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Tag Archives: Corporatism


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The Founding of Córas na Poblachta

Córas na Poblachta (English: Republican System), a minor Irish republican political party, is founded on February 21, 1940.

The idea for a new party is discussed at a meeting in Dublin on February 21, 1940, attended by 104 former officers of the pro- and anti-Treaty wings of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The inaugural meeting of the new party takes place on March 2, 1940. Simon Donnelly, who had fought in Boland’s Mill under Éamon de Valera in the 1916 Easter Rising, the former leader of the Dublin section of the IRA, and former chief of the Irish Republican Police (IRP), is elected as president of a central committee of fifteen members. Other leaders are Seán Fitzpatrick, another Irish War of Independence veteran; Con Lehane, who had recently left the IRA; Séamus Gibbons; Tom O’Rourke; Seán Dowling, one of Rory O’Connor‘s principal lieutenants in the Irish Civil War; Colonel Roger McCorley, one of the principal IRA leaders in Belfast during the Irish War of Independence who had taken the Irish Free State side in the Irish Civil War; Frank Thornton, one of Michael Collins‘ top intelligence officers; Roger McHugh, a lecturer in English at University College Dublin (UCD) and later professor; Captain Martin Bell and Peter O’Connor.

Also in attendance at the first meeting is Seamus O’Donovan, Director of Chemicals on IRA Headquarters Staff in 1921 and architect of the IRA Sabotage Campaign in England by the IRA in 1939–40. Indeed, O’Donovan proposes several of the basic resolutions. Additionally, the meeting is attended by Eoin O’Duffy and several former leaders of the Irish Christian Front.

Many members of the Irish far-right join Córas na Poblachta including Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, who becomes the leader of the party’s youth wing Aicéin and goes on to found Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, Alexander McCabe, Maurice O’Connor and Reginald Eager from the Irish Friends of Germany, George Griffin, Patrick Moylett, his brother John and Joseph Andrews of the People’s National Party, Dermot Brennan of Saoirse Gaedheal, and Hugh O’Neill and Alexander Carey of Córas Gaedhealach. As a result, the party assumes a pro-German and antisemitic attitude which is frequently expressed in party functions, and Gardaí suspects Córas na Poblachta members of daubing the walls of Trinity College Dublin in antisemitic slogans following the visit of British politician Leslie Hore-Belisha to Ireland in 1941.

Socialist republicans Nora Connolly O’Brien and Helena Molony take an interest in the group. Reflecting divisions within the IRA, a minority of the party’s leaders sympathise with communism rather than fascism.

The main aim of Córas na Poblachta is the formal declaration of a Republic. It also demands that the Irish language be given greater prominence in street names, shop signs, and government documents and bank notes. It proposes to introduce national service in order that male citizens understand their responsibilities. The party’s economic policy is the statutory right to employment and a living wage. It proposes breaking the link with the British pound, the nationalisation of banks and the making of bank officials into civil servants. In the area of education, the party espouses free education for all children over primary age as a right, and university education when feasible. It also calls for the introduction of children’s allowances. In addition, Córas na Poblachta advocates for “the destruction of the Masonic Order in Ireland” and during its founding meeting reporters are told that the party will be ready to take over the government of Ireland “on either a corporate or fascist basis.”

The party has close ties with the Irish nationalist and pro-fascist party Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, whose leader, Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, had led Córas na Poblachta’s youth wing Aicéin until its independence is terminated in 1942. There is talk of a merger, however, while the majority of the party’s executive committee, noted by G2 to be made up of “four ex-Army men, old IRA, ex-Blueshirts and a number of IRA who had been active up until comparatively recently”, desires a combination of Ireland’s extreme nationalist movements, the three most prominent leaders, Simon Donnelly, Sean Dowling and Roger McCorley, oppose one due to the fear that the party will be submerged in a joint organisation. Ó Cuinneagáin is dismissive of Córas na Poblachta’s prospects and discussions between him and the party’s leaders reinforce their fears that Ó Cuinneagáin seeks an outright takeover by Ailtirí na hAiséirghe. Proposals for a merging of the two parties are dropped though they continue to maintain cordial relations and co-operate in the 1943 Irish general election.

The party is not successful and fails to take a seat in a by-election held shortly after the party’s foundation. The party slowly falls apart, and Tim Pat Coogan notes that: “Dissolution occurred because people tended to discuss the party rather than join it.” Importantly, the party is not supported by the hardcore of republican legitimatists, such as Brian O’Higgins, who views the IRA Army Council as the legitimate government of an existing Irish Republic. Indeed, in March 1940, O’Higgins publishes a pamphlet entitled Declare the Republic lambasting the new party as making what he regards as false promises that will be compromised on following the party’s election to the Oireachtas.

Córas na Poblachta fields candidates in the 1943 Irish General Election but none are elected, receiving a total of 3,892 votes between them.

Although a failure, Tim Pat Coogan argues Córas na Poblachta was the “nucleus” of the Clann na Poblachta party which emerges to help take power from Fianna Fáil in 1948.

(Pictured: IRA veteran Simon Donnelly who serves as President of Córas na Poblachta)


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Birth of John Martin Hayes, Priest & Founder of Muintir na Tíre

John Martin Hayes, Irish Catholic priest and the founder of Muintir na Tíre, a national rural community development organisation, is born on November 11, 1887, in an Irish National Land League hut at Murroe, County Limerick.

Hayes is born into a family languishing in poverty. One of ten siblings, seven of Hayes’ brothers and sisters die of malnutrition and disease over a twelve-year period. The family had been evicted from Lord Cloncurry‘s estate in 1872 for non-payment of rent, forcing them into destitution. The family returns to the estate in 1894.

Hayes is educated by the Jesuits at Crescent College, Limerick and thereafter studies for the priesthood in St. Patrick’s College, Thurles. In 1907 he goes to the Irish College in Paris where he is ordained in 1913. He enjoys this time in France greatly, a period highlighted by the beatification of Saint Joan of Arc in 1909. From 1915 to 1924 he works in Liverpool before returning to Ireland to serve as curate in Castleiney and later in Tipperary Town. Previous to 1916, he is a supporter of the Irish Volunteers, and his brother Mick becomes a leading member of the Limerick Irish Republican Army, however, he effectively misses the Irish revolutionary period as he is sent to work in Liverpool between 1915 and 1924.

During the 1920s Hayes becomes an admirer of Benito Mussolini, with whom he is granted an audience during a visit to Rome in 1930. He is intrigued by corporatism and comes to believe it can uplift rural communities. Similarly, he is influenced by continental movements such as the Belgian Boerenbond league, which encourages rural inhabitants to form cooperatives.

Hayes comes to national prominence with the foundation of Muintir na Tíre in 1931, a rural development organisation which has core principles of neighbourliness, self-help and self-sufficiency. It is to act as a rural self-help group based on collective parish organisation with a strong emphasis on the teaching of the papal encyclicals Rerum novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo anno (1931). He is successfully able to draw on the power of the media, Irish newspapers and radio, to promote Muintir na Tíre and quickly becomes a figure of national prominence in doing so. In promoting and developing Muintir na Tíre Hayes resists calls in some quarters to limit the membership to Catholics, remarking “this country is becoming so Catholic it forgets to be Christian.” Nonetheless, under his leadership, there is eventually an overlap in membership between Muintir na Tíre and the Catholic fraternal organisation the Knights of Saint Columbanus.

Hayes is appointed parish priest of Bansha and Kilmoyler in County Tipperary in 1946. Due largely to his endeavours, a factory, Bansha Rural Industries, is started and enjoys some success producing preserves for the Irish home market. Bansha is to the forefront in developing many Muintir na Tíre initiatives and for a time in the 1950s enjoys the soubriquet of The Model Parish.

A lifelong teetotaller, a highlight of Hayes’ career is his address to the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in Croke Park in June 1949 to celebrate their 50th year of operation. The event is the largest Catholic gathering in Dublin since the Eucharistic Congress of 1932.

Hayes spearheads many initiatives including rural electrification, the “Parish Plan for Agriculture,” and the setting up of small industry in rural areas in an attempt to stop emigration. He is later made a canon of his cathedral chapter.

Hayes dies on January 30, 1957 in a Tipperary nursing home following a minor operation. His funeral in Bansha is a national occasion, attended by leaders of Church and State. His grave is at the rear of the Church of the Annunciation, Bansha. He is later commemorated on an Irish postage stamp.