Ruairí Ó Brádaigh 1932 - 2013
Ruairi was a towering figure of Irish Republicanism in the latter half of the 20th century. He came to embody the very essence of the Republican tradition, setting the very highest standards of commitment, duty, honor and loyalty to the cause of Irish freedom.--- Des Dalton
Early Years
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was born Peter Brady to a middle-class family in Longford in the Irish Free State. His mother, May Caffrey, was a Cumann na mBan volunteer and graduate of University College Dublin (UCD) class of 1922, with a degree in commerce. She was employed as Secretary for the Co. Longford Board of Health. His father, Matt Brady, was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who was severely wounded during a clash with the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1919. When he died circa 1942, he given a funeral led by his former IRA colleagues.
Ó Brádaigh received his primary education at the Melview National School in Co. Longford. He continued with his secondary education at St. Mel's College, in Longford town. He graduated from UCD in 1954 with a commerce degree and certification in the teaching of the Irish language. After graduating he taught Irish at the Vocational School in the town of Roscommon in Co. Roscommon.
Membership in Sinn Fein and the IRA
In 1950, shortly after starting his studies at UCD, he joined Sinn Féin and in a year or so later joined the IRA. One of his first appearances at an IRA event was in September of 1951 at the unveiling of the Seán Russell monument in Fairview Park, Dublin. After that he became a training officer for the IRA and in 1954 was appointed to the Military Council of the IRA help plan a military campaign against Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks in Northern Ireland.
In August of 1955, Ó Brádaigh led a ten-member IRA team in a successful arms raid on a Military Barracks, near Arborfield, Berkshire in England. It was the biggest ever IRA arms raid in Britain, netting up to a 100,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers along with fifty five Sten guns, two Bren guns, two rifles and one pistol. Most if not all of the weapons were later recovered. One of the two vans used in the raid was stopped on the way back for speeding and the weapons transported in the second van were later recovered in a warehouse in north London.
The IRA Border Campaign
Ó Brádaigh was second in command of The Teeling Column, one of the four armed units created by Seán Cronin for the Border Campaign that commenced on 12 December 1956. On 30 December 1956, he took part in the Teeling Column attack on an RUC barracks in Derrylin, Co. Fermanagh across the border in Northern Ireland. . John Scally, an RUC Constable was killed, the first casualty of the Border Campaign. The following day, December 13 O' Bradaigh and the others team members were arrested by the Irish police (Garda Síochána) in Co. Cavan. They were jailed for six months in Mountjoy Prison for failing to account for their whereabouts. Ó Brádaigh , upon his arrest refused to recognize the authority of the Irish government. He also refused to renounce violence in exchange for his release.
Ó Brádaigh was elected a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Longford–Westmeath constituency at the 1957 Irish general election while still in prison. Running as abstentionist candidates on the Sinn Féin ticket, Ó Brádaigh, Eighneachán Ó hAnnluain, John Joe McGirl and John Joe Rice won the seats. They refused to recognize the authority of Irish parliament stating that they would only take a seat in an all-Ireland parliament. Ó Brádaigh did not retain his seat at the 1961 Irish general election.
Upon completing his prison sentence, he was immediately interned at the Curragh Military Prison, along with other republicans. On 27 September 1958, Ó Brádaigh escaped with Dáithí Ó Conaill while a football match was in being played by cutting through a wire fence and creeping from the camp under a camouflage grass blanket. He was the first Sinn Féin TD 'on the run' since the 1920s.
In October of 1858, Ó Brádaigh became the IRA Chief of Staff, an interim position he held until May 1959, when an IRA Convention elected Sean Cronin to fill the position O' Brádaigh became Cronin's adjutant general. In November of 1959, Ó Brádaigh was arrested and jailed in Mountjoy under the Offences against the State Act. He was released in May 1960 and again became Chief of Staff after Cronin was arrested.
It is generally accepted that he was the primary author of the statement ending the IRA Border Campaign in 1962. At the IRA 1962 Convention he indicated that he was not interested in continuing as chief of staff.
After his first arrest in December 1956, he took a leave from teaching at Roscommon Vocational School. He was re-instated and began teaching again in late 1962, just after he was succeeded by Cathal Goulding in the position of Chief of Staff of the IRA. He remained an active member of Sinn Féin and was also a member of the IRA Army Council throughout the decade.
In the 1966 United Kingdom general election, he ran as an Independent Republican candidate in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency. Although he received 10,370 votes, he failed to be elected.
Provisional Sinn Féin
In January of 1970 at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in Dublin , Ó Brádaigh together with Sean MacStiofain led a walkout in protest to the decision by the IRA and Sinn Féin to drop abstentionism and recognize the Westminster, Stormont and Leinster House parliaments. Those who walked out with Ó Brádaigh and MacStiofain reconvened at the Kevin Barry Hall in Parnell Square where the they founded Provisional Sinn Féin (PSF) and where Ó Brádaigh was voted Chairman of its Caretaker Executive. The following October he became its President, a position he held until 1983. It’s also assumed that he served on the Army Council or on the Executive of Provisional Sinn Fein until he was injured in a car accident in 1984.
In May of 1972, shortly after becoming president of PSF, Ó Brádaigh was arrested under the Offences against the State Act. Charges were dropped after he went on a two week hunger strike. Later in December of 1972 he was again arrested under the same Act and this was sentenced to six months in the Curragh Military Prison by the newly established Special Criminal Court solely 0n the word of a senior police officer.
The Launch of Eire Nua
Aware of the consequences of the approaching war, the Army Council of the IRA endorsed Daithi O'Connaill's plan for a political solution for Ireland. On August 11th, 1971, two days after internment, they issued a statement calling for the setting-up of an alternative form of government for Ulster. One week later on August 18th, Ruairi O' Bradaigh, President of Sinn Fein, issued a statement endorsing the proposals. The statement said that the people of Ulster should proceed to set up a regional parliament for the nine counties of Ulster. It continued by saying that the settlement of 1921 that set up both the Stormont and Dublin parliaments was unworkable and against the interests of the Irish people. It called for the dismantling of both British created states to make room for the New Ireland.
Diplomacy
Starting in 1974, Ó Brádaigh took part in a number of meetings regarding the ongoing armed conflict in the six occupied counties. In the United States he testified before the U. S Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the treatment of IRA prisoners in Ireland. He also met with congressman Tip O'Neil who, together with other Irish Americans politicians was trying to craft peace accord to end the armed conflict in the occupied six counties. As a result of the publicity generated by his visit, the U.S. State Department revoked his multiple entry visa at the request of the British and Irish governments. In 1997, Canadian followed suit.
During the Ulster Workers' Council strike in May of 1974, Ó Brádaigh stated that he would like to see "a phased withdrawal of British troops over a number of years, in order to avoid a Congo situation”. The Ulster Workers' Council strike was in protest of the Sunningdale agreement signed in December of 1973.
Later that year in December, he was party to talks between the IRA Army Council and Sinn Féin leadership and the leaders of the Protestant churches in Ireland held in the Feakle Co. Clare. Although the meeting was raided and broken up by the Irish police, the Protestant churchmen passed on proposals from the IRA leadership to the British government. These proposals called on the British government to declare a commitment to withdraw, the election of an all-Ireland assembly to draft a new constitution and an amnesty for political prisoners.
In December of 1974, the IRA called for a two week ceasefire to give the British government time to consider their proposal. In February of 1975, the ceasefire was followed by an open ended cessation of hostilities against British forces to allow for diplomacy to take over and secure an agreement to withdraw British to withdraw from Ireland. After a prolonged period of negotiation with the British government by Ó Brádaigh and other IRA leaders that ended in stalemate, the ceasefire collapsed in late 1975. Having learned a hard lesson of British duplicity, it took another 20 years for another ceasefire to happen.
In response to a request by the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee (ULCCC) in December 1976, Ó Brádaigh and Joe Cahill, met with two of their representatives, John McKeague and John McClure to explore if the ULCCC proposals for an independent Northern Ireland and the Sinn Féin's Éire Nua proposal could work. The agreement was that if a merger could be worked out, a joint Loyalist-Republican approach could then be made to request the British government to leave Ireland . It was agreed that if this could agree Desmond Boal QC and Seán MacBride SC would represent the loyalist and republican positions. After months of negotiations in various places including Paris, the negotiations ended when Conor Cruise O’Brien then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in southern Ireland condemned it on RTÉ Radio. As the loyalists had insisted on absolute secrecy, they felt unable to continue with the talks as a result.
After the collapse of the 1975 truce, Ó Brádaigh and the other leaders of Sinn Fein came under severe criticism by activists from Northern Ireland, led by Gerry Adams. By the early 1980s, Ó Brádaigh's position as president of Sinn Féin was openly challenged In order to oust as the President of Sinn Fein, the Éire Nua policy was targeted and finally removed from the Sinn Féin constitution at the 1982 Ard Fheis. At the 1983 Ard Fheis, Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill resigned from their leadership positions, voicing opposition to the dropping of the Éire Nua policy by the party.
Republican Sinn Féin
At the 1980 Provisional Sinn Fein’s Ard Fheis, the policy of abstentionism was dropped if elected to Dail Eireann, but not to the British or Stormont parliaments. Ó Brádaigh and those who opposed the dropping the policy of abstentionism walked out and shortly afterwards assembled at Dublin's West County Hotel where they established Republican Sinn Féin (RSF). Ó Brádaigh was elected its first President. He believed RSF to be the legitimate continuation of the pre-1986 Sinn Féin, arguing that RSF has kept the original Sinn Féin constitution. RSF adopted and continued to promote Eire Nua as a viable proposal to achieve reunification.
He opposed the Good Friday Agreement, viewing it as a British ploy to keep Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom and maintain the sectarian enclave intact. He also condemned PSF for decommissioning weapons while British troops remain in the country. He maintained that the PSF sell-out "is the worst yet– unprecedented in Irish history".
In September 2009, Ó Brádaigh announced his retirement as leader of Republican Sinn Féin. He, Ó Brádaigh, was a long-standing member of the Celtic League, an organization which fosters cooperation between the Celtic people and promotes the culture, identity and eventual self-determination for the people, in the form of six sovereign states, for the Celtic nations - Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Scotland, Isle of Man and Ireland
Death
Ruairi Ó Brádaigh passed away on June 5, 2013 after a period of ill-health. His funeral that was attended by 1,800 mourners was interrupted by the Emergency Response Unit (heavy gang) in riot gear, for "operational reasons", that resulted in clashed with mourners.
Contributed by Tomás Ó Coısdealbha
cemetery AND grave location
Name: St Coman's Church of Ireland Graveyard
ADDRESS: Roscommon, County Roscommon, Ireland
HEADSTONE
Photo requested
