Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T06:59:34.568Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Northern Ireland and British fascism in the inter-war years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

James Loughlin
James Loughlin*
Affiliation:
School of History, Philosophy and Politics, Magee College, University of Ulster
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the civil rights campaign of the late 1960s the perception of the Stormont government as fascist was widespread among nationalists—a perception expressed in Nazi salutes and the chant ‘S.S.—R.U.C.’ when confronting the police. The historical reference this perception embodied, however, was less than comprehensive. In particular, it obscured the attraction that fascism and movements inspired by fascism had for many people in Britain and Ireland in the inter-war years; and while fascism did not give rise to a movement of major importance in Northern Ireland, it nevertheless had a more significant presence there than has sometimes been thought. For instance, Robert Fisk's view that the only fascists in the north were Italian émigrés, grouped in Belfast and Derry, is inaccurate. In fact at various times in this period there existed branches of the British Fascists (B.F.), representatives of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (B.U.F.), together with a brief but significant initiative on Northern Ireland by the leader of the Blueshirt movement in the Irish Free State, General Eoin O'Duffy. Unlike the local representatives of Italian fascism, who confined their activities chiefly to greeting visiting Italian dignitaries and maintaining links with the homeland, these groups were very much concerned with domestic politics. Fascism in Northern Ireland, however, has other claims to attention than those occasioned by their activities alone, for it also serves to illuminate the neglected area of B.U.F. attitudes to Ireland in general.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 116 , November 1995 , pp. 537 - 552
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, Londonderry Sentinel, 20 Nov. 1968.

2 See Graves, Robert and Hodge, Alan, The long week-end: a social history of Great Britain, 1918–1939 (London, 1941), pp 248–50 Google Scholar; Manning, Maurice, The Blueshirts (Dublin, 1970)Google Scholar. For an example of how a Labour idealist could be attracted to fascism see Francis Beckett’s assessment of his father, John Beckett (‘The good fascist’ in New Statesman and Society, 17 June 1994).

3 Fisk, Robert, In time of war: Ireland, Ulster and the price of neutrality, 1939–45 (London, 1987), p. 50.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Derry Standard, 3 July 1933; Irish News, 14 Aug. 1935.

5 Allen, the wealthy director of the David Allen Advertising Agency, a Belfast poster firm, had been a member of the Ulster Unionist Council from 1923. Elected Unionist M.P. for the Westminster constituency of West Belfast in 1929, he sat until 1931, when he joined Sir Oswald Mosley’s New Party. He was a strong supporter of the B.U.F. in its early years, though without actually becoming a member. See Stenton, Michael and Lees, Philip (eds), Who’s who of British members of parliament, iii: 1919–45 (Brighton, 1979), p. 6 Google Scholar; Lame Times, 14 Mar. 1931.

6 Later notorious as ‘Lord Haw Haw’ for his broadcasts from Nazi Germany, Joyce was the offspring of an Irish Catholic father and an Ulster Protestant mother. His upbringing was largely conditioned by a Jesuit education and his mother’s anti-Catholicism. The influence of the latter was reflected in Joyce’s preference for describing Christmas as ‘Christtide’ so as to avoid the papist connotations of the traditional name. See Cole, J.A., Lord Haw Haw: the. full story of William Joyce (London, 1964), pp 56, 197Google Scholar.

7 See Allen, W.E.D., ‘The fascist idea in Britain’ in Quarterly Review (Oct. 1933), p. 238 Google Scholar; Joyce, William, ‘Quis separabit?’ [obituary of Lord Carson] in Fascist Quarterly (Jan. 1936), pp 27-9Google Scholar.

8 Benewick, Robert, The fascist movement in Britain (London, 1972), p. 25 Google Scholar; see also Thurlow, Richard, Fascism in Britain: a history, 1918–1985 (Oxford, 1987), p. 6.Google Scholar

9 See ‘Who began fascism in Great Britain?’ in British Fascism, 1 Mar. 1932; Griffiths, Richard, Fellow travellers of the right: British enthusiasts for Nazi Germany (London, 1980), p. 86.Google Scholar British Fascism was the third title of the organisation’s newspaper; it started as Fascist Bulletin and and then became British Lion.

10 Catlin, George, ‘Fascist stirrings in Britain’ in Current History, xxxix (Feb. 1934), p. 542 Google Scholar.

11 Mullally, Frederic, Fascism inside England (London, 1946), p. 19.Google Scholar

12 Kelly, ’s handbook to the titled, landed and official classes, 1948 (London, 1948), p. 820.Google Scholar

13 Mullally, Fascism inside England, p. 20.

14 LordHamilton, Ernest, Forty years on (London, 1922), p. 223.Google Scholar

15 Ibid.,p.224.

16 LordHamilton, Ernest, ‘What is fascism?’ in Fascist Bulletin, 25 July 1925 Google Scholar.

17 See H.R. Boyd to Lord Stamfordham, 23 June 1926 (P.R.O., HO 144/19069/21). The B.F. had adopted the fascist salute, and over the period 1926–34 a blue shirt was designed as a parade uniform, together with a beret and dark trousers or skirt. To reward meritorious service in the organisation, a hierarchical series of honours, the ‘Order of the Fasces’, was created. For extensive coverage of the split see Daily Herald, 26 Apr. 1926; The Times, 28 Apr. 1926; Benewick, Fascist movement in Britain, pp 35–6; Griffiths, Fellow travellers, p. 89.

18 See Fascist Bulletin, 20 Feb., 6 Mar. 1926.

19 The only file on the British Fascists in the Irish National Archives (Department of Justice, H 306/28) is empty.

20 Fascist Bulletin, 13 Feb. 1926.

21 British Lion, 25 Sept. 1926.

22 Kennedy, Dennis, The widening gulf: northern attitudes to the independent Irish state, 1919–49 (Belfast, 1988), p. 32.Google Scholar

23 See Smyth, Clifford, Ulster assailed (Belfast, 1969)Google Scholar.

24 See British Lion, 9 Oct. 1926.

25 The countess of Kilmorey of Mourne Park, Newry, was also a supporter.

26 See Belfast Telegraph, 29 Nov. 1926; British Lion, 4 Dec. 1926.

27 British Lion, 22 Jan. 1927.

28 Ibid.,19 Feb, l927.

29 Ibid., June 1927. From this point onwards the organisation’s newspaper was published irregularly.

30 Ibid.,20 Oct, l927.

31 ’The peril to Ulster’, ibid., Dec. 1927.

32 Griffiths, Fellow travellers, p. 92.

33 See ‘Ireland is the Achilles’ heel of England’ in British Lion, 1 Mar. 1932; also attack on Newry Council for refusing to display the Union Flag, ibid., Oct. 1932; ‘Shall we lose Ulster?’, ibid., Feb. 1933; ‘The Empire’s need of loyal Ulster’, ibid.

34 ’Ireland is the Achilles’ heel of England’. In this respect, the B.F. had arrived at the position long held by a former British Fascist, Arnold Leese, who left the organisation in 1926 to form his own, more robust, fascist movement, the Imperial Fascist League. It failed to develop significantly. Leese was a virulent antisemite, who seems to have been convinced that de Valera was Jewish and that the I.R.A. was ‘Jew run’ (see Fascist, Aug. 1932, Dec. 1933).

35 Mullally, Fascism inside England, p. 20.

36 A. Canning, ‘Report on the British Fascists Ltd’, 22 Jan. 1934 (P.R.O., HO 45/25386/39).

37 Irish News, 4 Nov, l933.

38 Ibid., 25 May 1934. It has been argued that the U.R.L.’s opposition to fascism soon alienated Harnett (Graham Walker, ‘“Protestantism without party”: the Ulster Protestant League in the 1930s’ in Hist. Jn., xxviii, no. 4 (1985), pp 962–3).

39 Irish News, 13 June 1934; Belfast News-Letter, 13 June 1934. Harnett urged the crowd to follow the example of Hitler and Mussolini and select a ‘young man’ they could trust to organise drilling and deal with the ‘I.R.A.’.

40 The exception appears to have been Wales. There was no separate Welsh organisation and no specific policy for the principality (see Cullen, Stephen, ‘Another nationalism: the British Union of Fascists in Glamorgan, 1932–40’ in Welsh History Review, xvii, no. 1 (June 1994), p. 114)Google Scholar.

41 See Belfast Fascist, ‘Ulster’s wage war’ in Blackshirt, 18 Mar. 1933; A Modern Ulster Loyalist to editor, ibid., 22–8 July 1933.

42 ’Birth of a new Blackshirt movement in the six counties’ in Irish News, 20 Sept. 1933. The Irish News gave more extensive coverage to the Ulster Fascists than other Belfast newspapers. Although it was opposed to fascism in general, especially after evidence emerged of the persecution of Catholics in Nazi Germany, it nevertheless realised the propaganda value of an indigenous Ulster political group, thoroughly loyal to Britain and devoting its energies to attacking the Stormont government.

43 Drennan, James [Allen, W.E.D.], B.U.F.: Oswald Mosley and British fascism (London, 1934), p. 259.Google Scholar The Blueshirt movement in the Irish Free State, though not affiliated to the New Empire Union, was described as ‘deeply influenced by fascist thought’ (ibid.).

44 Stott had been a B Special in 1921 and also claimed to have been a member of the Australian New Guard, one of the oldest fascist movements in the Empire (see Londonderry Sentinel, 21 Apr. 1934; Irish News, 6 July 1934).

45 Stott to editor, ‘The fascists and Lord Craigavon’ in Irish News, 3 May 1934.

46 SirMosley, Oswald, My life (London, 1968), ch. 8 and p. 426 Google Scholar; Skideisky, Robert, Oswald Mosley (2nd ed., London, 1981), pp 322–3 Google Scholar,329-33.

47 Rawnsley, Stuart, ‘The membership of the British Union of Fascists’ in Lunn, Kenneth and Thurlow, Richard (eds), British fascism (London, 1980), pp 161–3.Google Scholar

48 See, for example, ‘Fascism and the Roman Catholics’ in Blackshirt, 1–7 July 1933; ‘Bishop attacks fascism’, ibid., 15–22 July 1933; ‘Catholic doubts about the corporate state’, ibid., 24 Apr. 1935; ‘Can Catholics support fascism?’, ibid., 19 Dec. 1936; ‘An honour to England’ [praise for the Vatican’s promotion of Archbishop Hinsley to cardinal] in Action, 13 Jan. 1938.

49 Mosley, My life, p. 213.

50 Mosley, Diana, A life of contrasts (London, 1977), ch. 22Google Scholar.

51 Mosley at Ipswich, 5 July 1934 (Irish News, 6 July 1934; see also Londonderry Sentinel,! July 1934).

52 See ‘Mr de Valera and Ireland’ in Blackshirt, 18–24 Nov. 1933; ‘Mr de Valera’, ibid., 2Ф-9 Dec. 1933; ‘Politicians endangering the Empire’ in Fascist Week, 6–12 Apr. 1934; ‘Do we need Irish Free State lambs?’ in Blackshirt, 19 July 1935.

53 See review of Morton, J.B., The new Ireland (London, 1939)Google Scholar in Action, 11 Mar. 1939.

54 Allen, ‘The fascist idea in Britain’, p. 225.

55 Fascists, Ulster, Fascism in Ulster (Belfast, 1933)Google Scholar. I have not been able to locate a copy of this publication, but it was extensively reproduced in Irish News, 20 Sept. 1933.

56 ‘Fascism comes to Ireland’ in Blackshirt, 7–12 Oct. 1933.

57 ‘Fascist drive in Ulster’ in Fascist Week, 23–9 Mar. 1934.

58 Ibid. See also the attack on unionist economic incompetence, ‘Big Russian ships in Belfast’ in Blackshirt, 23 Aug. 1935.

59 Webber, G.C., ‘Patterns of membership and support for the British Union of Fascists’ in Journal of Contemporary History, xix, pt 4 (1984), p. 577 Google Scholar.

60 Irish News, 20 Apr. 1934.

61 Ibid., 27 Apr. 1934

62 Stott to editor, ibid., 8 May 1934.

63 Stott to editor, ibid., 26 May 1934.

64 See editorial,’No choice to make’, ibid., 18 June 1934.

65 See Cullen,’Another nationalism’, pp 101–2.

66 This publication was published irregularly and usually consisted of a single stencilled sheet. I have not found any copies available for consultation, but the substance of each issue appears to have been reproduced in the Irish News.

67 ‘Fascists and Ulster’ in Irish News, 1,9 Oct. 1934.

68 Personal details of the membership of the Ulster Fascists are difficult to obtain. The major holdings of B.U.F. material in the Public Record Office at Kew do not cover Northern Ireland, while of two files on fascist organisations in the province in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, I was successful in obtaining access only to the less important one—containing a publicly available newspaper clipping. Access to a much more substantial file (P.R.O.N.I., CAB 9B/216) was politely refused.

69 Irish News, 6 Sept. 1934.

70 Manning, Blueshirts, pp 77–8.

71 Londonderry Sentinel, 10 July 1934; Manning, Blueshirts, pp 142–3.

72 ’Blueshirts in the six counties’ in Deny Journal, 22 Aug. 1934.

73 Manning, Blueshirts, pp 143–4.

74 Ibid., p. 144.

75 ’Ulster Fascists and Blueshirts’ in Irish News, 3 Sept. 1934.

76 Derry Journal, 7 Sept. 1934.

77 In this context see also Cronin, Mike, ‘The socio-economic background and membership of the Blueshirt movement, 1932–5” in I.H.S., xxix, no. 114 (Nov. 1994), pp 234-49Google Scholar.

78 Derry Journal, 7 Sept. 1934.

79 See Irish News, 20 Sept. 1934.

80 On this subject see Loughlin, James, Ulster unionism and British national identity since 1885 (London, 1995), ch. 5Google Scholar.

81 Cabinet conclusions, 30 Aug. 1934 (P.R.O.N.I., CAB 4/328/3-4). A ban was not proceeded with, presumably because it would have been self-defeating. It would have offered evidence to prove the claims made in the Blackshirt press.

82 On Rothermere’s rather hysterical expectations of what this would entail see Sir Lyndon Macassey to Lord Craigavon, 30 Jan. 1933 (ibid., CAB 9F/123/7).

83 See Craigavon to Rothermere, 24 Mar. 1934 (ibid.); Craigavon to Thomas Cromie, 6 Apr. 1934 (ibid.).

84 Rothermere to Mosley, 12 Apr. 1934 (copy) (ibid.).

85 Rothermere to Sir Charles Blackmore, 23 Apr. 1934 (ibid.).

86 At the end of August 1934 the Craigavon government was concerned about Mosley making a visit to Northern Ireland, a prospect that Craigavon undertook personally to deal with (P.R.O.N.I., CAB 4/328/3-).

87 Benewick, Fascist movement in Britain, pp 99–104; Skidelsky, Mosley, pp 322–4.

88 During his time with the B.U.F. Allen was spying for M.I.5, something Mosley was aware of and sought to use for his own purposes (Thurlow, Fascism in Britain, pp 120–21).

89 See Allen, W.E.D., An Ulsterman urges a united Ireland’ in Evening Herald, 27 Jan. 1939 Google Scholar.

90 O’Brien, John, ‘More Ulster nonsense’ in Action, 4 Feb. 1939 Google ScholarPubMed.

91 These disputes were fought out chiefly in the letter columns of the Irish News (see issues of 20–31 Mar., 1,30 Apr. 1935) until the editor closed the correspondence.

92 Londonderry, Lord, Ourselves and Germany (London, 1938), pp 165–70.Google Scholar Londonderry’s pro-Germanism seems not to have been affected by the marriage of his daughter, Helen, to an Orthodox Jew, Edward Herbert Jessel, in 1935 (Irish News, 15 Feb. 1935).

93 Webber, G. C., The ideology of the British right, 1918–1939 (London, 1986), pp 154, 143Google Scholar.

94 Griffiths, Fellow travellers, pp 311,313.

95 See the correspondence between Sir E.W.E. Holderness and Col. O.A. Harker, 10, 16 Jan. 1939 (P.R.O., HO 45/25758/83044/4). In the event, Cahir Healy, a Nationalist M.P. at Stormont, an admirer of Mosley and friend of General O’Duffy, was also interned in Britain when war broke out ( Farrell, Michael, Northern Ireland: the Orange state (London, 1976), p. 169 Google Scholar). Aliens, of course, were also interned (see Fisk, In time of war, pp 102,182,378,459-60).

96 See Sir Oswald Mosley, The Irish problem: interim and ultimate solutions (Broadsheet no. 10), 8 Oct. 1971; idem, Give army chance to do the job, then solution within Europe (Broadsheet no. 26), 19 June 1974. For supplying copies of these broadsheets, together with much other material on the post-war British right, I would like to thank Paul Rowlandson of Magee College.

97 See Walker, Martin, The National Front (London, 1977), pp 158–61 Google Scholar; Fielding, Nigel, The National Front (London, 1981), pp 41, 69, 81, 99, 152–4, 158, 181–3Google Scholar; National Front, Britain must declare war on the I.R.A.! (Worthing, Sussex, n.d.) (Linen Hall collection, 1990).