'Hail O'Duffy' - Fine Gael At 92
Fine Gael were founded on this day in 1933 by a merger of Cumann na nGaedheal, the National Centre Party and the fascist Army Comrades Association, colloquially known as the ‘Blueshirts’.
Fine Gael, a significant player in the current Twenty-Six County government, was born of the same litter as Adolf Hitler's Brownshirts and Benito Mussolini's Blackshirts.
Fine Gael's Blueshirts echoed their ‘brothers’ on the continent by their support for close links between private corporations and the state; their hatred for workers that organised into trade unions, their fetish for uniforms, and their relentless attacks on republicans, socialists, communists, and indeed all other progressives.
Then as now, the Blueshirts saw Republicans as the devil incarnate, to be loathed and feared in equal measure.
Indeed, it was largely (but not exclusively) left to Republicans to physically challenge the Blueshirts on Ireland's streets.
And when Francisco Franco was in the process of overthrowing the democratically elected government in Spain many Irish Republicans rallied in defence of the Spanish Republic - just as the Blueshirts fought alongside Franco's fascists.
The Fine Gael of today may have done away with the 'Hail O'Duffy' salute, but much of the core philosophy of their fascist roots are still in evidence today.
Fine Gael still believes that the protection of the state is more important than the welfare of the people; they still support an economic model where the lines between government, the state and the private corporations are all but non-existent; they still despise the notion of an organised workforce; and they still view Republicans as the ‘enemy at the gate.’
For our part, we in Éirígí will continue in the proud Republican tradition of challenging the anti-worker and anti-community policies of Fine Gael and the rest of the right-wing political establishment.
To do otherwise would be a betrayal of our own historical roots as Irish Republicans!
Join the fight For A New Republic - Join Éirígí!