The four men accused of the murder recognized the court in Dublin and fought the charges. The result was a hung jury. In a retrial, they were found not guilty on the direction of the judge and set free. Officially, the case was never solved. It was a victory for the IRA, and the accused were welcomed at several public meetings. They were sent off from Dublin by the cream of the IRA, including Moss Twomey, the chief of staff. At Edgeworthstown, they were met by the Tenants Association and the local IRA. Irish flags (tricolors) were flying, as was a banner inscribed with “Welcome I.R.A. Prisoners.” Several of them addressed the crowd, as did Moss Twomey and Matt Brady. This meeting concluded with the singing of the Irish national anthem, and the ex-prisoners moved on to Longford town, where Matt Brady presided over another welcoming reception.
Fianna Fáil and the IRA both wanted a 32-county Republic. Those in Fianna FBil thought they could bring it about through constitutional means. Those in the IRA appreciated constitutional changes consistent with a Republic, but they also wanted direct action to end partition and reunite the country. The More O’Ferrall shooting was one of a number of incidents in which the IRA flouted the authority of the Free State. No government can long tolerate a paramilitary army undermining its authority. On June 18, 1936, Fianna Fáil proscribed the IRA once again. The annual Republican parade to Wolfe Tone’s grave at Bodenstown, scheduled for the next day, was banned. A thousand troops and 500 police officers kept Republicans out of the cemetery. In its lengthy history, dating from the 1790s, the military wing of Irish Republicanism had been legal for only four years. Proscribing the IRA and banning Republican activities made life difficult for the Republican Movement, but it was the usual situation for a group of people who had a history of adapting to such conditions.
In Longford, Matt Brady took on Fianna Fáil. At a County Council meeting he proposed a resolution protesting the use of solitary confinement and the denial of political status in Irish prisons, demanding the immediate release of all political prisoners, and protesting the ban on Bodenstown. He was seconded by Sein F. Lynch. The chairman, who was from Fianna FG1, ruled the motion out of order because he had not been notified in advance. He also noted that the year before, he had ruled another motion out of order on the grounds that it was political, as was this motion. Brady replied that it was not “political" but “national.” There were heated exchanges and he attacked Fianna Fáil and de Valera: “The Government should be ashamed of themselves, and particularly the President.” A Fianna FPil councilor defended de Valera, “as our leader, Mr. de Valera[,] says, we want to live in peace and harmony with our neighbour, England, too.” Brady responded with, “Oh, I see. Do you stand for coercion, Mr. Walsh?”
Opposition or not, Éamon de Valera continued on his quest to minimize the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. He directed the development of a new Constitution that was ratified by the Free State electorate in 1937. Article 2 stated that “the national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas,” and Article 3 claimed for the Dublin Parliament the right to exercise jurisdiction over the entire island, “pending the reintegration of the national territory.” In 1938, as Taoiseach under the Constitution, he engineered the British return of control of Irish ports that had not been released with the 1921 Treaty. This helped Ireland stay neutral in World War 11, perhaps his greatest achievement.
In the summer of 1938, Matt Brady experienced what was probably his finest moment as a public person. On September 8, Longford celebrated the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Ballinamuck. Matt Brady chaired the commemoration committee. On a sun-filled day, thousands of people, including May, Mary, Rory, and presumably the youngest member of the family, infant Sein, assembled on the battlefield. The village and battlefield were decorated with side-by-side French and Irish tricolors. A collection of relics from the battle was on display in the village courthouse. It was an all-day event; the committee and bands traveled throughout North Longford, laying wreaths, reciting a decade of the rosary in Irish, and playing the national anthem and similar tunes at numerous sites marking Republican events from 1798 through the 1920s. When it arrived in Ballinamuck, the commemoration committee made its way to the platform and watched as speakers and marchers, including a procession of the IRA dressed as 1798 pikemen, arrived. Finally, Reveille was sounded and Matt Brady hoisted the Irish tricolor from half to full mast.
On the platform was a who’s who of past and present Longford Republicans. Matt Brady, Sein F. Lynch, Hubert Wilson, and Tom Brady, who had all rejected the Treaty, were joined by Seán Mac Eoin, a Fine Gael TD, and James Victory and Erskine Childers, Fianna Fáil TDs. Political differences aside, they all recognized and appreciated the significance of 1798. Each wanted a united Ireland; they differed in how they believed it was best to bring this about. Matt Brady began the formal commemoration with a quotation from John Kells Ingram’s famous poem, “The Memory of the Dead:
All, all are gone, but still lives on
—the fame of those who died,
And true men, like you men,
—remember them with pride.
The husband of a Cumann na mBan veteran and career woman, he welcomed the “exceedingly great number of ’true men’ and women, ’like you men’ and women here to-day.” He noted that “since the Norman Invasion the chequered history of our country consists of a series of attempts on the part of its people to regain their independence. These attempts were made, both with the sword and the pen, in nearly every generation.” For Brady, the struggle against England and the United Kingdom was continuous and consistent over time. These same motives and actions were present in 1938 Ireland: “We have all seen them in our own day, and they will continue till the end is achieved. The soil of our country has been wet with the blood of martyrs in this cause, its sod is dotted over with their graves.” A previous struggle was being commemorated; it was not to be forgotten, it was to be emulated:
It is to celebrate such an attempt that we are here now. So long as we continue to do so all will be well, but woe betide the day when we begin to forget, the day when we cease to remember the dead who died for Ireland.
With this he concluded his remarks and introduced the other speakers, including Seán Mac Eoin and, at age 82, James O’Neill, the grandnephew of Brian O’Neill, the survivor of the Battle of Ballinamuck. The proceedings concluded with bands playing the French and Irish national anthems; the crowd sang the Irish anthem.
The nonpartisan nature of the commemoration was an aberration. In spite of his successes, de Valera had not ended partition. Irish Republicanism was a mass movement in the years 1918–1922. Splits, defections, the pension issue, arrests, and time had reduced it to a small, isolated, clandestine group-its condition before 1916. Nevertheless, the IRA was preparing for war. During the Anglo-Irish War, the First DLil had passed a resolution such that a provisional government could be formed if repressive conditions significantly reduced its number and threatened its operation. After the Treaty, the Second Ddil TDs, with the support of the IRA, formed an emergency government. In their view, this was the de jure government of the Republic, led by an Executive Council. Over the years, the Executive Council met as a