Republican Congress

The Republican Congress (Irish: An Chomhdháil Phoblachtach) was an Irish republican political organisation founded in 1934, when left-wing republicans left the Irish Republican Army. The Congress was led by such IRA veterans as Peadar O'Donnell, Frank Ryan and George Gilmore. It was a socialist organisation and was dedicated to a "workers' republic" in Ireland. The group viewed the principles of Irish socialist republicanism as: "We believe that a republic of a united Ireland will never be achieved except through a struggle which uproots capitalism on its way."

Two councillors were elected as Republican Congress candidates in Westmeath and Dundalk in 1934. At the Republican rally at Bodenstown in 1934, clashes occurred between Republican Congress supporters and IRA members. Congress supporters among the crowd of about 17,000 were estimated at between 600 and 2,000. The IRA leadership did not authorise banners other than its own and ordered the Congress banners to be seized. The clash was given a sectarian element by the attack on 36 Congress members from the predominantly Loyalist parts of West Belfast - they formed the Shankill Road branch - who carried a banner reading, "Unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter to break the connection with Capitalism".

Following moderate success in agitating on behalf of the workers the Congress split at its first annual conference held in Rathmines Town Hall on September 8-9, 1934. The split occurred mainly due to organisational disunity between two factions. One side believed that a united front of leftist republicans could challenge the dominance of the mainstream political parties and form a "republic". The opposing faction believed that a political party should be formed in order to fight for a "workers' republic". The former resolution was passed following support from O'Donnell and the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI). Those calling for a "workers' republic" withdrew their support and left the Congress. The group went into decline thereafter and was essentially defunct by 1936. The Congress had its last hurrah on the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War when a group of Irishmen fought for the Second Spanish Republic in the Connolly Column.

The collapse of the Republican Congress is representative of the failure of the inter-war Irish socialist republican movement. The inability to form an organisationally coherent group was ultimately the crippling shortcoming of socialist republicanism.

Sources

• Brian Hanley, The IRA 1926-1936
• Sean Cronin, Frank Ryan: The Search for the Republic
• Donal O'Drisceoil, Peadar O'Donnell
• Paddy Bryne - "Memoirs of the Republic Congress"
• Eugene Downing, a CPI member was interviewed and describes the Bodenstown episode of 1934

See also

• Irish Socialist Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War