He subsequently raised the Irish Brigade to fight for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War as an act of Catholic solidarity and was inspired by Benito Mussolini's Italy to create the National Corporate Party.

Eoin O'Duffy was born Owen Duffy in Lough Egish, near Castleblayney, County Monaghan, on 28 January 1890 to an impoverished smallholder family.

[7] In 1909, he sat the king's scholarship examination for St Patrick's College, Dublin, but as a place was not assured, he applied to become a clerk in the county surveyor's office in Monaghan.

His important role in developing the GAA in Ulster is memorialised by the O'Duffy Terrace at the principal provincial stadium, St Tiernach's Park in Clones, County Monaghan.

[4] After his release O'Duffy focused on organising his brigade and built an effective intelligence network by cultivating contacts with susceptible RIC men.

[18] On 15 February 1920, he (along with Ernie O'Malley) was involved in the first capture of a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks by the IRA in Ballytrain, in his native Monaghan.

The raid boosted local IRA recruitment, shook RIC morale and resulted in the closure of many barracks in rural Monaghan.

They came and parted on the happiest terms.’"[24] Armed Orangemen began parading the roads of Unionist areas and tit-for-tat killings occurred in reprisal for IRA casualties incurred during raids.

[27] When a Protestant trader named George Lester held up and searched two boys he suspected of being dispatch carriers for the IRA in February 1921, O'Duffy ordered his death.

[33] Frank Aiken, a future military and political opponent, stated that from the signing of the treaty to the attack on the Four Courts in June 1922, O'Duffy did Herculean work for the pro-treaty cause.

He insisted on a Catholic ethos to distinguish the Gardaí from their Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) predecessors, and regularly told members of the force they were not just men working an ordinary job, but policemen fulfilling their religious duty.

[1] In February, following a general election in 1933, Executive Council President Éamon de Valera dismissed O'Duffy as Garda Commissioner.

An admirer of the Italian leader Benito Mussolini, O'Duffy and his organisation adopted outward symbols of European fascism such as the straight-arm Roman salute and a distinctive blue uniform.

[citation needed] O'Duffy established a weekly newspaper, the Blueshirt, and published a new constitution that promoted corporatism, Irish unification and opposition to "alien" control and influence.

[47] In July 1933, O'Duffy announced plans for a parade by the Blueshirts in Dublin to commemorate Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Kevin O'Higgins.

[2] De Valera feared a similar coup d'état as seen in Italy and the Special Branch raided the houses of prominent people aligned with Cumann na nGaedheal to seize their firearms.

In 1933 a group of Irish republicans, one member of which was Dan Keating, planned to assassinate O'Duffy in Ballyseedy, County Kerry, while he would be on his way to a meeting.

On 18 September, in an interview he said that the Blueshirts were volunteering to fight "not for Italy or against Abyssinia, but for the principle of the corporate system" against which "the forces of both Marxism and of capitalism" were ranged.

The National Guard, now rechristened the Young Ireland Association, was transformed from an illegal paramilitary group into the militant wing of a political party.

The new party's policy document, published in mid-November 1933, sought the reunification of Ireland within the British Commonwealth but made no mention of a corporatist parliament and committed itself to democracy.

[57] On 6 October 1933 O'Duffy was involved in disturbances in Tralee during which he was hit with a hammer on the head and had his car torched as he attempted to attend a Fine Gael convention.

He resented Cumann na nGaedheal's drift from republicanism following Collins' death in 1922, and insisted that Fine Gael would not "play second fiddle to anybody in the matter of Nationality".

Whereas Fine Gael favoured a return to pasture farming and free trade, O'Duffy was supportive of the experiments in tillage and protectionism implemented by his Fianna Fáil rivals, and was forced to attempt to compromise between the two.

[65] His Fine Gael colleagues who regarded themselves as defenders of law-and-order were embarrassed by the Blueshirts' use of violence and attacks on the Gardaí, in addition to O'Duffy's connections with foreign fascist organisations and his view of the IRA as a communist group.

[67] O'Duffy's approval of illegal agitation against the collection of land annuities by the government, declaration of his support for a republic and the revelation of his connections with the British Union of Fascists and the Fedrelandslaget were the last straws for moderates in Fine Gael.

Seeking to regain his former political influence, O'Duffy attempted to court the IRA, encouraging his followers to wear Easter lilies and desist from informing on republicans.

He was motivated to do so by Ireland's historic link with Spain, his devout anti-communism and a will to defend Catholicism, stating "It is not a conflict between fascism and anti-fascism but between Christ and antichrist".

[58] In London in September 1936, O'Duffy met Juan de la Cierva and Emilio Mola, promising he would recruit an Irish contingent to fight against the Republicans.

The book had antisemitic undertones; O'Duffy wrote that trade unions are "powerful political Jewish-Masonic organisations, directed and focused by the Communist International.

[80] He is thought to have met with several leading IRA figures and German diplomat Eduard Hempel in a remote corner of County Donegal during the summer of 1939.