Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 ‘The Centre of Delight of the Household’: 1904–1916
- 2 ‘Fighting the Tans at Fourteen’: 1916–1918
- 3 Seán MacBride's Irish Revolution: 1919–1921
- 4 Rising through the Ranks: 1921–1926
- 5 ‘The Driving Force of the Army’: 1926–1932
- 6 ‘The Guiding Influence of the Mass of the People should be the IRA’: 1932–1937
- 7 Becoming Legitimate? 1938–1940
- 8 ‘Standing Counsel to the Illegal Organisation’: 1940–1942
- 9 ‘One of the Most Dangerous Men in the Country’: 1942–1946
- Epilogue
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Becoming Legitimate? 1938–1940
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 ‘The Centre of Delight of the Household’: 1904–1916
- 2 ‘Fighting the Tans at Fourteen’: 1916–1918
- 3 Seán MacBride's Irish Revolution: 1919–1921
- 4 Rising through the Ranks: 1921–1926
- 5 ‘The Driving Force of the Army’: 1926–1932
- 6 ‘The Guiding Influence of the Mass of the People should be the IRA’: 1932–1937
- 7 Becoming Legitimate? 1938–1940
- 8 ‘Standing Counsel to the Illegal Organisation’: 1940–1942
- 9 ‘One of the Most Dangerous Men in the Country’: 1942–1946
- Epilogue
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
At the beginning of 1939, MacBride was at a crossroads. The disfiguring fallout of the feud with Seán Russell, a feud in which MacBride was significantly invested, had led to the departure of most of the IRA ‘old guard’ during the heated 1938 Army Convention. MacBride had officially ended his active membership of the IRA, the organisation through which he had defined his personal and political sense of self for two decades. In many respects, it was an opportune time to sever links with the IRA which, under Russell's stewardship, had embarked on a dangerous new strategy designed to satisfy the militants who had long grown impatient with ‘political’ intrigues. The first step in this programme was the transfer in December 1938 of legitimate republican authority from the ghostly remnants of the Second Dail to the Army Council of the IRA. This was closely followed, on 12 January 1939, by an ultimatum addressed to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, demanding ’the withdrawal of all British armed forces stationed in Ireland. When the deadline passed – apparently to the general disinterest of the British authorities – the scheme known as ‘S-Plan’ (or Sabotage Plan) was implemented.
This was the brainchild of James O'Donovan, the former Director of Chemicals for the IRA, now an engineer for the Electricity Supply Board and married to Monty Barry. Scathingly described by Todd Andrews as ‘the most foolish and irresponsible act which bedevilled Anglo-Irish relations in my lifetime’, the ‘S-Plan’ has often been viewed as a bungling, blundering stopgap between the lethal efficiency of both the Fenian dynamitards of the 1880s and the Provisional IRA terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s, both movements which targeted civilian life in Britain. More recent scholarship, however, has emphasised the sophistication of the original scope of ‘S-Plan’, which was conceived by O'Donovan as a blueprint for the effective paralysis of English public utilities and transport infrastructure.
On 16 January, the planned operations were set in motion; explosions at seven major power stations across England signalled the beginning of the bombing campaign. Some aspects of the ‘S-Plan’ have an uncomfortable contemporary resonance, particularly the planting of bombs by the IRA in London underground stations and on London buses.
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- Seán MacBrideA Republican Life, 1904–1946, pp. 126 - 150Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011