Saor Éire

Saor Éire (Irish for Free Ireland) was a left -wing political organization during the time of the Irish Free State.

History

Saor Éire was founded in September 1931 by communist members of the Irish Republican Army with support by the IRA leadership after the leadership had two years before such plans nor rejected. Among the founders was Peadar O'Donnell, former editor of the IRA journal An Phoblacht. The idea behind it was to establish a workers 'and small farmers' organization. The poorer rural communities in Ireland should be involved in the resistance against the British imperialism and Irish capitalism, which saw Saor Éire as allies.

On 26 and September 27, 1931 Saor Éire held a first conference in Dublin, 150 delegates from the Free State and Northern Ireland took part in the. Chairman was Seán Hayes, while David Fitzgerald served as Secretary-General. During its existence, the organization An Phoblacht used as a publication medium.

The organization was called by the bourgeois press and the Catholic Church as a dangerous communist grouping and prohibited in the same year by the government of the Free State. The violent reactions prevented Saor Éire to a representative political party. In 1933, two years later, O'Donnell tried to create a similarly oriented party under the name Republican Congress - and failed again.

Later, in the 1940s, accused Fianna Fáil party Clann na Poblachta to be a successor organization of Saor Éire. From 1967 to 1975, a left - republican splinter group Saor Éire also called.

Ideology

Saor Éire saw himself in the tradition of the Irish labor leader James Connolly. The goals Peadar O'Donnell formulated firstly to build a revolutionary leadership power, which should organize the workers and working peasants, secondly, the establishment of a socialist Republic of Ireland and lastly, the promotion of the Irish language and culture. To realize these objectives, a two -stage plan was provided with a first stage of the organization structure and the propaganda, which should lead to mass resistance, and a second stage of consolidation of power for the purpose of establishing an Irish Republic and a socialist economy.