camp. Some internees who had become convinced that the Irish soldiers guarding them would not shoot escaping internees organized an unofficial escape. Early in December 1958, during another football match, Charlie Murphy and another internee ran to the fence and cut a large hole. As they held the fence open, groups of internees ran off over the fields. When the guards realized what was happening they fired shots over their heads. Sixteen men got away before the shots and tear gas brought the situation under control. Only two of them were rearrested. Although it was a success, the escape violated IRA policies and Mac Curtdin was furious. IRA general regulations state that members who engage in unofficial operations incur automatic dismissal. Mac Curtdin sent word to the Army Council that the escape was unofficial and that, by definition, the escapees were dismissed from the IRA. Into Ó Brádaigh’s and the Army Council’s collective lap fell fourteen motivated young men seeking active service. The leadership at the Curragh considered them former IRA members, but the Army Council needed soldiers. It was a sticky situation. The pragmatic needs of the IRA outweighed Mac Curthin’s condemnation. The Army Council arranged interviews with the escapees. Each stated that his excuse for violating policy and escaping from the camp was a desire to return to active service. Each applied for readmission to the IRA and each application was accepted. Mac Curtdin was not pleased, but he could do little except complain.
The rumors of the Curragh’s imminent closing were true and the internees were released in March 1959. The end of internment reflected political changes that would have immediate and long-lasting effects in Ireland. The IRA’S campaign had slowed significantly and there was less need for internment. And 77-year-old am on de Valera was stepping down as Taoiseach and was a candidate for the Irish presidency in an election scheduled for June. Internment, an affront to civil liberties, had become a liability. The Curragh Camp was officially closed on March 15, 1959. In the presidential election, de Valera defeated Sein Mac Eoin of Fine Gael handily. Sedn Lemass, aged 60 and a 1916 veteran who had been linked with de Valera for decades, became Taoiseach. The change was part of a more general opening up of Irish society that began in the mid- to late 1950s and led to significant shifts in the Irish economy, freeing trade and encouraging foreign investment.
Closing the Curragh allowed Ó Brádaigh and O’Connell to move about more freely, but it also released Tomis Mac CurtQin and Tony Magan, who were still upset about the unofficial escape and the “conspiracy" of readmitting the escapees into the IRA. Their release also confused things; those who had led the IRA into the campaign were again available for leadership positions, while those who had filled in for them, including Ó Brádaigh, still held those positions. Just before Easter 1959, a meeting was arranged for the fifteen or sôeople who had been on either the Army Council or the Army Executive Council since December 1956. A long meeting produced two decisions. First, a statement would be circulated to all units explaining what had happened in the Curragh and, second, there would be a general Army convention.
Ó Brádaigh, an educator with obvious writing skills, was chosen to write the statement. He had also managed to remain on friendly terms with both the Curragh leadership and the dissidents. Partly this was due to his nature-even his political opponents note that he is polite and easy to get along with. It was also because of his age and position in the IRA at the time of the mass escape. He was much younger than Magan, Mac Curtiin, and McLogan and had only been in the leadership about a year when he was arrested. When he was in the Curragh, the IRA people on the outside identified more with him than they did with Magan and his peers. Yet it was Magan’s group who brought Ó Brádaigh into the IRA’S leadership. He respected them and got along with them in the Curragh. Ó Brádaigh tended to agree with the dissidents about the escape; he felt that the Curragh leadership had been too conservative. But this did not justify a blatant disregard for camp policy. Most important, he wanted to keep the IRA from splintering and he wanted to move ahead with the campaign. He discussed the situation with Cronin, who reduced the controversy to a question about the nature of the Republican Movement: Is the Republican Movement a self-perpetuating religious sect or is it the instrument of the freedom of Ireland? If it was a self-perpetuating religious sect, it was time for absolute discipline. If it was the instrument of the freedom of Ireland, then the situation had to be dealt with pragmatically. Cronin was not interested in the dispute; he wanted to get on with the campaign. Ó Brádaigh, and Diithi O’Connell, agreed with himtime was being wasted and dismissing people would be a waste of talent.
Ó Brádaigh’s document carefully laid out the facts, and both the Curragh leadership and the dissidents accepted this part of the presentation. The final paragraph stressed that IRA volunteers should guard against disunity. Mac Curtiin, who was interested in discipline, argued that the interim leadership had straddled the position: they recognized that a breach in discipline had taken place, but they allowed the violators to rejoin the IRA. He wanted vindication and had not received it. The dissidents criticized the statement from the other direction. They wanted explicit support for their actions. From their perspective, there should have been more escape attempts and the Curragh leadership had been too conservative. Neither side was satisfied, and Mac Curtiin and Magan continued to criticize Charlie Murphy, seeking his dismissal. Murphy, who was tired of the whole thing, asked for a court of inquiry. The court found against him and he resigned from the IRA. But the controversy still had not ended. Magan and Mac Curtiin believed that their reputations had been tarnished and looked to the upcoming IRA convention as an opportunity to clear their names.
The convention was held at the end of May 1959. Paddy McLogan, who had been released from the Curragh prior to the escape, was less involved in the dispute than Magan and Mac Curtiin and was elected the convention chairman. The agenda included resolutions condemning the escapees and resolutions congratulating them. When the first Curragh resolution came up for discussion, a counterresolution was offered from the floor: “That this Convention refuse to discuss the Curragh Camp and concern itself with the future of the Army and the Campaign of Resistance.” Tony Magan argued against the motion and lost. He refused to let go. After losing the vote, Magan asked that he, on behalf of the 1956 Army Council, be allowed to make the report that each outgoing Army Council presents to the delegates. Magan was granted one hour. It was a security measure; the longer a large number of Republicans are gathered, for whatever reason, the greater the likelihood that they will be discovered by the police. Magan agreed and then ignored the limit. After about two hours, with some delegates getting very angry and the possibility of a split becoming real, Paddy McLogan, as chair of the convention, finally pushed Magan into concluding.
In its final act the convention elected a new twelve-member Army Executive. Magan, Mac Curtiin, and McLogan were nominated, but Magan and Mac Curtiin asked that their names be withdrawn. The request was rejected. Each stated that he would resign if he was elected. Each was elected. At the first meeting of the new Executive Council, each resigned. They were replaced, and then a new seven-member Army Council was elected that chose Sein Cronin as its chief of staff-a decision Ó Brádaigh endorsed wholeheartedly. Cronin was ten years older, had more experience, was exceptionally able, and Ó Brádaigh had great respect for him-he considers Cronin an incredibly just person and one of the people who has had the most influence on him. Ó Brádaigh was also elected to the Army Council and became Cronin’s adjutant general. Cathal Goulding, who had returned to Ireland after six years in English prisons, was elected to the council and became quartermaster general. Others on the council included John Joe McGirl and J. B. O’Hagan.
With the clandestine activities of the IRA finally in order, Ó Brádaigh took a more public role. At a Sinn Féin rally in Mullingar, on Sunday, June 7th, he made his first public appearance in two years. He remembers the event because it was his first in-person address to his constituents and because it was the seventeenth anniversary of his father’s untimely death. He was met on the outskirts of the town by the local brass and reed band and was escorted by a fleet of cars. As reported in the Roscommon Champion, he challenged Fianna Fáil on internment, “The men who came into power simply did this and they would continue to do it until the people said ’No.”’ He spoke in Longford that evening. A week later, he made his first public appearance in Roscommon at another Sinn FCin rally. His remarks reflected his commitment to the campaign: “I undertook to sit only in an All-Ireland Republican Parliament, and I do
