Ireland, territory which made up his homeland and counties of his own Army Division.

Frank Aiken later felt that without the sterling work done in support of the Treaty by Eoin O'Duffy, aided by Mulcahy and Eoin MacNeill, civil war would have been avoided.

Frank Aiken was with IRA leader Liam Lynch's patrol when they were ambushed at Knockmealdown on 10 April 1923.

Frank Aiken rescued crucial IRA papers, "saved and brought through at any cost".

Frank Aiken had remained close to Eamon de Valera, who had long wanted to end the Civil War, and together the two came up with a compromise that would save the anti-Treaty side from a formal surrender.

Frank Aiken wrote: "We took up arms to free our country and we'll keep them until we see an honourable way of reaching our objective without arms".

Frank Aiken remained IRA Chief of Staff until 12 November 1925.

The pact was originally approved by Frank Aiken, who left his position as chief of staff soon after.

Frank Aiken was succeeded by Andrew Cooney and Moss Twomey, who kept up the secret espionage relationship.

Frank Aiken was first elected to Dail Eireann as a Sinn Fein candidate for Louth in 1923.

Frank Aiken was an innovator, an amateur inventor who took out patents throughout his life for a turf stove, a beehive, an air shelter, an electric cooker and a spring heel for a shoe among others and powered the family home in Sandyford through use of a wind turbine.

Frank Aiken entered the first Fianna Fail government in 1932 as Minister for Defence.

On de Valera's urging, Vice-President of the Executive Council Sean T O'Kelly and Aiken publicly snubbed the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, James McNeill, by staging a public walkout at a function in the French legation in Dublin.

Frank Aiken had in March 1932 been trying to reach a new rapprochement, and "reconciled the Army to the new regime".

Frank Aiken advised on the usage of cutting peat bogs in County Meath and visited the Curragh Camp in County Kildare to accelerate land distribution to poor tenantry.

Frank Aiken remained interested in the development of Ireland's natural resources throughout his political life.

Frank Aiken was not involved in the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement negotiations which took place on 25 April 1938.

At the outbreak of Second World War, a period known in Ireland as The Emergency, Frank Aiken was appointed as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures by de Valera with Oscar Traynor assuming the role of Minister for Defence, in de Valera's first major cabinet reshuffle as the country was put on a wartime footing to defend Irish neutrality.

Frank Aiken gained notoriety in Dublin media circles for overseeing censorship: his clashes with R M Smyllie, editor of The Irish Times, ensured this censorious attitude was resented by many.

Frank Aiken justified these measures, citing the 'terrible and all prevailing force of modern warfare' and the importance therein of morale and propaganda.

Frank Aiken remained opposed to a British role and partition in Ireland, and was therefore a strong supporter of de Valera's policy of Irish neutrality that denied Britain use of Irish ports during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Frank Aiken considered that Ireland had to stand ready to resist invasion by both Germany and Britain, and the Irish Army was expanded under Frank Aiken's ministry.

Frank Aiken wanted to incorporate the IRA into the Army and offered the former an amnesty in the spring of 1940, which the underground organisation turned down.

Nevertheless, during wartime as the IRA cooperated with German intelligence and pressed for a German landing in Northern Ireland, the government, with Frank Aiken's approval, interned several hundred of its members and executed six for the shooting of Irish police officers.

In diplomatic negotiations Frank Aiken told him that a united Ireland, if it was conceded, would still stay neutral to safeguard its security and that further talks were 'a sheer waste of time'.

In March 1941, Frank Aiken was sent to America to secure US supplies, both military and economic, that DeValera claimed Britain was withholding owing to Irish neutrality.

Frank Aiken denied saying this but cited the British 'supply squeeze' as an act of aggression and asked the US to help.

At the close Frank Aiken asked the President to 'support us in our stand against aggression'.

Ultimately, Frank Aiken was not able to secure a promise of American arms, but was able to get a shipment of grain, two merchant ships and coal.

Frank Aiken supported the right of countries such as Algeria to self-determination and spoke out against apartheid in South Africa.

Under Ireland's policy of promoting the primacy of international law and reducing global tension at the height of the Cold War, Frank Aiken promoted the idea of "areas of law", which he believed would free the most tense regions around the world from the threat of nuclear war.

The 'Frank Aiken Plan' was introduced at the United Nations in an effort to combine disarmament and peace in the Middle East, Ireland a country being on good terms with both Israel and many Arab countries.

Frank Aiken was a champion of nuclear non-proliferation, for which he received the honour of being the first minister to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968 at Moscow.

Frank Aiken's performance was praised in particular by a later Minister for Foreign Affairs, Fine Gael's Garret FitzGerald.

Frank Aiken retired from Ministerial office and as Tanaiste in 1969.

Frank Aiken retired from politics in 1973 due to the fact that Charles Haughey, whose style of politics Frank Aiken strongly disliked, was allowed to run as a Fianna Fail candidate in the 1973 general election.

However, Aiken refused all requests to run and the party finally selected Erskine H Childers to be its candidate.

In 1934 Frank Aiken married Maud Davin, the director of the Dublin Municipal School of Music.

Frank Aiken died on 18 May 1983 in Dublin from natural causes at the age of 85.

Frank Aiken was buried in his native Camlough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Frank Aiken received many decorations and honours, including honorary doctorates from the National University of Ireland and University College Dublin.

Frank Aiken received the Grand Cross of St Olav, the highest honour Norway can give to a foreigner, during a state visit to Norway in 1964.

Frank Aiken was a lifelong supporter of the Irish language.

Frank Aiken's son, named Frank, ran unsuccessfully in the 1987 and 1989 general elections for the Progressive Democrats.

Frank Aiken's wife died in a road accident in 1978.