Early Life
O'Riordan was born at 37 Pope's Quay, Cork City, on 11 November 1917. He was the youngest of five children. His parents came from the West Cork Gaeltacht of Ballingeary-Gougane Barra. Despite his parents being native speakers of the Irish language, it was not until O'Riordan was interned in the Curragh camp during the Second World War that he learnt Irish, being taught by fellow internee Máirtín Ó Cadhain who went on to lecture in Trinity College, Dublin.
As a teenager, he joined the republican youth movement, Fianna Éireann, and then the Irish Republican Army. The IRA at the time was inclined towards left wing politics and socialism. Much of its activity at the time concerned street fighting with the quasi-fascist Blueshirt movement and O'Riordan fought Blueshirt fascism on the streets of Cork City in 1933-34. O'Riordan was friends with left-wing inclined republicans such as Peadar O'Donnell and Frank Ryan, and in 1934, he followed them into the Republican Congress - a short-lived socialist republican party.
Read more about this topic: Michael O'Riordan
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