Seán MacBride (26 January 1904 – 15 January 1988) was an Irish republican activist, politician, and diplomat who served as Minister for External Affairs from 1948 to 1951, Leader of Clann na Poblachta from 1946 to 1965 and Chief of Staff of the IRA from 1936 to 1937. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1947 to 1957.
Rising from a domestic Irish political career, he founded or participated in multiple international organisations of the 20th century, including the United Nations, the Council of Europe and Amnesty International. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974, the Lenin Peace Prize for 1975–1976 and the UNESCO Silver Medal for Service in 1980.
Early life MacBride was born in Paris in 1904, the son of Maud Gonne and Major John MacBride.Saturday Evening Post; 23 April 1949, Vol. 221 Issue 43, pp. 31–174, 5p As a founding member of Inghinidhe na hÉireann and Cumann na mBan, his mother was to become a prominent figure in Irish nationalist and republican circles. Later, in the 1930s, she became a devotee of the social credit ideas of Major C.H. Douglas and was "noisily anti-Semitic". His father had led the Irish Transvaal Brigade against the British in the Second Boer War. Within a year of MacBride's birth, he returned to Dublin where, following his participation in the Easter Rising, John MacBride was court-martialed by the British and executed in May 1916.Jordan Anthony J. The Yeats Gonne MacBride Triangle (Westport Books 2000) pp. 49–104
MacBride's first language was French, and he retained, or, as some would claim, affected, a French accent in the English language for the rest of his life. MacBride first studied at the Jesuit Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague, and remained in Paris until his father's execution in 1916, when he was sent to school at Mount St Benedict's, Gorey, County Wexford in Ireland, and briefly at the Downside School.
MacBride first became involved in politics during the 1918 Irish general election in which he was active for Sinn Féin. The following year in 1919, aged 15, he lied about his age to join the Irish Volunteers, which fought as part of the Irish Republican Army, and took part in the Irish War of Independence. He opposed the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and was imprisoned by the Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War.
Anti-Treaty IRA, cooperation with the Soviets On his release in 1924, MacBride studied law at University College Dublin and resumed his IRA activities.Jordan (1993), p. 41. He worked briefly for Éamon de Valera as his personal secretary, travelling with him to Rome to meet various dignitaries.
In January 1925, on his twenty-first birthday, MacBride married Catalina "Kid" Bulfin, a woman four years his senior who shared his political views.Jordan (1993), p. 42. Bulfin was the daughter of the Irish nationalist publisher and travel-writer William Bulfin.
Before returning to Dublin in 1927, where he became the IRA's Director of Intelligence, MacBride worked as a journalist in Paris and London.
According to historians Tom Mahon and James J. Gillogly, recently deciphered IRA messages from the 1920s reveal that the organisation's two main sources of funding were Clan na Gael and the Soviet Union.Tom Mahon and James J. Gillogly (2008), Decoding the IRA, Mercier Press, Cork City. Page 251. The messages further reveal that MacBride, before becoming IRA Director of Intelligence, was involved in the espionage activities in Great Britain of GRU spymaster Walter Krivitsky, whom ciphered IRA communications referred to only by the code name "James".Tom Mahon and James J. Gillogly (2008), Decoding the IRA, Mercier Press, Cork City. Pages 253–262.
In addition to supplying the USSR with detailed information on Royal Navy ships and Royal Air Force aeroplane engines, MacBride provided Soviet agents with "a brief specification and a complete drawing" of ASDIC, an early sonar system for detecting submarines, at a covert meeting in Amsterdam during the autumn of 1926.Tom Mahon and James J. Gillogly (2008), Decoding the IRA, Mercier Press, Cork City. Pages 253–254. MacBride also assisted the GRU by providing forged passports to Soviet intelligence operatives who were at risk of capture.Tom Mahon and James J. Gillogly (2008), Decoding the IRA, Mercier Press, Cork City. Page 254.
In October 1926, MacBride sent a ciphered report from Paris to his IRA superiors about Soviet counterfeiting operations, saying, "Several bad Bank of England notes have been passed here lately. These are said to emanate from Russia."Tom Mahon and James J. Gillogly (2008), Decoding the IRA, Mercier Press, Cork City. Page 256.
Soon after his return to Dublin in 1927, he was arrested and charged with the murder of politician Kevin O'Higgins, who had been assassinated near his home in Booterstown, County Dublin. At his trial, however, Cumann na nGaedheal politician Bryan Cooper testified as a witness for the defence that, at the time of Kevin O'Higgins' murder, both he and MacBride had been aboard a ferry travelling from Britain to Ireland. MacBride was then charged with being a subversive and interned in Mountjoy Prison.Jordan (1993), p. 47.
In September 1927, Krivitsky sent the IRA a message from Amsterdam, demanding to see MacBride immediately, claiming to have a "present" he was anxious to give away, and naming a cafe where the meeting could take place. As MacBride was then imprisoned in Dublin, the IRA's chief of staff, Moss Twomey, replied that the request was "rather awkward and impossible to fulfill at the present". In response, Twomey and two other senior IRA members travelled to Amsterdam and met with Krivitsky instead.Tom Mahon and James J. Gillogly (2008), Decoding the IRA, Mercier Press, Cork City. Page 262.
In 1929 an Irish section of the League Against Imperialism was formed and MacBride served as its secretary. Aimed at creating a "mass anti-imperialist movement", the organization was founded with the support of the Comintern.
Towards the end of the 1920s, after many supporters had left to join Fianna Fáil, some members of the IRA started pushing for a more left-wing agenda. After the IRA Army Council voted down the idea, MacBride launched a new movement, Saor Éire ("Free Ireland"), in 1931. Although it was a non-military organisation, Saor Éire was declared unlawful along with the IRA, Cumann na mBan and nine other bodies. MacBride, meanwhile, became the security services' number-one target.Jordan (1993), p. 57.
In 1936, the IRA's chief of staff Moss Twomey was sent to prison for three years; he was replaced by MacBride. At the time, the movement was in a state of disarray, with conflicts between several factions and personalities. Tom Barry was appointed chief of staff to head up a military operation against the British, an action with which MacBride did not agree.Jordan (1993), p. 70.
In 1937, MacBride was called to the bar. He then resigned from the IRA when the Constitution of Ireland was enacted later that year. As a barrister, MacBride frequently defended IRA prisoners of the state (Thomas Hart & Patrick McGrath). MacBride was unsuccessful in preventing the 1944 death by hanging of Charlie Kerins, who had been convicted based on fingerprint evidence of the 1942 ambush and murder of Garda Detective Sergeant Denis O'Brien. In 1946, during the inquest into the death of Seán McCaughey, MacBride embarrassed the Irish State by forcing them to admit that conditions in Portlaoise Prison were inhumane.
Clann na Poblachta, Minister for External Affairs
In 1946, MacBride founded the republican party Clann na Poblachta. He hoped it would replace Fianna Fáil as Ireland's major political party. In October 1947, he won the Dublin County by-election. On the same day, Patrick Kinane also won the Tipperary by-election for Clann na Poblachta.Jordan (1993), pp. 86–98
However, at the 1948 general election Clann na Poblachta won only ten seats. The party joined Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Talmhan and several independents to form the First Inter-Party Government with Fine Gael TD John A. Costello as Taoiseach. Richard Mulcahy was the Leader of Fine Gael, but MacBride and many other Irish Republicans had never forgiven Mulcahy for his role in carrying out 77 executions under the government of the Irish Free State in the 1920s during the Irish Civil War. To gain the support of Clann na Poblachta, Mulcahy stepped aside in favour of Costello. Two Clann na Poblachta TDs were appointed to cabinet; MacBride became Minister for External Affairs while Noël Browne became Minister for Health.
On his ministerial accession, MacBride sent a telegram to Pope Pius XII offering: ...to repose at the feet of Your Holiness the assurance of our filial loyalty and our devotion to Your August Person, as well as our firm resolve to be guided in all our work by the teaching of Christ and to strive for the attainment of a social order in Ireland based on Christian principles.
At MacBride's suggestion, Costello nominated the northern Protestant Denis Ireland to Seanad Éireann, the first resident of Northern Ireland to be appointed as a member of the Oireachtas. While a Senator (1948–1951), Ireland was Irish representative to the Council of Europe assisting MacBride in the leading role he was to play in securing acceptance of the European Convention on Human Rights—signed in Rome on 4 November 1950.William Schabas (2012). "Ireland, The European Convention on Human Rights, and the Personal Contribution of Seán MacBride," in Judges, Transition, and Human Rights, John Morison, Kieran McEvoy, and Gordon Anthony eds., Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2012 In 1950, MacBride was president of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Council of Europe, and he was vice-president of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC, later OECD) in 1948–1951. He was responsible for Ireland not joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).Jordan (1993), p. 115
He was instrumental in passing of The Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which repealed the External Relations Act, and came into force in 1949. It declared that Ireland may officially be described as the Republic of Ireland and that the president of Ireland had the executive authority of the state in its external relations.
In 1951, MacBride ordered Noël Browne to resign as a minister over the Mother and Child Scheme after it was attacked by the Irish Catholic hierarchy and the Irish medical establishment.Jordan (1993), pp. 125–140 Whatever the merits of the scheme, or of Browne, MacBride concluded in a cabinet memorandum: Even if, as Catholics, we were prepared to take the responsibility of disregarding [the Hierarchy's] views, which I do not think we can do, it would be politically impossible to do so ... We are dealing with the considered views of the leaders of the Catholic Church to which the vast majority of our people belong; these views cannot be ignored.Ronan Fanning (6 December 2009) The age of our craven deference is finally over . Irish Independent.
Also in 1951, Clann na Poblachta was reduced to two seats after the general election. MacBride held his seat and was re-elected again in 1954. Opposing the internment of IRA suspects during the Border Campaign (1956–1962), he contested both the 1957 and 1961 general elections but failed to be elected both times. He then retired from politics and continued practising as a barrister.
International roles and commissions