From White Settlers to Fascists: The IRA’s Troubling Allies

Irish republicans had many natural allies during the War of Independence. Irish communities in the United States offered vital support, while revolutionaries in India and Egypt were also fighting for freedom from the British Empire. But the search for allies also led Irish republicans into far more complicated territory. Across the British Empire, they courted support not from colonised peoples, but from European settlers and their descendants in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, many of them with Irish roots. In Europe, they looked to the Vatican, despite the Catholic Church’s long-standing suspicion of republicanism and revolution. Most controversially, Irish republicans also sought contact with Benito Mussolini, who was on his way to becoming Europe’s first fascist dictator In this final episode of Brothers in Pain, Dr Brian Hanley explores the uncomfortable history of Irish republican alliances abroad. From South Africa to the Papacy and fascist Italy, this episode asks why Irish revolutionaries sought support in such unlikely places, what they gained, and what these choices reveal about the Irish Revolution, empire and the wider world after the First World War.