There was not much Ó Brádaigh or any other Republican in a similar situation could do about harassment like this. It was all legal. In fact, they were aware that they could have been charged and convicted for refusing to answer questions. One night in jail was getting off easy. Ó Brádaigh did take advantage of his position as a TD and released a statement that was picked up by the Longford Leader and the Westmeath Examiner. It ends with, “I am anxious that the people of LongfordIWestmeath who elected me to an All-Ireland Parliament four years ago should know of the treatment meted out last week to their elected representative and his companion by the 26-County police. There was no explanation offered and no apology.”
The campaign, as Tony Magan complained, had been reduced to a series of incidents against the RUC. In the south, the state harassed Republicans. In the north, where the IRA was attacking them, the RUC response was more harsh. In August 1958, the RUC crossed the border with County Cavan and ambushed a Sinn Féin organizer, James Crossan. It is believed that they were going to seize him and take him across the border for arrest. Crossan was found dead on the Cavan side of the border. No one was ever prosecuted for his death. In December 1960 or January 1961, an IRA unit in Monaghan reported to the Army Council that a member of the RUC was regularly crossing the border, either dressed in civilian clothes or with a civilian coat over his uniform, his cap left behind. Local informants reported that he was involved with a 15-year-old girl who lived in County Monaghan. The constable, Norman Anderson, was also known to drive around the area in an automobile. He had been crossing the border for six months and he was being watched by the IRA. He was either very foolish or he was spying; given that it was the hottest area along the border, the local IRA suspected that he was spying and asked the Army Council for permission to assassinate him. As chief of staff, Ó Brádaigh was one of those who ruled on the request. Anderson was not a “target of opportunity"-the Army Council had time to weigh the facts and make an informed decision. But from the perspective of members of the council, the evidence strongly supported the assertion that Anderson was engaged in espionage. They sanctioned his killing. On January 27th, 1961, after leaving his girlfriend’s house, he was shot dead on the County Fermanagh side of the border. The Belfast Newsletter later referred to the attack as one of the “savage crimes" of the campaign, noting that Anderson’s coat had fifteen bullet holes. The killing was condemned by political leaders on both sides of the border.
Subsequent events supported the interpretation of Ó Brádaigh and the IRA that Anderson had been engaged in espionage. Immediately after the assassination, RUC personnel vanished from the border areas. An RUC member who was visiting a shop in Clones at the time of the assassination was phoned from the RUC’s Newtownbutler Barracks and told to stay there until they picked him up. Phones in the area were not on a dial system and the call was intercepted by an IRA sympathizer. The attack on Anderson was explained in a leaflet distributed the following week with the title “The Penalty Is Death.” With reason, and to the IRA’S benefit, RUC personnel were more careful after Anderson’s death. Anderson’s killing marked the beginning of a series of attacks that included mining bridges, cutting up roads, and blowing up customs houses. It was a shortlived resurgence in the campaign.
In August 1961, Sein Lemass, as Taoiseach, announced a general election to be held in early October. With four TDs up for re-election, it was a chance for the movement to complement the military campaign with electoral success. Lemass also announced that the state would apply for membership in the Common Market, the precursor of the European Union. In discussing the application, Irish leaders made it clear that they would follow through on the application only if the British followed through on their application; they were following the British lead. Most people in Ireland supported the application to join the Common Market. It was evident to virtually everyone that something had to be done to the Irish economy; as reported in The United Irishman, over 1,000 people a week were emigrating. Many people also believed that with Ireland and the United Kingdom in the Market the border with Northern Ireland would no longer be necessary, that membership in the Common Market would help cause the border to wither away. In the face of widespread support for joining the Market, Sinn Féin was strident in its opposition. The party position, which Ó Brádaigh supported, was that the application was driven by British politicians and the needs of the British economy rather than by Irish politicians who, they believed, should focus on creating an Irish economy that was less dependent on the British economy. Further, they believed that membership in the Common Market would not cause the border to wither away but in fact might further enmesh the border in a political bureaucracy that would make it more difficult to reunite the Republic of IrelandITwenty-Six Counties with Northern Ireland. Finally, membership in the Common Market posed a potential threat to Irish culture. Ó Brádaigh addressed the issue in August 1961 at an aeraiocht at Loch Bin on the Meath-Westmeath border.
An aeraiocht is a cultural festival; Sein Mac Eoin had used one as a cover for an IRA Brigade Council meeting the day Matt Brady was shot in 1919. At Loch Bin, the program included a champion ballad singer, a pipe band, troupes of Irish dancers in traditional costume, and traditional Irish singers. There was also a children’s choir-composed entirely of native Irish-speakers-from Athboy in the County Meath Gaeltacht. In his first public address in nearly twelve months, Ó Brádaigh commented on the “three car-loads of detectives" in the area and then focused on the importance of Irish culture. He praised the “fine turn-out to support our native language, music, dancing and singing.” It was a tribute to the crowd’s “sincerity and earnestness in the cause of Irish-Ireland.” He urged the crowd to “to cling even more tenaciously to our cultural heritage. The forces of materialism and commercialism are stronger than ever today.” And he addressed the potential impact if Ireland joined the Common Market: “Not alone is the political and economic objective our fathers fought for being lost sight of in the move to link a divided, dependent and underdeveloped Ireland with the European Common Market countries. Our Gaelic civilisation-that is, what remains of it-may be completely swamped.”
The economic situation, the application to the Common Market, and the loss of support for the IRA’S campaign all worked against Sinn FCin. In the spring of 1957, the campaign was fresh and the deaths of O’HanIon and South had generated sympathy for the cause. By 1961, much of the support had faded away. None of Sinn Ftin’s candidates was elected and the first-preference vote fell from more than 65,640 in 1957 to 36,393. In contrast, Fianna FBil received 512,000 first-preference votes; Fine Gael received 374,000, and Labour 136,000. Fianna FBil formed another government with SeAn Lemass as Taoiseach. Compared to the local elections the year before, the results were disappointing, and some people wondered if the problem was abstentionism-locally elected Sinn FCiners took their seats and represented the people, but Leinster House candidates did not. As for Ó Brádaigh, unlike 1957, he received only 2,598 first-preference votes. In his concession speech, he thanked “that gallant band of election workers in both counties who did not spare themselves in their efforts for the All-Ireland Republic.” Taking advantage of the opportunity, he also made political points. He noted that “this is my first time to speak here at the conclusion of a count. On the last occasion I was in jail under a Coercion Act. When I was elected here in 1957 one of the Fianna FAil T.D.s returned said that they could now form a government and they ’would rule with an iron hand.’ We have felt that iron hand.”
I, the newly-elected Sinn Féin T.D., was taken from jail and thrown into the Curragh Concentration Camp. I was held there without charge or trial for well over a year until I escaped from it. Had we been successful