Peadar O'Donnell

Peadar O'Donnell ( _ga. Peadar Ó Domhnaill; 22 February 1893 – 13 May 1986) was an Irish Republican socialist, Marxist activist and writer.

Early life: War of Independence and Civil War

Peadar O'Donnell was born in The Rosses, a district in the west of County Donegal in North-Western Ireland, in 1893, being a native Irish language speaker. He attended St. Patrick's College, Dublin, where he trained as a teacher. He taught on Arranmore Island off the west coast of County Donegal before spending time in Scotland.

By 1919, he was a leading organiser for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. He also attempted to organise a unit of the Irish Citizen Army (a worker's milita who had taken part in the Easter Rising) in Derry. When this failed to get off the ground, O'Donnell joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and remained active in it during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). He led IRA guerrilla activities in Derry and Donegal in this period, which mainly involved raids on Police and Army barracks. In 1921, he became the commander of the IRA Donegal Brigade. He became known in this period as a headstrong and sometimes insubordinate officer as he often launched operations without orders and in defiance of directives from his superiors in the IRA. In the spring of 1921, O'Donnell and his men had to evade a sweep of the county by over 1000 British troops.

After the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922, O'Donnell and his IRA comrades were split over whether to accept this compromise, which ended their hopes for Irish Republic but which granted a self governing Irish Free State. O'Donnell opposed this compromise and in March 1922, as elected, along with Joe McKelvey as representative for Ulster onto the anti-treaty IRA's army executive. In April he was among the anti-Treaty IRA men who took over the Four Courts building in Dublin and helped to spark the outbreak of civil war with the new Free State government. The Irish Civil War would rage for another nine months. O'Donnell escaped from the Four Courts building after its bombardment and surrender, but was subsequently captured by the Free State forces, and imprisoned in Mountjoy Gaol. At the end of the Civil War, he participated in the mass Republican hunger strike that was launched in protest at the continued imprisonment of Anti-Treaty IRA men, resisting in this manner for 41 days.

Unlike most Irish Republicans of this era, O'Donnell did not see the republican cause solely in Irish nationalist terms. O'Donnell also advocated a social revolution in an independent Ireland, seeing himself as a follower of James Connolly, the socialist Republican executed for his part in the Easter Rising. The period 1919-1923 had seen much social unrest in Ireland, including land occupations by landless men in rural areas and the occupation of factories by workers.

O'Donnell believed that the IRA should have adopted these people's cause and supported land re-distribution and worker's rights. He blamed the anti-treaty Republicans lack of support among the Irish public in the Civil War on their lack of a social programme. Some Republicans, notably Liam Mellows, did share O'Donnell's view, but they were a minority.

Post-Civil War politics

In 1923, while still in prison, he was elected Teachta Dála for Donegal as a Sinn Féin candidate. In 1924, on release from internment, O'Donnell became a member of the Executive and Army Council of the IRA. He tried to steer it in left-wing direction, and to this end founded front organisations such as the Irish Working Farmers' Committee, which sent representatives to the Soviet Union and the Profintern. O'Donnell also founded the Anti-Tribute League, which opposed the repaying of fees to Britain owed since the "Irish Land Acts". He also founded a short lived socialist Republican party, Saor Éire.

In addition, O'Donnell and the IRA found themselves in conflict with their former friends of the Civil War era. Éamon de Valera, who had founded Fianna Fáil from anti-Treaty republicans, came to power in Ireland in 1932, and subsequently legalised the IRA in 1932-36. O'Donnell announced that there would be "no free speech for traitors" (by which he meant Cumann na nGaedhael, the Free State party) and his men attacked Cumann na nGaedhael political meetings. In response, Eoin O'Duffy, a former Free State General and Garda Síochána commissioner, founded the Blueshirts (a semi-fascist organisation, originally named the "Army Comrades Association") to resist them. There was a considerable amount of street violence between the two sides before both the Blueshirts and then the IRA became banned organisations. O'Donnell saw the Blueshirts as a fascist movement based on the big farmer class and that was against the full independence of Ireland.

O'Donnell's attempts at persuading the remnants of the defeated anti-Treaty IRA to become a socialist organization ended in failure. Eventually, O'Donnell and other left-wing republicans left the IRA to found the Republican Congress in 1934. However, this organisation made little impact in Irish politics.

panish Civil War

O'Donnell happened to be in Barcelona, attending the People's Olympics on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and joined Spanish Republican militia that supported the Popular Front government against Francisco Franco's military insurgents. When he returned to Ireland, he encouraged other Irish Republicans to [http://www.geocities.com/irelandscw fight for the Spanish Republic] - accordingly, IRA men, led by Frank Ryan and some Communist Party of Ireland members joined the International Brigades, where they were known as the "Connolly Column" (after James Connolly). This was a very unpopular stance in Ireland, as the Roman Catholic Church publicly supported the Spanish Nationalists under Franco, and portrayed the war as an anti-Communist crusade.

Attitudes to the Spanish Civil War also mirrored the divisions of Ireland's civil war. O'Donnell remarked that the Bishops had condemned the anti-Treaty side in the latter for opposing a democratic government, but were now advocating the same thing themselves. Eoin O'Duffy led Blueshirt sympathisers to fight on Franco's side.

Writings

After the 1940s, O'Donnell devoted more of his time to writing and culture and less to politics, from which he withdrew more or less completely. He published his first novel, "Storm", in 1925. This was followed by "Islanders" (1928), "Adrigool" (1929), "The Knife" (1930) and "On the Edge of the Stream" (1934). O'Donnell also went to Spain and later published "Salud! An Irishman in Spain" (1937).

After World War II, he edited the Irish literary journal, "The Bell" (1946-54). Other books by O'Donnell include "The Big Window" (1955) and "Proud Island" (1975). He also published two volumes of autobiography, "The Gates Flew Open" (1932) and "There Will be Another Day" (1963).

"Islanders" and "Adrigool" were translated into Irish (Donegal dialect) by Seosamh Mac Grianna as "Muintir an Oileáin" and "Eadarbhaile", respectively.

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/irelandscw/ibvol-PeadarOD.htm Peadar O'Donnell and the Spanish Revolution] A recent article about his role.