THE GAA’s FASCIST MANIFESTO

With World War II in full spate and five Totalitarian National Dictators strutting the world stage – Adolf Hitler in Germany, Josef Stalin in the Soviet Union, Francisco Franco in Spain, Benito Mussolini in Italy and António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal – Ireland’s Gaelic Athletic Association outgrew its sporting boots and in 1942 published a Fascist Manifesto for the National Recovery of Ireland.

Four years after the GAA’s successful 1938 dismissal of the Protestant President of Ireland Douglas Hyde from his position as Patron of the GAA owing to his attendance at an international soccer match – a duty he was required to perform – the GAA demanded the total abolition of democratic parties and the democratic process in Ireland and the erection of an authoritarian National Roman Catholic Government [based on militant Roman Catholic Parish Councils] to Make Ireland Gaelic, Catholic and Separate.

“The only hope for our national recovery must be based on national unity, and Party Politics will never accomplish this.

The only effective way to secure unity therefore is to eliminate Proportional Representation and Party Politics, and all other serious sources of national disunion.”

The GAA’s Green Book sold out and was reprinted and republished many times over many years right up to and including the 1960s.

IRELAND – NOT ONLY FREE, BUT GAELIC

“Gaelic Ireland saved Europe for Civilisation and Christianity before the Middle Ages.

Our duty now, and our only hope for a national future, lies in making Ireland once again, not only free but Gaelic, not only Gaelic but a missionary power and example of practical Christianity in the only way that twentieth century scepticism will heed, it – a successful example of an exemplary Christian State.

Will Young Ireland accept the challenge of this great and heroic task, to brace itself, in Unity and Faith, for a Glorious Future; or will it continue its downward course, through National Idleness, Foreign Imitation and Social Slavery, towards inevitable national defeat?

Having seen what our people did, and were prepared to do, in 1916-21 without being well organised, I believe that this rising generation will respond, and in this belief, in the Name of God and of Ireland, I call upon enlightened young men and women, from “The Four Green Fields.” to rally round National Action.

NEGROES AND JAZZ NOT WANTED

National games and pastimes are those which have been developed in association with national characteristics and traditions.

Cricket and Rugby football, for example, have pronouncedly British associations ; Baseball is American and Hurling, Handball and Gaelic Football are definitely Irish.

Jazz is a Negro production, while Irish dancing is traditionally Gaelic.

Dancing is a universal, and, of course, a legitimate form of amusement.

Forms of so-called dancing, not in conformity with either Christian or Irish standards, have come into this country from abroad in recent years.

These negroid imitations, and their many undesirable associations, like an epidemic out of hand, have ramified through every corner of the Country.

Foreign fashion and snobbery have adopted them.

It will take National Fashion, backed by National Spirit, to drive them out.

RIGHT TYPE OF DICTATOR WANTED

Many persons assert that we require a Dictator in this country; this is a very easy solution.

A Dictator will be expected to solve everything ; but Dictators are not found or selected. They usually find and select themselves. They then impose their will on a country for better or worse.

Dictators have a tendency to fall away from the narrow path promulgated on The Mount, and to become imperialistic or tyrannical. It is the one who becomes a tyrant who will see to it that he is not removed.

Moreover, when a Dictator vacates his office, or is overthrown, the country may be plunged into greater confusion than ever.

The right type of Dictator is very rare ; the wrong type is very dangerous ; however, if we can get the right type well and good for the time being.

JEWS NOT WANTED

By 1942, Irish newspapers had fully informed their readers of the precarious situation of Jews across Europe and Herr Hitler’s intent to exterminate them:

“The War can only end with the extermination of the Germanic Aryan people or the extermination of the Jews.

For the first time the old Jewish law of retribution, ‘an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ will be applied.”

Adolf Hitler, radio broadcast, Jan 30, 1942: Irish Independent, 31/01/1942, p.3

Although nominally neutral, Spain’s Dictator, Francisco Franco, cooperated with the Nazis and secretly supplied a register of Spain’s Jews to the Nazi regime.

The Spanish fascist Falange party – an extreme right wing Catholic grouping – threatened the forcible expulsion of Jews from Spain:

“Threat of strong action against enemies of the Spanish Government was made by Senor Luna Melendez, Vice-Secretary General of the Falange Party, at Caceres, Reuter reports.

He said that the Falange had come to preach a doctrine for the salvation of Spain.

For them there were only two roads, that “of justice and the Kingdom of God” and that “of the wrath of God” and since the people had paid no attention to the road of the Kingdom of God, “we are tired of preaching.”

He forecast action to expel Jews from Spain “with what means may be necessary in order to achieve unity of doctrine.”

Irish Independent, Jan 17, 1942, p.3

A rising tide of anti-Semitism was reported in Irish newspapers, such as in the Waterford Standard in March, 1942:

This week Jews have been going around shops in Waterford buying various articles for no other reason than to monopolise them.

It is not right that towns should be so raided in this way and things of everyday use made scarce so as to enrich such Jewish parasites.”

Waterford Standard, March 7, 1942

By the time the GAA published its Manifesto for a racially pure Ireland in December, 1942, there was no doubting that references to “aliens” meant Jews.

Irish people are almost foolishly liberal in their business and trade relations.

Groups or sections that organise themselves financially or otherwise against them acquire, therefore, tremendous advantages, out of all proportion to their numbers.

It would appear that aliens, particularly of a certain class, take decided steps to ensure that the great bulk of the capital which falls into their hands does not again revert to the Irish people, except in unavoidable circumstances.

The rapidity by which aliens are accumulating property in this country would pointedly indicate the existence of some such financial understanding.

Infiltration of aliens, who automatically become entitled to the same rights as Irish citizens, and who are possibly backed from abroad by powerful international financial organisations, must also be firmly dealt with, before the consequences create serious trouble for us, as well as for themselves.

As one of the initial steps of National Action, a National Government must deal firmly with aliens and undesirable infiltration, as well as with the suppression of secret societies.

National unity must be as complete and unrelenting as the forces of the national mischief it is called upon to destroy. If we are in earnest we shall succeed. If we are not in earnest we need not try.

Aliens, and those who are opposed to what is becoming once again “The Hidden Ireland ”, are coming gradually into full and open control.

Will the Irish people allow this to proceed?

BIRTH CONTROL IS RACE SUICIDE

Some of the wealthiest countries in the world have falling populations : not because of economic stringency but from deliberate violation of the law of Christ.

The most race-ravaging and insidious world cause of small families, or no families, to-day, is race suicide, or immoral birth control.

This national blight, State-encouraged in several countries, has already, in our own time, brought some of the greatest and proudest nations on earth to their knees.

The plague is spreading.

In a non-organised country like ours, prone to imitate, it would be too much to hope that we should escape entirely from this race-rotting iniquity.

It is vigorously, but rather single-handedly opposed by the Catholic Church.

This evil cannot be stamped out by the Church alone. The Church’s efforts must be equally and positively supported by the State.

Neither half-measures, restraint, “kid gloves” nor political caution will avail against it.

First offence warnings and petty fines for traffickers must be replaced, without mitigation, by penal servitude, expulsion of aliens and the lash.

THE POPES IN ROME

Appeal was made to the Popes in Rome for advice on Economy and to Nazi-collaborator Marshal Petain for references to public responsibilities.

Very big incomes are accompanied by very small ones; opulence and extravagance are associated with poverty and want, and the wanton discontent of the rich arid the starving discontent of the poor are also in close association.

This same cause has spread ruin and death all over the world, breeding war and Communism and the other paganisms which trouble humanity to-day.

His Holiness Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical to America “True and False Prosperity”, 1939 — was referring to these conditions when he stated:— God does not wish that some should have excessive wealth, while others are in such straits that they lack the necessities of life”, and Pius XI was dealing with the same thing when he wrote:- “No system of property can meet with the Church’s approval unless it secures such a distribution of ownership that the needs of all persons and classes are properly satisfied” (Social Order).

How different is this from the Capitalistic idea that “Business is Business”, need conform to no Christian Law, and may with impunity override the rights and even the very person of the individual?

“To recognise a man’s rights without enforcing his duties corrupts him; to enforce his duties without recognising his rights enslaves him” (Marshal Petain).

Nazi collaborator Marshal Pétain was sentenced to death after WWII, but had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment by General Charles de Gaulle.

Over 76,000 Jews were deported from France to Nazi concentration camps between 1940 and 1943. Fewer than 3,000 returned alive.

The only National Economic Policy by which we can maintain ourselves successfully, and progress healthfully, in present world circumstances is:

To economise, to avoid waste, to live within our means, and to prevent extravagance and wanton luxuries, amongst any section of the community.

The State has a right, according to Christian Teaching, to insist that this is carried out for the common good.

The three great Popes of our time, who have dealth extensively with this subject, Leo XIII, Pius XI, and the reigning Pope, Pius XII, have all emphasised the right of the State to act thus.

They have denied that the right to acquire, to hold, or to use property is absolute or unconditional.

ROMAN CATHOLIC PARISH COUNCILS

If we have courage and faith in ourselves, Parish Guilds and Councils shouid be as good and as practical a system of local organisation, in association with a National Government, as can otherwise be devised.

The parish unit is, historically, traditionally, socially, and otherwise well established.

Individuals in the parish unit would represent all classes of the community more fully than those of any other unit that could be formed, and this is exactly what we require. The parish is the next stage to the family in national organisation. The family is also the basic unit of Christianity.

Permanent Parish Organisation has never before been tried by any Government in this country, but this need not necessarily dissuade us from adopting it.

Some years ago Father Hayes founded the organisation called Muintir na Tire. The object of this organisation, as set out in its Constitution, is to promote the true welfare of Ireland – spiritual, national, cultural and material, by the application of Catholic Social Principles.

Those principles are accepted generally, even by most non-Catholics, as embracing the universal social application of Christianity.

Appeal was made to Portugal’s Dictator, Antonio Salazar:

When he became Prime Minister in 1928, Salazar found in Portugal what we have now, cumbersome Departments and systems of all kinds under the Political Party System.

He found Portugal poor and insolvent, that is in paper money. Instead of reducing his country to greater insolvency still by pursuing the usual and the easy method of borrowing millions of money, he put his financial faith in simple economies — in the economic instinct of a good housewife, who lives within her means — backed by his own example and a Christian, national, co-operative spirit in the people.

The revolution of 1910, which did away with the Monarchy, also banished the Cross.

Because the Monarchy supported Catholicism, the Church was held responsible for many things for which, of course, the abuse of Christ’s Teaching was really to blame.

Salazar put the Crucifix back in the schools, and made the Cross once again the national symbol of the new Portugal, as a vital part of his plan for the rehabilitation of his country.

You may read your own copy of the GAA’s Fascist Manifesto here.