Republican Solipsist

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In 1993 noted historian Richard English wrote a paper titled “Paying no heed to public clamor’: Irish Republican Solipsism in the 1930s.” Solipsism is the belief that only one’s own mind is sure to exist and the reality represented is the only truth that exists¹ … This concept was applied by English to the idea that the Irish Republican movement knew only itself to be the true moral and political authority in Ireland. Anything outside of that belief such as widespread popular rejection was ignored, dismissed, or treated with distain. In the years after the civil war up until his death in 1940 no leading Irish Republican figure better exemplified this mindset more than Joseph McGarrity. Since solipsism has several different variations the form that perhaps matches McGarrity’s political outlook most is that of egocentric presentism where others are viewed as conscious, but their experiences are simply not present². While McGarrity was certainly aware of Ulster loyalism and forms of Irish nationalism outside of militant Republicanism their perspectives and experiences were never factored into his political thinking. This created for McGarrity a self-contained political reality which offered an over simplified solution to the cause of Irish nationalism and Irish unification which was that of violent revolution. This often helped create a world McGarrity could comprehend and endure during periods of adversity but at the same time set severe limitations on what he could ultimately achieve politically.

While leading IRA figures in Ireland like Maurice Twomey and Sean Russell developed their political solipsism in Ireland under repressive British rule and later oppressive Free State and Northern Ireland governments McGarrity’s path of violent revolution was very different. His political solipsism evolved within the context of Irish American nationalism and more specifically, the Irish nationalist tradition of Philadelphia. In this environment McGarrity and the broader Irish revolutionary movement in the U.S. never faced the political repression as their counterparts in Ireland did or the consequences of funding and organizing of political violence. McGarrity and Clan na Gael existed in a society that strongly espoused Republican democracy. The great majority of Irish Americans during the time period of McGarrity’s life in Philadelphia supported or were members of the Democratic Party who had a long history of anti-imperialism and antagonism toward any Anglo-American alliance. While Republicanism in Ireland in the form of the Irish Republican Brotherhood was a fringe political movement up until 1916 and seen my most Irish people as more of a protest movement than a viable political option, it was a very different situation in the U.S. Republicanism, anti-imperialism and Anglophobia were ingrained into the very political fabric of everyday life for Irish America. While constitutional Irish leaders like Daniel O’Connell and Charles Parnell were strongly supported with financial donations and public displays of support their objectives of Repeal of the Union and Home Rule were seen as mere stepping stones to full independence and a Republic and not a final objective as the majority of people in Ireland during the time period believed.

McGarrity’s political evolution within the context of Irish American nationalism and the Philadelphia Irish community more specifically contributed in many ways to a political solipsism that was even more extreme than his counterparts in the IRA in Ireland. In the aftermath of the Civil war in Ireland and the decline in support within Irish America and the U.S. more broadly for the cause of Irish nationalism McGarrity used the moment to move Clan na Gael away from involvement in the wider American political arena and turn the movement into a much more clandestine organization that was singularly focused on ending partition and expelling British rule from Northern Ireland. McGarrity’s youthful cynicism in regards to Home Rule was translated in the U.S. to a deep dislike and distrust of the “corrupting” influence of Democratic urban machine politics and its overlap and connection to Irish nationalism within the Irish American community.

The geographic distance between Ireland and the U.S. also represented a revolutionary divide. While McGarrity could espouse and finance violent revolution from the U.S. it was the IRA in Ireland that had to face the reality of state repression and general political unpopularity within broader Irish society. As a result, there were no limitations put on the revolutionary militancy and ambitions of McGarrity and Clan na Gael in comparison to the IRA in Ireland.

Joseph McGarrity was the most important and dominant figure within Irish Republicanism from the year 1920 in the aftermath of the split within Clan na Gael up until his death in 1940. Prior to 1920 McGarrity very much lived in the shadow of the overarching figure of John Devoy who dominated Irish American nationalism for almost half a century. However, even during the period of Devoy dominance McGarrity dedicated himself from his base in Philadelphia to building within Clan na Gael a powerful political block that would challenge over 120 years of established Irish American nationalist tradition that saw it play an active political role within U.S. politics. McGarrity’s vision sought to extract the Irish nationalist cause from what he saw as the futility and corrupting influence of the political arena and to dedicate itself to the total and “pure” cause of violent revolution. McGarrity was given his eventual opportunity when he received the backing of Eamon De Valera during a major disagreement over control of funding between the Republican movement in Ireland and it’s Clan na Gael counterpart in the U.S.

The aftermath of the 1920 split within Clan na Gael saw the McGarrity faction eventually support the anti-Treaty side during the short but bloody Civil War which followed the end of the Irish War of Independence. Following the Civil War McGarrity would rise to virtual leadership of the Clan and play a significant role in reconnecting the organization with the defeated IRA in Ireland and help with the rebuilding of the movement primarily through the channeling of funding for political propaganda and military purposes. Under McGarrity the Clan would build a safe haven in the U.S. for IRA veterans fleeing the political repression of the new Free State and Northern Ireland governments as well as those actively on the run for armed actions against the new state. Those who ended up on the losing side of the civil war also suffered more adverse economic barriers which limited job opportunities in Ireland. The presence of many Clan na Gael membership within trade unions meant they could offer employment and a chance of a new beginning in the U.S. It would be no exaggeration to claim that McGarrity provided the life blood needed to keep the Republican movement alive and active in Ireland and provided a safe base of operations in the U.S. from repressive governments in both the north and south of Ireland.

McGarrity was a major advocate of refocusing IRA energy away from undermining the newly established Irish Free State and instead focusing political and military energies into attacking the British presence in Northern Ireland and reuniting the country. It was becoming ever more unpopular and ideologically unsettling to see Irishmen continue to fight and kill each other while the real enemy was seen to be still occupying part of the country. During the 1930s the IRA underwent many ideological challenges which saw a number of Republicans look to left-wing politics for answers to social issues and reunifying the country. For the more traditional and conservative wing of the Republican movement this time period proved particularly challenging as many in the IRA began to see a futility and lack of popular support in trying to undermine the Northern Ireland state through armed means. McGarrity saw his role during the 1930s as keeping the IRA in Ireland focused on the central issue of launching a military campaign against British occupation. Everything else was seen as little more than a dangerous distraction and at worse a betrayal of the sacred Republican cause.

Through the 1930s McGarrity kept in close contact with and in many ways nurtured the traditional more militant wing of the IRA in an attempt to bring to the leadership of the movement in Ireland those who were of the same ideological mindset. Such leading figures McGarrity attached himself to were Sean Russell. It was through supporting and financing such leading figures that McGarrity exerted his influence over IRA policy and direction. This approach came to fruition with the launch of the IRA bombing campaign in Britain from 1939 to 1940. In the end the campaign proved a total failure and would also mark McGarrity’s last meaningful contribution to militant Irish Republicanism as he would die some six months later from cancer after the last bomb was detonated.

McGarrity’s personal and business life was marked by many high points and a number of failures resulting primarily from an over trusting nature in business partners who would end up defrauding him. This character trait was also evident in the political arena with regards to his relationship and attitude to Eamon De Valera. Long after De Valera would turn his back on revolutionary violence, denounce the IRA and eventually ban the organization McGarrity still held steadfast in the belief that he could form a broad front alliance encompassing all elements of Irish Republicanism with De Valera at the helm. This lack of political awareness and understanding, which often bordered on naivety, was a feature of McGarrity’s throughout his life.

Academically McGarrity has been a mere footnote in Irish history often being dismissed as just another Republican fanatic on the political fringes agitating, financing, and organizing bombings and assassinations. While this can certainly be argued it also leaves out a huge part of his story. McGarrity’s role in rebuilding and reorientating Clan na Gael in the aftermath of the split in 1920 and again shortly after in the aftermath of the Civil War in Ireland with the defeat and repression that followed was a remarkable feat of organizational ability and political drive. By the time of his death in 1940 the Republican movement in Ireland had a sister organization in the U.S. that would offer logistical and financial support right up to the end of the Northern Ireland conflict in 1998. The fact that the IRA would sign all its public statements with the name J. J. McGarrity up to 1969 was tacit acknowledgment of his historical role in the development of the modern Republican movement in Ireland.

1 Available online <https://www.the-phi​loso​phy.com/solips​ism-def​init​ion>

2 Available online <https://www.ency​clo.co.uk/mean​ing-of-Egocen​tric​_pre​sent​ism>

CHAPTER 2

Early Life

Joseph McGarrity was born on March 28, 1874, in the townland of Terminmaguirc which lies one mile from the village of Carrickmore, County Tyrone. The name McGarrity is not native to Tyrone nor to the province of Ulster within which it is contained. The name originated from the province of Connaught in the west of Ireland. At some time in the past through circumstances of war, famine or other economic reasons members of the clan relocated north. Translated from Gaelic into English the name means “The son of a member of the Assembly” and began to first appear in records around the twelfth century³.

The county of Tyrone, as much as any other county in Ireland, could boast of a long tradition of resistance to British rule. The county was the home to the ancient O’Neil clan who ruled large parts of Ulster from ancient times and who periodically occupied the High Kingship of Ireland. During the Elizabethan conquests of the sixteenth century, it was to be the legendary Hugh O’Neill who would lead an alliance of Ulster chieftains that fought the armies of Queen Elizabeth and inflict numerous defeats on her English armies before finally succumbing in 1603 to defeat at the Battle of Kinsale. The resulting mass land confiscations and colonization by Scottish and English settlers would change the social and political complexion of Ulster up to the present day and become a deeply problematic issue for the cause of Irish nationalism⁴.

The village of Carrickmore lies in the eastern part of County Tyrone and at the time of McGarrity’s birth would have had a population of little more than a few hundred residents. The presence of ancient stone monuments such as cairns, stone circles and standing stones indicate Carrickmore had a long history of human settlement. The fact that the village is located on a rocky hill indicates its early origins may have been of a defensive nature to protect against raids from foreign invaders and neighboring kingdoms⁵. To say that the young McGarrity was surrounded by history was no mere metaphor but was literally the truth. Added on top of this the strong oral tradition of storytelling that included tales of ancient Irish history practiced among the native Irish peasantry, the young McGarrity would have been instilled with a strong sense of identity which would manifest itself later in life with a sense of mission and continuation of violent resistance.