| Peadar O'donnell |
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Information AboutPeadar O'donnell |
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EARLY LIFE: WAR OF INDEPENDENCE AND CIVIL WAR He was born in County Donegal , in northwestern 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 before spending time in Scotland . O'Donnell joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War Of Independence (1919-1921). He led IRA guerrilla activities in Donegal in this period, which mainly involved raids on Police and Army barracks. In 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 took the anti-Treaty side in the ensuing Irish Civil War , being 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. O'Donnell escaped from the building after its bombardment and surrender, but was subsequently captured by the National Army , 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 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 Act s''. He also founded a short lived socialist Republican party, Saor Éire . In addition, O'Donnell and the IRA found themselves in conflict with their enemies 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. 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 Asociation'') to resist them. There was a considerable amount of street violence between the two sides before both the Blueshirts and then the IRA were banned. 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. SPANISH CIVIL WAR O'Donnell happened to be in 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 Bishop s 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). EXTERNAL LINKS
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