Northern Ireland and British fascism in the inter-war years

Bibliographic Data

ID8087944
AuthorsJames Loughlin (University of Ulster, corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume29
Issue116
Pages537-552
Publication date1995-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIrish Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1214 • E-ISSN: 2056-4139
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s002112140001227x
OpenAlexW111198033
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited6

During the civil rights campaign of the late 1960s the perception of the Stormont government as fascist was widespread among nationalists—a perception expressed in Nazi salutes and the chant ‘S.S.—R.U.C.’ when confronting the police. The historical reference this perception embodied, however, was less than comprehensive. In particular, it obscured the attraction that fascism and movements inspired by fascism had for many people in Britain and Ireland in the inter-war years; and while fascism did not give rise to a movement of major importance in Northern Ireland, it nevertheless had a more significant presence there than has sometimes been thought. For instance, Robert Fisk's view that the only fascists in the north were Italian émigrés, grouped in Belfast and Derry, is inaccurate. In fact at various times in this period there existed branches of the British Fascists (B.F.), representatives of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (B.U.F.), together with a brief but significant initiative on Northern Ireland by the leader of the Blueshirt movement in the Irish Free State, General Eoin O'Duffy. Unlike the local representatives of Italian fascism, who confined their activities chiefly to greeting visiting Italian dignitaries and maintaining links with the homeland, these groups were very much concerned with domestic politics. Fascism in Northern Ireland, however, has other claims to attention than those occasioned by their activities alone, for it also serves to illuminate the neglected area of B.U.F. attitudes to Ireland in general

Archaeology · Art · Economic history · Ethnology · Homeland · Irish · Nazism · Northern ireland · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science · History · Irish and British Studies · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration

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