Ruairí Ó Brádaigh. Robert W. White

McLogan was born in 1899 in South Armagh, in what became the Six Counties of Northern Ireland. He was on hunger strike at Mountjoy Prison with Thomas Ashe in 1917 and was later held under an assumed name in Belfast Jail while the police searched for him outside on a charge of murder. In the 1940s, he was interned in the Curragh Military Camp. He made his living as a publican in Port Laoise. McLogan is described as “placid in temperament and ice cold in contention, but easy to trust" and “the Father of Republicanism, the austerêlotter from a previous generation.” Deeply religious, he had met his wife on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Tony Magan, the IRA’S chief of staff, was in his late 30s. He was from County Meath and had joined the IRA in the 1930s; he was also interned in the Curragh. A bachelor and devout Catholic, he is described by J. Bowyer Bell as “a hard man, tightly disciplined, and utterly painstaking.” Tomis Mac Curtiin, the youngest of the three, was in his mid-30s. He was the son of Tomis Mac Curtiin, the Sinn Féin mayor of Cork who was murdered in 1920, allegedly by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The younger Mac Curtiin was a member of the IRA’S Army Council and, in the late 1950s, of Sinn FCin’s Ard Chomhairle. He was on the 1940 hunger strike at Mountjoy. After the strike was called off, he was sentenced to be hanged for shooting dead a Special Branch detective. Because he was the son of a Republican martyr, he was given a last-minute reprieve and was transferred to Port Laoise Prison, in County Laois. In Port Laoise, he and his fellow prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms or follow the routine. They spent years in solitary confinement, naked, wearing only blankets. Their resistance culminated in the death, by a hunger and thirst strike, of Sedn McCaughey in 1946.

      Two of the three Macs and other hard-liners who helped reorganize the IRA were not universally loved, at least not by their comrades in the Curragh. Uinseann Mac Eoin’s The IRA in the Twilight Years: 1923–1948 offers interviews with people interned with Magan and McLogan. Life in the camp was rough, and because they were internees-they were never charged with a crime-there was no release date in sight. Fianna Fdil exacerbated the situation by offering parole to prisoners who recognized the state and pledged to forgo future participation in the Republican Movement. Some prisoners accepted the offer. The camp split over the best approach: take a hard line and refuse compromise with the authorities versus go softly and get through it. Magan and McLogan were with the hard-liners. Depending upon one’s perspective, they were part of a group of disciplined orthodox soldiers or they were autocratic martinets. When the division came, the hard-liners made their choice and stuck with it. An ex-internee who was on the other side of the divide recalls saying hello to Magan. “F off" was the reply. Another ex-internee describes Paddy McLogan as “a gand man, but if Paddy ever went to heaven he would cause trouble there; it was in his nature to cause trouble.” Yet because of their steadfast position, people such as Magan and McLogan kept the movement alive after the 1940s campaign. Their convictions got them through the Curragh; their convictions helped them reorganize the IRA and Sinn Ftin. To young recruits such as Ó Brádaigh, the three Macs provided an example of how to sustain and lead the Republican Movement.

      The IRA’S headquarters were also in Dublin. As he continued his studies and attended Sinn FCin meetings, Ó Brádaigh sought membership in that organization. He figured out who in Sinn FCin was also in the IRA and mentioned that he wanted to join. The next time he met the person, he asked “Did you do anything about that?” To an eager recruit, the process was slow. About six months after joining Sinn Ftin, he was admitted to a recruits class that had five or six other potential IRA members. The class was directed by Michedl “Pasha" Ó Donnabhdin (Michael O’Donovan), a staff member of the Dublin unit. His lectures covered things such as the Constitution of the IRA, the Army’s general orders, and Irish and Irish Republican history. His job was to separate the reliable from the unreliable. He reported on who was ready to move from recruit to volunteer and who was not. Some never moved out of recruits classes. Ó Brádaigh, who was courteous, well-educated, and obviously motivated, quickly moved from recruit to IRA volunteer. He formally pledged the declaration (word of honor) to the Irish Republican Army in a ceremony held at 44 Parnell Square in Dublin; the building has been in Republican hands for decades.

      Ó Brádaigh was fairly typical of IRA recruits at this time. He was in his late teens and he was the child of activists from the 1916–1923 period. The fact that he was a second-generation Republican in and of itself probably did not influence his admittance to the IRA. A recruiting officer might find a parent’s activities interesting, but recruiting officers are most interested in the merits of the recruit. Yet the Republican background of someone like him would have been so self-evident that his recruitment into the IRA was natural. According to senior Republicans at the time, Ó Brádaigh’s background “was written all over him.” He describes himself as “ready made”; it was evident to senior Republicans. If necessary, informal background checks were readily available. After joining the IRA, Ó Brádaigh for a time reported directly to Tony Magan as he sought to organize a unit in Longford. He was amazed at how much Magan knew about Longford. In the early 1950s, the Republican Movement was not very large, but its networks connected people throughout the country. Ó Brádaigh later discovered that Magan’s sisters lived in Longford. Through them, Magan knew what was happening there. He also knew of Matt Brady and May Brady Twohig; one of his sisters had been captain of St. Ita’s camogie team. These connections probably did not significantly influence Ó Brádaigh’s recruitment into the IRA. If he had been found unreliable, he would not have been accepted. Being from good stock was a bonus, but it was not essential.

      In joining the IRA, the young recruits were not joining a country club or fraternal organization. They were joining a guerrilla army that was planning for war. In this they were not unique to Ireland. From the late 1940s through the 1950s, there were a number of active guerrilla campaigns throughout the world in places such as Aden, Algeria, Cuba, Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, Palestine, and Vietnam. On July 26, 1953, Castro began the military campaign that resulted in his seizing control of Cuba on January 1, 1959. In Vietnam, Dien Bien Phu fell in May 1954, marking the end of French control in Vietnam. The guerrillas involved in these events were inspired by nationalism and were given the opportunity for campaigns by the decline of the colonial powers after World War 11. The 1960s would be the decade of student protest, but the 1950s was the decade of the guerrilla. Irish Republicans were aware of other guerrilla wars, in part because many of them, including those in Cyprus and Kenya, were directed against British forces. Many of the volunteers viewed 1916 as the first of the assaults against the British empire in the twentieth century. Colonialism appeared to be dying, and it appeared that other nations had passed by the Irish. The young volunteers believed it was their job to finish the Irish struggle for independence.

      Combining his studies with his Republican activities, Ó Brádaigh soon became a recruiting officer for the IRA in Dublin and in Longford. On weekends and holidays he took the train, hopped a bus, or hitched a ride home and began reorganizing the Longford IRA; one ride was given by Sein Mac Eoin, who described Matt Brady’s activities to him. Organizing Longford required effort. The Free State had killed key people such as Barney Casey and Richard Goss, constitutional politics had attracted others, and the rest were too old and too tired. Ó Brádaigh began by taking part in Longford’s Easter Commemorations. At Easter 1951, the commemoration was at Killoe Cemetery, the burial site of Barney Casey. A parade, headed by the Drumlish Brass Band, marched to the cemetery. Casey’s family was there; Matt Casey was to become a fixture at Longford Easter commemorations, leading the way, bearing the Irish flag. Among those in attendance at this and subsequent commemorations were people from the previous generation, including May Brady Twohig, Hubert Wilson, Pat and Maggie Healy, and Sein F. Lynch, who was still on the County Council as an Independent Republican, and younger people, including Sein and Mary Ó Brádaigh and SeAn F. Lynch’s son, also named Sein.

      There is a routine to Easter commemorations: the 1916 Proclamation and the IRKS Easter message are read to the crowd, as is the County Roll of Honour, a list of names of Longford’s soldiers who have died in the fight for Irish independence. A decade of the rosary is recited in Irish; The Last Post, Taps, and Reveille are sounded by a bugler; and wreaths are laid on behalf of relatives and various organizations, such as Sinn Féin or Óglaigh na Éireann (the IRA’S Irish name). One person usually presides over the ceremonies and introduces the keynote speaker, who is usually the most prominent Republican available. At Easter 1951 in Longford, the main oration was given by Michael Traynor of Belfast and later of