Alex McCrory offers some context to public discussion about the statue of Sean Russell in Dublin.

How much would Sean Russell have known about the Nazis in 1940 whenever he sought their help for the Irish cause?

Some historians would say there was plenty of evidence by that time of Hitler's evil intention to conquer the World. Equally, any interested person would not have found it difficult to see through the diabolical ideology that had the Jews marked out for extermination. Main Kampf was full of insights into Hitler's racist philosophy.

Kristallnacht, Night Of Broken Glass, the name given to an orgy of vandalism and destruction of Jewish businesses, signposted what was to come. Any Jews with the wherewithal fled the country in order to escape the coming catastrophe. But few of them could have predicted the sheer scale and savagery of what was euphemistically called the Final Solution. In short, the Nazis motivated by thoughts of Aryan supremacy attempted to eradicate European Jewry by mass murder.

Intelligence about what was happening in the concentration camps was leaking out from as early as 1940. Dachau was first opened in 1933 for political prisoners opposed to the Nazi regime. It housed Communists, Socialists and Liberals, any and all who had the courage to oppose the Third Reich.

A whole network of work camps grew up all over Germany as the years progressed. Although tens of thousands died in the work camps from torture and starvation, these were not the extermination centers of the near future. What intelligence the Allies had was largely ignored because of pressing concerns such as winning the War.

All this is known to me because of history, but how much of it would have been known to Sean Russell at the extant time?

Fascism had many supporters outside of Germany. In Ireland the Blue Shirts, a proto-Fascist organisation made up from former IRA Volunteers, supported Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Other IRA men like Frank Ryan and Peadar O'Donnell fought to defend the Spanish Republic. However, another cohort including Russell remained ideologically neutral and focused on the Irish national question.

Sean Russell was a republican purist. Whereas many other dipped their toes into European politics, men like Russell had one interest only. Certainly, he was not apolitical as an Irish Republican, but he did not fit into the ideological dichotomy of right and left. Russell was was straight as an arrow, so to speak. He stood on the firm ground of the Irish Republic.

The old Fenians believed that England's difficult was Ireland's opportunity. In fact, this attitude predated the Fenians in Irish history. There are many examples of European alliances between the Irish, Spanish and French all of whom sought to destroy England for one reason or another. The Irish never paid much attention to politics or ideology when they made alliances with other countries. Opportunity and a shared enemy were the only common denominators.

Finally, some on the left will find it impossible to forgive Sean Russell for his flirtation with Nazism. Others will afford him the benefit of the doubt believing he was motivated by a singular thought. If we are to accept his own spoken words the time, he was unequivocal and he disavowed Fascism. Even the Germans knew that Russell was not a Nazi sympathiser as was stated in intelligence files at the time.

So, we must make up our own minds about this subject having regard to the scant historical record. We have Sean Russell's own words to a confidant, and intelligence assessments of his demeanor towards the regime. There is nothing else exists that speak to the matter. A painful and lonely death on German U-Boat meant that Sean Russell departed without a self-justification.


Alec McCrory is a former blanketman.

Sean Russell & The Nazis

Alex McCrory offers some context to public discussion about the statue of Sean Russell in Dublin.

How much would Sean Russell have known about the Nazis in 1940 whenever he sought their help for the Irish cause?

Some historians would say there was plenty of evidence by that time of Hitler's evil intention to conquer the World. Equally, any interested person would not have found it difficult to see through the diabolical ideology that had the Jews marked out for extermination. Main Kampf was full of insights into Hitler's racist philosophy.

Kristallnacht, Night Of Broken Glass, the name given to an orgy of vandalism and destruction of Jewish businesses, signposted what was to come. Any Jews with the wherewithal fled the country in order to escape the coming catastrophe. But few of them could have predicted the sheer scale and savagery of what was euphemistically called the Final Solution. In short, the Nazis motivated by thoughts of Aryan supremacy attempted to eradicate European Jewry by mass murder.

Intelligence about what was happening in the concentration camps was leaking out from as early as 1940. Dachau was first opened in 1933 for political prisoners opposed to the Nazi regime. It housed Communists, Socialists and Liberals, any and all who had the courage to oppose the Third Reich.

A whole network of work camps grew up all over Germany as the years progressed. Although tens of thousands died in the work camps from torture and starvation, these were not the extermination centers of the near future. What intelligence the Allies had was largely ignored because of pressing concerns such as winning the War.

All this is known to me because of history, but how much of it would have been known to Sean Russell at the extant time?

Fascism had many supporters outside of Germany. In Ireland the Blue Shirts, a proto-Fascist organisation made up from former IRA Volunteers, supported Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Other IRA men like Frank Ryan and Peadar O'Donnell fought to defend the Spanish Republic. However, another cohort including Russell remained ideologically neutral and focused on the Irish national question.

Sean Russell was a republican purist. Whereas many other dipped their toes into European politics, men like Russell had one interest only. Certainly, he was not apolitical as an Irish Republican, but he did not fit into the ideological dichotomy of right and left. Russell was was straight as an arrow, so to speak. He stood on the firm ground of the Irish Republic.

The old Fenians believed that England's difficult was Ireland's opportunity. In fact, this attitude predated the Fenians in Irish history. There are many examples of European alliances between the Irish, Spanish and French all of whom sought to destroy England for one reason or another. The Irish never paid much attention to politics or ideology when they made alliances with other countries. Opportunity and a shared enemy were the only common denominators.

Finally, some on the left will find it impossible to forgive Sean Russell for his flirtation with Nazism. Others will afford him the benefit of the doubt believing he was motivated by a singular thought. If we are to accept his own spoken words the time, he was unequivocal and he disavowed Fascism. Even the Germans knew that Russell was not a Nazi sympathiser as was stated in intelligence files at the time.

So, we must make up our own minds about this subject having regard to the scant historical record. We have Sean Russell's own words to a confidant, and intelligence assessments of his demeanor towards the regime. There is nothing else exists that speak to the matter. A painful and lonely death on German U-Boat meant that Sean Russell departed without a self-justification.


Alec McCrory is a former blanketman.

9 comments:

  1. The Blueshirts didn't support Franco in the Spanish Civil War for the simple reason that they had been abolished by the start of the Spanish Civil War. Some ex-Blueshirts did. O'Duffy had created a new group, the Greenshirts, attached to his National Corporate Party and it was they who went to Spain. Around 80 of the Greenshirts had been in the now defunct Blueshirts.

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    1. Now there's something. Up until I read this in your review of the McDowell documentary I was unaware of this. I would at times refer to SF as the Greenshirts. Seems they had antecedents.

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  2. Russells militarism is a problem for people like me on the Left.Indeed the apolitical dominance of militarism persists with some. But many on the Left who denounce Russell have no problem with defending the Nazi-Soviet pact (Relevance: The USSR was an ally of Nazi Germany during Russells visit to Germany). I woudl add that Stalin handed over anti-fascist exiles to Germany during this period. Oh, you have put Russell into some context which is good.

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  3. An excellent summation of Russelll Alex. Sean Russell was in essence a Fenian. He would have viewed going to Germany as following in the foot steps of Roger Casement in 1915 or Tone seeking aid from revolutionary France. As you point out there is a long tradition of Irish republicans and separatists seeking support from abroad.

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  4. Regardless of the colour of the shirt that went out to support the nationalists in Spain, the piece by Alex stands as an effort to place Russell in a different context from that being offered up in some circles.

    I think it would need a religious view of the world to deny that he collaborated with the Nazis. He did but to what end? It was not for Nazi ends. He saw the Nazis as low hanging fruit in terms of Ireland and reached for it. In that sense he was only after the fruit and not the Nazi tree.

    In that sense he was different from O'Duffy who was pro Nazi, even offering to recruit in Ireland to assist the Nazis in Russia. This was well into the war and when both the Wannsee Conference and the Battle of Stalingrad had taken already place.

    I guess the question is one of who gets to decide on what statues society wishes to have in it its public space and whether the present has the right to remove or replace statues from the past.

    I think present society has to be able to remove past statues. People, not statues, have rights. And society has a right to overrule republican sentiment on this matter.

    My view is that the real issue is not its retention or its removal but the vandalism and destruction that it has been subjected to. If society decides that the Russell statue is an affront to current values of even aesthetics, then destruction is not the answer. It can be moved to some museum.

    Alternatively, republicans who wish to see the statue preserved should be able to build a private monumental space/garden and place it there. Much like a church can have its statues which no one should desecrate. That would help solve the problem posed by the use of public space and still allow for private citizens to view and maintain the statue.

    I am glad you wrote this piece Alex as it adds to understanding as do each of the comments that followed it.


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  5. Alex McCrory writes:

    While I consider myself on the left, Irish leftists spend more time "navel gazing" than they do rolling up the sleeves. The national question has always been the bug bear, causing endless agonising over what to do. More than most the Irish left has succumbed to the carnival of reaction which Connolly forewarned of in his opposition to Partition.

    Republicans have on the other hand berated the Irish people for not showing sufficient patriotic vigour in the struggle to get rid of the Brit's. Every glorious defeat was followed by internal divisions and schism.

    I do not have answers to any of this, but I do recognise it. None of it is an uniquely Irish problem as I recognise it in other situations as well.

    For example, the collapse of the Socialist countries sent the left into an existential crisis from which it has not recovered. I can hear the Trotskyists shouting 'never', and, 'we were vindicated'. Is it not a pyrrhic victory when the house of cards comes tumbling down but there is nothing to put in it's stead?

    I'm in a despondent mood tonight having dipped my toes in the Sean Russell controversy. However, as a left republican I can see no justifiable reason for removing his statue and not certainly at the behest of a modern day Blue Shirt.

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    1. While I have used it myself I think the term Blueshirt has very little value in today's context. It's more an emotive term that a descriptive one. Like the labels of fascist and racist, often it becomes a way of calling somebody a bastard (something Brendan O'Neill picked up on) and thus strips the term of any meaningful political value. I think it helps lead to the user being perceived as locked in the past while the people it is employed against have polished up the image and look more modern than we who accuse them.

      Fine Gael are neo liberal capitalists not fascists. One of the attributes of O'Duffy was his ardent nationalism - few republicans will accuse FG of that, feeling instead that there is nothing nationalist or patriotic about them. Nor does FG's move towards a greater secularisation of the society chime with the faith ethos of the Blueshirts. People sometimes went to Spain at the behest of priests who either entreated or inveigled them to fight against the republicans and for Franco.

      Tags like Blueshirt work when they strike a chord with the wider audience. In today's world it sounds a bit like claiming the society in this part of the country is a priest ridden state. At one time that had too had great purchase; not any longer.

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  6. Also worth noting from my interview with Dr. John O'Neill:


    CO: The recent death of Billy McKee saw Chris Hudson (who played a part in negotiations with the UVF leading to the 1994 ceasefire) take the opportunity on Facebook to claim that McKee "Had to be imprisoned during WW11, because he was a Nazi sympathiser" This "IRA helping Nazis" claim seems to be the most enduring myth from this period and is often regurgitated by unionist politicians (some of whom claim that not only were the IRA directing the bombers by standing on the Cave Hill, but that some were actually in the planes themselves). Do you think that, as well as serving a purpose, it's also an example of how some unionist commentators are willing to go in order to deflect from the fact that Catholics were not particularly welcome in the state of Northern Ireland at this time?

    JO'N: That IRA-Nazis trope seems to be entirely a modern - it first got given a bit of traction about 1990 when Sam McAughtry (I think) claimed that an unnamed, but now dead, former IRA member once told him that the Belfast IRA helped the Nazis bomb Belfast. This is another good example of my earlier point about how historical narrative has been purposely compromised and distorted as part of security policy. I tried to detail what I could find on the Belfast IRA and German contacts during the war - judging by repeated IRA attempts in 1941-42 to make it clear that they no more supported Nazi occupation as UK occupation, they were obviously sensitive to it at the time. Ironically, contemporary newspapers make it abundantly clear that the Unionists were heavily criticised for various failures to provide air raid shelters, enforce blackout discipline and for not acting on clear signs that major air raids were imminent in Belfast.

    At no time during the war did they resort to a 'but the IRA' defence, even when under real pressure over their own failings. It wasn't for another 40 odd years that the IRA helped the Nazis to bomb Belfast myth started being put about. You would struggle to find any unionist commentator who has reflected in any length on the experience of Catholics in the north after 1922.

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    1. That sounds about right, I'd never heard the IRA story about guiding Nazi bombers until the early 90's. Far more gravitas was given to the South giving refuge to Nazi's after the war.

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