Handing Away the Trump Card? Peadar O'Donnell, Fianna Fáil, and the Non-Payment of Land Annuities Campaign, 1926–32
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In August, 1923, Eamon de Valéra rose to speak from a campaign platform in the Ennis town square. As Free State troops moved forward to arrest the "President of the Irish Republic," de Valéra, in a superb piece of political theater, simply told his constituents, "They are coming for me. I am glad it was in Clare I was taken."1 His arrest symbolized the victory of the Irish Free State over the republicans in the Irish Civil War; but in less than a decade de Valéra and the defeated republicans would win a general election and in the process, gain control of the Irish Free State. According to Peadar O'Donnell and others, deValéra's appearance on another platform in Ennis—O'Donnell's non-payment of land annuities platform—made that victory possible.2 Reflecting upon that day in 1931, O'Donnell recalled that he was pleased that de Valéra had finally been dragged onto his platform in Ennis, but lamented, "I was conscious that I was handing away a trump card."3 O'Donnell argued that he was forced to do so because his own IRA had refused to lead the campaign. As a consequence, de [End Page 19] Valéra and his Fianna Fáil used the annuities issue as their trump card, during the 1932 election, to defeat Cumann na nGaedheal.
Many within the IRA, including its chief of staff, Moss Twomey, agreed with O'Donnell's contention that he gave de Valéra the issue that brought Fianna Fáil to power. Twomey, however, claimed that he had warned O'Donnell that Fianna Fáil would exploit his non-payment of land annuities campaign, which O'Donell had envisioned as a means to launch a social revolution that would destroy the Free State, and convert it into a mere election issue against Cumann na nGaedheal.4 IRA volunteer Mick McCarthy recalled that O'Donnell gave Fianna Fáil its "sharp edge weapon" when de Valéra joined O'Donnell on his platform in Ennis and concluded that de Valéra had came to power by "playing the land annuities card."5 Peter Heagarty's recent biography of O'Donnell echoes such assertions: "His agitation against land annuities brought down the Cosgrave Cumann na nGaedheal government."6
O'Donnell, Twomey, de Valéra, and thousands of other republicans spent much of 1923 and 1924 in Free State prisons contemplating the reasons for their defeat in the civil war. In general, republicans concluded that their defeat resulted from a British-sponsored coup d'etat, in which former comrades betrayed the Irish Republic by accepting the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and with it the partition of Ireland and dominion status within the British Empire. While republicans agreed on the cause of their defeat, they could not reach a consensus as to the best strategy and tactics to reestablish the republic. Post-civil war republicanism thus divided into three broad groups: negotiable republicans, absolute republicans, and social republicans. The de Valéra-led negotiable republicans, who would soon organize into the political party Fianna Fáil, maintained that a political path could yet achieve the republic. Such republicans were prepared to return to constitutional politics—that is, to enter the Free State Assembly—if it removed the oath of allegiance to the crown. While negotiable republicans searched for that political path, they increasingly began to focus on socioeconomic issues.
Mary MacSwiney, the sister of Cork's Terence MacSwiney, emerged as the leading proponent of absolute republicanism, simply maintaining "all the citizens of Ireland today are legal citizens of the Republic; some are loyal, some disloyal [the Government], but all owe the same allegiance even if...
