Frank Ryan (Irish Republican) - Republican Congress

Republican Congress

In 1933, Ryan, along with George Gilmore and Peadar O'Donnell, proposed the establishment of a new left-republican organisation to be called the Republican Congress. This would form the basis of a mass revolutionary movement appealing to the working class and small farmers. At an IRA Army Convention, they narrowly failed to gain approval for the proposal. Ryan and his allies left the IRA to set it up, with Ryan becoming editor of its eponymous newspaper. The IRA leadership reacted by suspending them to await courtmartial, while IRA volunteers who supported the Congress were stood down.

For months arguments raged both within the IRA and between the IRA and various left-wing organisations on how to deal with Government pressure, the growing Fascist tendency of Fine Gael, and whether to participate in elections, but the IRA leadership managed to keep to its traditional path, though it did actively confront the Blueshirts. In 1935, Ryan established two publishing concerns, the Cooperative Press and Liberty Press, to circumvent the difficulties in publishing left-wing material. During strikes in the first half of that year (butchers' shops in January, a tram and bus strike in March) and agitations for release of prisoners the IRA (which was still torn between a left-wing and a conservative faction and under tremendous pressure from the Government) and the Republican Congress worked together with other left-wing groups. However from June on disputes arose between the IRA and the Congress, which the following year ran into debt due to election expenses and folded.