Quill

‘No English enemy . . . ever
stooped so low’:
Mike Quill, de Valera’s Visit to the German Legation,
and Irish-American Attitudes during World War II
Brian Hanley
In May of 1945 Mike Quill, the Kerry-born leader of New York’s Transport
Workers Union, bitterly criticized Eamon de Valera’s visit of condolence to
the German legation in Dublin following Hitler’s death. Writing in his union’s
Bulletin, Quill accused de Valera of both disgracing the name of Ireland and
betraying the legacy of the Irish War of Independence. In response, the Irish
press in New York and various social and community organizations launched
violent attacks on Quill. In part, the affair reflected long-standing political
disputes among the New York Irish and presented an opportunity for many to
settle old scores with Quill. However, it also showed their distinct unease with
American participation on the side of Britain and the USSR. While this
discomfort was partially overshadowed by patriotism after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor, it was always visible under the surface of discourse among the
Irish community. How does this fit into the prevailing view that Irish neutrality
was unpopular with Irish Americans? Here I will argue that the reactions of
many Irish Americans to de Valera’s legation visit reveal distinct differences in
attitudes between the immigrant and the American-born.
I
Eamon de Valera’s visit of condolence to the German Legation in Dublin on
the occasion of Adolf Hitler’s death was received with outrage and hostility
Radharc: A Journal of Irish and Irish-American Studies Volume 5–7 (2004–2006)
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outside of southern Ireland. In the United States, Irish diplomats reported
that even their “old friends in Congress” were very upset about the matter.1
However, within the twenty-six counties of Ireland and among Irish
nationalists abroad, the visit created little initial controversy, partially because
Winston Churchill launched his famous attack on Irish neutrality just a few
days later.2 An exception was the reaction of Michael Quill, the president of
the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) and American Labor Party
member of the New York City Council. In the May 1945 issue of the TWU’s
Bulletin, Quill used his monthly column to denounce de Valera in the
strongest terms.
Not since Padraic [sic] Pearse and James Connolly were forced to
surrender the Dublin Post office at the conclusion of the 1916 rebellion,
did the Irish people live through a darker day or suffer such great shame
as they did on May 2nd . . . on that day, De Valera, without the authority
of the Irish people . . . plodded his way to the Nazi legation in Dublin
City and there publicly shed tears over the reported death of Adolf Hitler.
For Quill, de Valera’s “dastardly act” was a crime committed against the Irish
people at home and an insult to the “sons and daughters” of the Irish in exile,
especially those then fighting worldwide for “decency, freedom and
democracy.”
Quill argued that de Valera had betrayed the “desire for freedom and
justice” exemplified by the lives of patriots Tone and Emmet, Pearse and
Connolly, Terence McSwiney and Liam Mellows. Nor was the visit justifiable
as a result of diplomatic duties. De Valera, Quill charged, had decided to
compel the Irish people to “play the role of a tail to the bloody and sinking
kite of the Hitler and Mussolini way of life.” By his condolences de Valera
had stained the Irish people’s hands with the blood the “arch-fiend” Hitler
had “spilled so freely.” Ireland had been dragged into a “corroded Nazi
cesspool” by its leader’s shedding of tears for the “greatest international
assassin that the world has known in two thousand years.” Quill went much
further than accusing de Valera of bad judgment. He charged that de Valera
considered Hitler “his idol,” and that he was in the same mold as the
collaborators: Quisling of Norway, Laval of France, and Horthy of Hungary.
1 Robert Brennan to Eamon de Valera, May 25, 1945, de Valera Papers, University College
Dublin Archives, P150/2676.
2 T. Ryle Dwyer, Strained Relations: Ireland at Peace and the USA at War, 1941–45 (Dublin:
Gill and Macmillan, 1988), 166; T. P. Coogan, De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow
(London: Hutchinson, 1993), 610–611.
246 ‘No English enemy . . . ever stooped so low’:
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Further, he claimed de Valera had supported Italian fascist expansion in
Ethiopia and Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Quill asserted that the
Irish people themselves were “neither Nazi or fascist sympathizers,” but he
urged them to “speak out now” and inform the world of their opposition to
de Valera’s actions. He hoped they would demand for Ireland the “form of
progressive government so necessary to fulfill the ideals of her departed
martyrs” at the next opportunity and replace de Valera, who, through “strict
censorship and his machine rule,” had tried to lead “his people back to
darkness and create in the homeland a babbling Tower of Babel.” 3
Copies of Quill’s article were also widely distributed by post to interested
parties in Ireland and the U.S. by Quill’s close ally, Gerald O’Reilly.4 While
Quill’s “venomous attack” did not go unnoticed in government circles in
Ireland, the strongest reactions to his statement came from New York City.5
Throughout May and June of 1945, the New York Irish press carried reports
of the “mighty wave of protest” that greeted Quill’s remarks. Quill was
condemned by the United Irish Counties Association (UICA); the Gaelic
Athletic Association (GAA); the Tyrone, Antrim, Longford, Galway, Cork,
Monaghan and Cavan county associations; the Sean Oglaigh na h-Eireann, or
Old IRA Association; the Irish American Citizens Committee of the Bronx;
the Wolfe Tone Council of the American Association for the Recognition of
the Irish Republic (AARIR); the Ancient Order of Hibernians in the Bronx,
Kings County and Westchester; and by the Association of Catholic Trade
Unionists (ACTU).6 In a direct response to the article, the GAA withdrew
teams from a TWU field day planned for Croke Park.7
If the tone of Quill’s article had been intemperate, then this was more
than matched by the nature of the attacks on him. The Old IRA branded
him a “disgrace” to the Irish race and accused him of desecrating the names
of “illustrious patriots . . . by using them to poison the minds of the
unsuspecting.” The motion passed by the UICA accused Quill of “an offence
against the dignity” of Ireland and of attempting to undermine the “unity of
the Irish people.”8 The ACTU’s Labor Leader claimed that “no English
enemy of de Valera ever stooped so low.”9 Father Edward Lodge Curran, a
3 All quotes from Transport Workers Union of America, Transport Bulletin, May 1945.
4 Gerald O’Reilly to Seamus O’Sheel, June 7, 1945, Gerald O’Reilly Papers, Robert F.
Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
5 Department of External Affairs, May 20, 1946, National Archives of Ireland, Dublin, Jus
8/931.
6 Gaelic American and Irish World, May and June 1945.
7 Gaelic American, May 26, 1945.
8 Irish World, June 9, 1945.
9 Quoted in Gaelic American, June 2, 1945.
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popular weekly columnist in the Gaelic American, denounced the “vile”
attack on de Valera and challenged Quill to publicly debate Ireland’s right to
neutrality with him. He urged that no Irish organization continue to keep
Quill “on its register.”10 The Galway association charged Quill with an “act
of treason to the land of his birth.” The Cavan county association appealed
to their Kerry counterparts to “cleanse their ranks of this liability.”11 David
O’Connell of the Irish American Citizens’ Committee felt Quill had brought
“humiliation and disgrace” to his native country. The Monaghan association
denounced this “so-called Irishman” as a “traitor and a coward.” The
American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic also
described Quill’s remarks as “vicious and cowardly.”12
The attacks on Quill centered on three themes. One was Quill’s alleged
communism. “Red Mike,” the AOH’s John A. Devaney charged, was “a
dues-paying member of the Communist Party.”13 For the Gaelic American,
Quill was a “fellow-traveler of the Stalins, Browders, Bridges, Hillmans and
others of the Communistic tribe . . . the favorite statesman of the Daily
Worker, and darling of the assorted Reds.”14 The Labor Leader accused Quill
of “crucifying de Valera for the Kremlin’s sake.”15 The Irish American
Citizens Committee noted Quill’s record as a “mouthpiece for the subversive
elements boring at the foundations of our American and democratic way of
life.”16 For the Cavan men, Quill was a “disciple of an ideology foreign to
Christian teaching and especially repulsive to the Irish, both here and in the
homeland.”17 One correspondent of the Gaelic American described Quill in
verse as
The man Joe Stalin made . . .
We can leave him where he is today, to either sink or swim, into the
cesspool of his hate, he cannot drag us in,
We should tie the rubble on his neck, and make him take a hike,
To where the boss dictator pens, his orders to Red Mike.18
Another correspondent describing himself as “Transport worker” also
expressed his indignation in verse:
10 Gaelic American, June 9, 1945.
11 Gaelic American, June 16 and 30, 1945.
12 Irish World, June 30 and August 18, 1945.
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The war in Europe has ended, Mike still feels hurt and sore,
Then he used our union bulletin to attack his native shore,
He calls de Valera a criminal, but the truth he cannot tell,
Who saved Ireland from destruction, by an enemy’s shot and shell . . .
Don’t disrupt our union Mike, don’t be a foreign tool,
For we are good Americans, we don’t want foreign rule . . .
When I was born in Mullinasale, the meanest would not dare,
To trade St. Patrick’s Shamrock, for a lock of Stalin’s hair.19
The second theme of Quill’s critics was his lack of patriotism. The Old
IRA wondered whether Quill had “ever raised his voice” over the persecution
of Catholics in Northern Ireland.20 The Irish American Citizens Committee
charged that Quill had “earned a right to take his place with Ireland’s ancient
enemies . . . Churchill, bloody Balfour, Sir Edward Carson and the Black and
Tans.”21 That Quill’s article was published shortly before Winston Churchill
broadcast his famous critique of Ireland’s wartime role was seen as crucial. All
the New York Irish press was united in supporting Ireland’s “peerless
defender,” de Valera’s equally famous “brilliant and comprehensive” rebuttal
to Churchill.22 In contrast, Quill’s critics highlighted perceived similarities
between his remarks and Churchill’s, even suggesting there was some prior
contact between the two. The motion proposed by the Tyrone association
and passed by the UICA noted that Quill’s statement “followed closely a
similar attack by the Daily Worker and preceded an attack by Winston
Churchill . . . we are satisfied that Michael J. Quill has aligned himself with
the ancient enemy of Ireland who by force of arms has established and still
maintains a puppet government in the north east corner of Ireland.”23 The
Gaelic American’s headline described how “Mike the Bronx peddler spreads
red propaganda as ‘Winnie’ blasts on radio. With Ireland partitioned and
Catholics persecuted, the man responsible for the Black and Tans blasts Irish
neutrality—Mike Quill aids him.”24
Yet another poetic correspondent (styling himself “Kilgarvan”) composed
“Winnie meets Mike” about the supposed collaboration:
[Winnie:] Will you do a little smearing, Michael Ruadh?
18 Gaelic American, July 7, 1945.
21 Irish World June 30, 1945.
22 Irish Echo, May 25, 1945; The Advocate, May 25, 1945; Irish World, June 9, 1945.
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For the Irish I am fearing Michael Ruadh,
So I wish that you would tell ’em,
To the fascists Dev will sell ’em,
When you say those words please yell ’em, Michael Ruadh.
[Quill replies:] I don’t think that you are kidding Winnie Dear,
So I’m glad to do your bidding, Winnie dear,
Since no one yet has seen us,
Sure the distance ought to screen us,
Why, we’ll do the job between us, Winnie dear.
The verse finishes with a duet between Churchill and Quill:
Yes, we’ll make the Irish sorry, dear old pal,
That they’re not aboard the lorry, dear old pal,
That is heading into chaos,
And who is going to stay us,
If they find out they will slay us, dear old pal.25
Some critics charged that Quill’s remarks were even worse than Churchill’s.
After all, de Valera and Churchill had been enemies for years, but Quill was
Irish and therefore a traitor. Churchill had never questioned de Valera’s faith
or character; instead that “dubious honor” went to “a little commissar in the
Bronx.”26
Charging that the Irish-born leader of a heavily Irish union was in league
with the ancient enemy of his country was clearly not to be taken lightly.
Why did Quill’s statement arouse such resentment? There are a number of
answers, all of which owe more to Irish-American political life than Irish. For
some on the right, the episode offered opportunities to renew old battles with
Quill. Father Edward Lodge Curran was a case in point. Curran was a priest
at St. Joseph’s parish in Brooklyn, a chaplain of the Kings County AOH and
a prominent member of the International Catholic Truth Society. His offers
to debate Irish neutrality with Quill also contained pleas that TWU members
ought to oust Quill from their union. Curran felt that the rank and file of
the TWU was “decent, loyal and patriotic Americans” who deserved better
leadership than Quill gave them. He also reminded transport workers that
“Red Mike” drew two salaries.27 Curran had been involved in several
attempts to prevent the TWU from organizing the Brooklyn-Manhattan
25 Gaelic American, May 26, 1945. Kilgarvan was Quill’s birthplace.
27 Gaelic American, June 9 and 23, 1945.
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Transit Corporation workers in 1937. He had helped organize the American
Association against Communism to battle left-wing influence in the transit
industry on several occasions during the late 1930s.28 However, the Catholic
right had lost those battles, and the furor over Quill offered Curran a new
opportunity to undermine him.
Similarly, the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists had a very definite
agenda in lambasting Quill’s criticism of de Valera. In the late 1930s the
group had been supportive of TWU efforts to organize transit. But by 1945
the organization’s chief function had become opposition to communism.29
That the Communists had such major influence in a union so Irish and so
Catholic as the TWU was agonizing to ACTU. Hence, in its defense of de
Valera, the Labor Leader sought to explain how the Communists would have
to select someone “Irish and somewhat Catholic” when choosing a
“commissar” for a union like TWU. Quill’s “brogue” and his bad leg
allegedly “got fighting for Ireland” were thus assets. Being “a lad from home,”
Quill put the Irish transit workers at ease and was adept at “soothing
Catholic suspicion by quotations from the Pope’s social encyclicals.” While
in the early days of the union he had done some good, albeit “for the wrong
reasons,” by 1945 he had become a “menace to democracy.”30 The de Valera
controversy also offered a chance for ACTU to weaken Quill’s position.
The issue is yet more complex. There were distinct differences in how the
Irish newspapers reported the issue. The Gaelic American led the attacks on
Quill. The IrishWorld gave the issue extensive coverage but did not editorialize
on it. The Advocate, in contrast, while stating that it had received “scores” of
letters attacking Quill, felt that since the letters concerned an article they
themselves did not publish, printing them would only “foster enmity”
between Irishmen.31 The United Irish Counties Association had actually
supported Quill’s council election bid in 1943, however narrowly, and one of
its prominent personalities was Paul O’Dwyer, an ally of the TWU.32 Both the
Irish Echo and the Advocate had also supported Quill’s candidacy that year,
although somewhat cautiously and for different reasons.33
Devotion to Ireland’s “Chief” among the New York Irish alone does not
explain the virulence of their reaction to Quill. While the Irish World had
28 Joshua B. Freeman, In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933–1966
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 105, 107, 135–136.
29 Freeman, In Transit, 106, 148–151.
31 The Advocate, June 9, 1945.
32 New York Enquirer, October 31, 1943.
33 Irish Echo, September 23, 1943; The Advocate, December 11, 1943.
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been an anti-Treaty paper, one of the staunchest defenders of de Valera was
the Gaelic American, a newspaper that had been bitterly hostile to him since
1921. Founded by the Fenian John Devoy, the newspaper supported the
Anglo-Irish Treaty while remaining militantly nationalist. As late as 1936 it
was denouncing de Valera for throwing in his “lot with the British Empire.”34
Ironically, during June 1945, the Gaelic American was in turn favorably
quoted by the Irish World for its defense of de Valera in the face of Quill’s
“scurrilous attack.”35 The key point was the perceived attack on Irish
neutrality. All the New York Irish papers defended neutrality as the “policy of
the entire Irish people,” and the various county societies expressed their
admiration for de Valera’s having saved Ireland the rigors of war. De Valera’s
visit to the German legation was explained, therefore, as an entirely
“justifiable diplomatic gesture” that partisan critics had blown out of
proportion. Visiting the legation was showing the “barest courtesy that
diplomatic procedure demanded” and critics were making a “mountain out
of an anthill,” as the Old IRA put it. In reality, the Irish had “nothing
whatsoever to be ashamed of.”36 These attitudes surely conflict with much
of what has been written on Irish-American attitudes to World War II, which
have generally stressed the unpopularity of Irish neutrality, especially after
Pearl Harbor, among “even the most Anglophobic Irish Americans.”37 Yet, if
we look at some of the same sources that expressed hostility toward Quill, we
find that throughout the war they also expressed a deep ambivalence toward
motives behind WWII and a very defensive attitude about Irish neutrality.
II
When reading the Irish press and when looking at attitudes of the Irish
activist community before and during World War II, a number of themes
dominate. One is the strong hostility to American involvement in any
European war, especially on Britain’s side, throughout the 1930s. As the Irish
Echo argued in 1939, American parents signed “death warrants” for their sons
once before and “got nothing in return, except England’s abuse.” Now they
demanded “real neutrality.”38 That America had been fooled into war in
34 Gaelic American, December 26, 1936.
35 Irish Press, June 21, 1945.
36 The Advocate, May 12, 1945; Gaelic American and Irish World, June 9, 1945.
37 Raymond J. Raymond, “American Public Opinion and Irish Neutrality, 1939–1945,” in
Eire-Ireland XVIII (1983): 20–45; Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (Harlow:
Longman, 2000), 247.
38 Irish Echo, July 15, 1939.
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1917 and then robbed by British nonpayment of war debts was a recurring
theme.39 Even among sections of the Irish press that had been strong
supporters of Roosevelt in 1933, the neutrality issue had, by 1939, turned
attitudes to FDR bitterly hostile. The Irish World blamed “master swindlers
and professional war mongers” for pushing America toward conflict in 1939
and argued that the war hysteria itself was “concocted in the White House.”40
Many of the Irish newspapers promoted the view that British influence
ran rampant in America through an Anglophile press, the public school
system, and the influence of organizations like the Rhodes Trust.41 London,
the Gaelic American believed, still regarded America as “a Crown colony”
and, through British influence, loyalty to the United States was becoming a
“high crime.”42 While this may seem fanciful, these themes had been
dominant in Irish nationalist discourse in America since at least 1916 and
were deeply ingrained among Irish activists.43 Once war began in September
1939, the Irish press continued to argue strongly for American neutrality,
with some also expressing hope that the conflict might bring England “her
death blow.”44
So much was opposition to American involvement a defining feature of
Irish political activity that non-Irish isolationist politicians were promoted by
the Irish press and invited to address Irish and even Irish republican events.
During 1940 and 1941, Senator Rush Holt of West Virginia spoke at Easter
Rising commemorations organized by the Clan na Gael and antiwar rallies
organized by Cumann na mBan.45 The antiwar activities of Charles
Lindbergh, Gerald P. Nye, Burton K. Wheeler, and, of course, Father Charles
Coughlin all received favorable publicity in the Irish press.46
One of the most influential antiwar figures among the Irish was Father
Lodge Curran. There has been a tendency to see Curran as a minor East
Coast Father Coughlin.47 While he was an ally of the “Radio Priest,” he was
also different in significant respects. Firstly, he continued to write regularly
and speak publicly for the duration of the war without receiving the same
39 Gaelic American, November 6, 1932.
40 Irish World, May 6, 1939.
41 Gaelic American, August 4, 1923, and April 8, 1933.
42 Gaelic American, October 21, 1939.
43 See for example Anon., The Reconquest of America (New York, 1919) or The Sinn Feiner
(New York), November 12, 1921.
44 Gaelic American, October 14, 1939.
45 Irish World, December 28, 1940, and May 24, 1941.
46 Irish World, January 27, 1940; February 3, 1940; and May 3, 1941.
47 Kenny, The American Irish, 208.
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censure that Coughlin faced.48 Secondly, he was much more interested and
involved in Irish affairs than Coughlin and would continue to agitate on that
issue into the 1950s.49 Curran addressed Clan na Gael and Cumann na
mBan meetings and commemorations on the issue of keeping Ireland neutral
during 1940 and 1941. As president of the Catholic International Truth
Society’s antiwar committee, he spoke at antiwar rallies as far apart as Iowa
and Boston.50 Curran’s support for both Irish and American neutrality was
framed in terms of American patriotism. Curran argued that pride in being
Irish was “not incompatible with our loyalty to America” as indeed the Irish
were “one of the most loyal racial groups in the body politic.”51 Irish
republicans also stressed their American loyalty. The Cumann na mBan
described itself as an organization of “American women” dedicated to
keeping the U.S. out of the war.52 The Old IRA was “Christians and
Americans of Irish birth.”53 Invariably, when defending Ireland’s neutrality,
Irish organizations also proclaimed their American patriotism.
After Pearl Harbor, the Irish press did respond with support for the U.S.
war effort. For the Gaelic American, the issue became “America, first, last and
all the time.” It urged its readers to help “blow Tokio [sic] off the map.”
Curran argued that the time for disunity was over and that Americans must
unite.54 Irish organizations and newspapers were clearly committed to the
war effort and proud of Irish-American sacrifice. Yet, while the heroism of
Irish-American soldiers was lauded, there remained an undercurrent of
resentment. The Irish World asked those who questioned Irish loyalty to
glance at the names on “present casualty lists.”55 There was widespread
speculation that while Irish-American troops fought, the British were allowed
to avoid battle. In 1945 the Gaelic American claimed that not only was
seventy-five percent of the fighting in Western Europe done by American
troops, but they had also been “battling the Japs, almost alone,” while the
British had been sent home to vote for Clement Attlee, a socialist and former
48 His weekly column in the Gaelic American was entitled “By the way.”
49 See E. Lodge Curran, Partition Facts (New York, 1951). In 1951 Curran was chairman of
the National Hibernian Anti-Partition Committee.
50 John F. Stack, Jr., International Conflict in an American City: Boston’s Irish, Italians, and
Jews, 1935–1944 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), 128–134; Gaelic American and
Irish World, July 5, 1941.
51 Irish World, April 19, 1941.
52 Irish World, January 4, 1941.
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conscientious objector.56 This was not an isolated allegation. Many agreed
with the Amalgamated Irish American Organizations that the lesson of
World War I had been “Don’t worry about Uncle Sam, he just pays the bill,”
in terms of both men and finance.57 There was no reason to believe that the
result of World War II would be any different, especially since now the
United States was not only fighting alongside imperialist Britain but also
Communist Russia.58
The enemy was not only abroad. Father Curran reminded the audience at
a 1916 memorial mass in 1942 that the Nazis were the enemy “without the
gates,” but the Communist enemy was already “within” them.59 Every week
the Gaelic American warned of the danger of Communist infiltration,
claiming in May 1942 that Communist teachers had “infested” the New
York school system.60 In 1945 the paper ruefully speculated that the “flower
of young American manhood was sacrificed, not to make the world safe for
democracy, but to make Europe safe for communism, socialism and every
type of ‘ism’ except Americanism.”61
Notable too was the extent to which the condition of Northern Irish
Catholics was promoted as equal to or worse than any of the oppression
being visited on peoples under German occupation. For the Irish World, the
Catholics of Ulster faced a “tyranny just as ruthless as that which we
condemn so vigorously in other parts of the world.”62 There was no “equal
in history” to the “ruthless dictatorship” that governed Northern Ireland.63
Even in August of 1945, the Gaelic American could argue that conditions in
Ulster’s jails rivaled those of the “infamous Nazi concentration camps.”64 The
execution of two IRA members in 1940 for bombings in Britain and the
sentencing to death of six IRA men in Belfast in 1942 received widespread
coverage. As “six Irish boys” faced death, the Gaelic American questioned,
now where were those who criticized Ireland’s neutrality? 65
Thus throughout the war, not only during 1939–1941 but also
1941–1945, Irish neutrality was praised, even as Irish Americans were urged
56 Gaelic American, August 11, 1945.
57 Gaelic American, April 14, 1945.
65 Irish World, February 17, 1940, and Gaelic American, September 5, 1942.
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to greater sacrifice themselves. It was defended aggressively as a policy chosen
and supported by the Irish people themselves.66 There was no contradiction
between being a patriotic supporter of the American war effort and a
defender of Irish neutrality. However, there was little in the pages of the Irish
weeklies hailing the “great leaders” Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and Chiang
Kai-shek, or arguing that peace should bring jobs for all, postwar planning,
and an end to discrimination, in sharp contrast to Quill’s monthly articles in
the TWU Bulletin.67
The Irish press’s wartime coverage also reflected a wider resentment,
whereby Irish writers felt that prejudice toward Irish Catholics was
widespread but unremarked upon, while other prejudices (especially anti-
Semitism) were constantly warned against. One Irish paper had, in 1939,
called anti-Semitism in New York “non existent.” Instead, it argued that the
Irish suffered more “unemployment and discrimination than any other
67 Transport Bulletin, January 1944.
FIGURE 1. Born in Gortloughera, Kilgarvan, Co. Kerry in 1905,
Michael J. Quill was President of New York City’s Transport Workers
Union of America when this photograph was taken in 1937. Courtesy
of the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 256

race.”68 The Gaelic American became embroiled in several wartime disputes
with Jewish groups and concluded that anti-Semitism was “a bogey” invented
by Jewish organizations themselves.69 These attitudes were often expressed in
reference to the failure of those who protested about the Nazis to do anything
for Irish Catholics. For example, in 1939, when former champion heavy-
weight boxer Gene Tunney endorsed an appeal against anti-Semitism, the
Irish Echo asked, “Did you ever hear of Ireland?”70 Obviously these attitudes
were more related to the social and political ethnic conflict of the 1930s in
New York than to Irish neutrality, but the same defensiveness and feeling of
persecution was revealed in the wartime debates.71
III
This background is important because defense of Irish neutrality fit into an
already very defensive Irish worldview, in which Anglophile Americans,
Communists, and sometimes Jews conspired against Irish interests. In that
context, when Quill, as an Irish man leading an “Irish” union, joined the
New York Times, the rest of the American press, and Winston Churchill in
attacking de Valera, then the New York Irish reaction is not surprising.72 The
important point is that Quill was already by 1945 largely outside the
mainstream of New York Irish politics. Despite his involvement with the
Anti-Treaty IRA in Kerry, and with the Clan na Gael in New York in the
early 1930s, Quill was, by the 1940s, operating politically outside Irish
republican circles.73
There were a number of reasons for this shift. He gravitated toward the
left of the Clan na Gael, where Gerald O’Reilly and a number of others were
attempting to overcome what one called the “open hostility” toward
socialism among the organization’s leadership.74 In 1935, Quill had joined
the New York branch of the Republican Congress, formed in Ireland by
68 Irish Echo, June 15 and July 12, 1939.
70 Irish Echo, June 15, 1939.
71 Ronald H. Bayor, Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish, Germans, Jews, and Italians of New York
City, 1929–1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).
72 New York Times, May 4, 1945.
73 For accounts of his early life see Freeman, In Transit, 55–57, and Shirley Quill, Mike
Quill, Himself: A Memoir (Greenwich, CT: Devin-Adair, 1985), 7–37.
74 Charles McGinnitty, June 6, 1932, Moss Twomey Papers, University College Dublin
Archives, P69/223 (48).
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socialists who had left the IRA.75 When he visited Ireland in 1937, the IRA
themselves noted that the Irish Labour Party seemed to be in charge of Quill’s
arrangements.76 Indeed, Quill was fêted by the Irish Labour Party leadership
and spoke at party meetings in Dublin and Cork, where his speeches
reflected a critical attitude to nationalism. As far as he was concerned, the
“two political parties in Ireland seemed to have brought little change except
of [sic] the color of the letter box.” It made little difference to an Irish man
about to be evicted if the official were in a “green or red uniform.”77
Quill was also scathing about Irish business and political interests in New
York, especially Tammany Hall, which had “done nothing” for the ordinary
Irish. He argued that the lesson of his American experience had been that if
workers, “black and white, Catholic and non Catholic, Jew and Gentile are
good enough to slave and sweat together, then we are good enough to unite
and fight together.” The Irish Labour Party hailed him as its “ambassador” to
the American labor movement, notwithstanding that his politics were a good
deal further to the left than theirs.78 Nevertheless, Quill made it clear that he
favored an Irish Labour Party government, which was not a position held by
many among the New York Irish. Finally, his opposition to fascism was not
well received by some influential republicans who saw the Nazis as potential
allies against Britain.
In 1939 the Clan na Gael’s leading figure, Joe McGarrity, criticized Quill
in a letter to IRA leader Sean Russell for taking part in a New York protest
march against Nazi Germany. McGarrity felt it showed that Quill was now a
supporter of Britain and he was particularly scathing of a placard bearing the
slogan “Ireland stands united against Nazi oppression.” Revealingly, he also
noted that Quill “took a rap” at Father Coughlin.79 During 1939, Coughlin
supporters in the Bronx, many of whom were Irish, disrupted a TWU
meeting at which Quill was speaking.80 Coughlinites were also involved in a
number of anti-leadership moves within the TWU during the late 1930s.81
While it would be wrong to say Coughlinism was the dominant force among
the New York Irish, the Irish ethnic press in particular was highly defensive
75 Republican Congress, July 13, 1935.
76 Moss Twomey to Joseph McGarrity, December 27, 1937, McGarrity Papers, National
Library of Ireland, MS. 17,490.
77 Irish Times, December 23, 1937, and The Kerryman, January 8, 1938.
78 Labour News, January 1, 1938.
79 Sean Cronin, James Connolly and the Transport Workers Union of America: The Ideological
Links with Mike Quill and His Associates (Dublin: Labour History Workshop, 1983), 10.
80 The Nation, July 22, 1939; Irish Workers Weekly, August 12, 1939.
81 Freeman, In Transit, 139–140.
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 258

about attacks on him.82 In addition, the conflicts of the 1930s were not
readily forgotten. In 1938 Quill had attacked “Irish fascists” for exploiting
Irish patriotism to enlist support for the “spoilers of Guernica.”83 When
condemning Quill in 1945, the Old IRA remembered that he had bemoaned
the “success of the Christian crusade in Spain.”84 Even the Labor Leader
suggested that while Quill had been “adept at quelling the fears of the Bronx
store keepers” with denunciations of the Christian Front, he actually “created
anti-Semitism by over stressing it.”85
Hence, for a variety of reasons, Quill was already politically and socially
removed from the mainstream of New York Irish life during WWII. He was
not involved in one of the most popular movements of the period, the
American Friends of Irish Neutrality (AFIN), even though between
September 1939 and July 1941 his union did support both American and
Irish neutrality. The AFIN brought together both Irish liberals such as Paul
O’Dwyer and conservatives such as Judge Daniel F. Cohalan in response to
the threat of British seizure of the Irish ports during 1940.86 In contrast,
Quill was associated with the American Irish Defence Association (AIDA)
during 1942, a group that promoted Irish support for the Allies and which
included Quill’s American Labor Party colleague Eugene P. Connolly.87 The
AIDA organized St. Patrick’s Day events, pledging support to the Allies and
publicizing messages from Notre Dame clerics in praise of Stalin’s defense of
the USSR. It included Communists such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn among
its supporters. In turn, the Gaelic American described it as composed of
“fanatical pro-Britishers of reputed Irish ancestry.”88
However, Quill was not completely isolated within the Irish community.
From 1943 onwards he attempted, with some success, to utilize Irish hostility
to partition into support for the Allied war effort. At the TWU’s annual
James Connolly commemoration in May that year a resolution was passed
calling on Britain to “grant immediate and complete independence” to
82 Irish World, August 5, 1939, and Gaelic American, February 20, 1943.
83 Irish Democrat, June 26, 1937. Guernica, in Spain's Basque country, was bombed on
April 26, 1937.
85 Gaelic American June 2, 1945.
86 Michael Funchion, Irish American Voluntary Organizations (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1983), 34–38. Further irony, given his bitter opposition to de Valera during 1920,
was provided by Cohalan being the main speaker at a farewell dinner for Fianna Fáil minis-
ter Frank Aiken in New York in 1941. Text of speech in Aiken Papers, June 23, 1941,
University College Dublin Archives, P104/3572 (6–7).
87 PM, March 18, 1942.
88 Transport Bulletin, October 1942, and Gaelic World, April 4, 1942.
Brian Hanley 259
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 259

Ireland as part of bringing Ireland into the struggle against fascism.89 In
December of 1943, Quill organized a conference in New York on the theme
of “Justice for Ireland.” Quill argued that the issue of Irish reunification had
to be forced before the Allies for discussion as part of any postwar settlement.
Ireland, Quill believed, was as opposed to Nazism as it was to British
domination; however, Ireland could not play a full part in the struggle against
Hitler unless it was united. “How can any small nation fight for freedom
when one hand is tied behind its back? As long as Ireland is cursed with two
governments, it cannot have an opportunity to do its part fully.” Quill
asserted that Irish men and women were already playing their part in the
fight against fascism, whether in the American, British, or other Allied
armies, as well as by their war work in the United States and Britain. A
commitment by the Allies that partition would be removed following Hitler’s
defeat would be a powerful impetus toward allowing Ireland to officially play
its part. Quill also claimed they needed to answer the “anti-Irish whispering
campaigns” that told Americans that the Irish were pro-Axis.90 The call
largely fell on deaf ears, and the Justice for Ireland conference received little
attention in the Irish press, even though 250,000 copies of Quill’s speech
were distributed in pamphlet form. The Irish government’s contacts
informed them that Quill’s Communist links made Irish organizations in
New York very wary of him and, although Paul O’Dwyer agreed to become
secretary of the new organization, they did not see it becoming a success.91
(For their part, the Irish government—especially the influential secretary of
the Department of Justice, Peter Berry—was also convinced that Quill was a
Communist and a potential IRA supporter.)92 However, the editor of the
Advocate, John C. O’Connor, and the prominent GAA figure, John ‘Kerry’
O’Donnell, did attend the conference and were supportive, as was the
Carmelite priest Father Sean Reid. Cross-Atlantic perceptions varied widely;
while the Irish government believed that Quill would get nowhere, the FBI
speculated on his becoming the “dominant Irish political figure” in New
York.93 Quill’s influence was also evident in the securing of a number of Irish
89 Resolution, May 7, 1943, in O’Reilly Papers, Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
90 Michael Quill, “Justice . . . for Ireland” (speech, Justice for Ireland Conference, New
York, December 1943; pamphlet, Justice . . . for Ireland, 1944) Series I: A, Transport
Workers Union of America Records, Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
91 Irish Department of External Affairs, May 20, 1946.
92 Notes on IRA Activities, 1941–1947, Sean MacEntee Papers, University College Dublin
Archives, P67/550.
93 Federal Bureau of Investigation report, January 7, 1944, in Sean Prendiville Collection,
Archives of Irish America, New York University.
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 260

supporters for the election campaign of left-wing congressman Vito
Marcantonio in June of 1944.94
Interestingly, Quill made clear in his December 1943 speech that the day
had passed when Ireland’s future could be decided through the “medium of the
ambush, the crack of the rifle or the explosion of the landmine,” a statement
that alienated republican militants. Quill did manage to get the 1944 Congress
of Industrial Organizations convention to pass a resolution asking the big
powers to “help restore the geographical and political integrity of Ireland” by
granting her a place at a postwar peace conference.95 Again, Quill received little
credit from the Irish for this in either the United States or Ireland, although the
resolution was distributed widely. In response to his earlier initiative, the
veteran Irish republican and Fianna Fail member of the Dáil, Dan Breen,
instead called Quill a “mischief maker” and asked that the Irish abroad refrain
from interference in the affairs of Ireland. Quill’s reply stressed that while he
agreed with Breen that Britain was chiefly responsible for Ireland’s misfortunes
historically, since independence the Irish themselves had not done so well. He
reminded Breen that the opposing leaders in the Civil War, Liam Lynch and
Michael Collins, were not killed by “the headhunters of Java, but,
unfortunately, by Irishmen, dressed in the uniform of Padraig Pearse.” He
further asserted that there were many “Irish politicians and job holders” who
would “drop dead” the day Ireland was free, as they would have “no more
slogans to dangle before the people in order that a few incompetents can
maintain themselves in soft jobs.”96 A further factor in Irish government
hostility was probably Quill’s stressing the Irish Labour Party’s election
successes in 1943.97 It was clear by 1944 that Quill had a different conception
of what Irish republicanism meant than many of his fellow New York Irish.
These differing conceptions explain some of the reactions to his attack on de
Valera. For his comrade Gerald O’Reilly, who actually had a much more active
IRA history than Quill, de Valera’s legation visit was a “blasphemy against all
those who fought, suffered and died for Ireland.”98 For the Old IRA
94 “The Irish speak out for Congressman Marcantonio” in The Advocate, June 28, 1944.
95 Gerald O’Reilly, December 12, 1944, in O’Reilly Papers, Wagner Labor Archives, New
York University.
96 Quill to Dan Breen, November 22, 1944, Cathal O’Shannon Papers, Irish Labour
History Museum and Archives.
97 Transport Workers Union of America, Transport Bulletin, September 1943.
98 Gerald O’Reilly, May 14, 1945, National Archives of Ireland, Jus 8/931. O’Reilly was
born in 1903 in Drogheda, County Louth. He had been one of those rescued from
Dundalk Barracks by the Anti-Treaty IRA in August 1922. He was involved in the mass
IRA breakout of Mountjoy Prison in November 1925, and was jailed himself in November
1926 and August 1927. He emigrated to the U.S. in November 1927.
Brian Hanley 261
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 261

Association, which contained some of O’Reilly’s former comrades, it meant no
such thing.
IV
But there is more to the question than differing conceptions of
republicanism. This analysis must obviously be qualified. It is based largely
on the Irish ethnic press, which did not necessarily reflect anything except its
journalists and owners’ opinions, and it says little about Irish attitudes
outside New York. However, the immigrant milieu is important. Many Irish
immigrants bought the Gaelic American and the Irish World for weekly news
from home and for their extensive social and sporting coverage. In New York,
these newspapers and the Irish county associations were largely the preserve
of the Irish-born. After 1922, Irish activism in the United States was also
much more marginalized and largely immigrant-dominated. This world was
more defensive than Irish America in general because, in part, it felt less
secure in the United States. This is reflected in the constant declarations of
loyalty to America, but it is also reflected in the very defensive attitude taken
toward any criticism of Ireland. The attitudes of second- or third-generation
Irish Americans could very well be completely different.
V
There is another source for Irish-American reactions to de Valera’s legation
visit. De Valera himself received a large number of letters from America in the
immediate aftermath of the publicity surrounding his visit. All were hostile,
often violently so. Many differed little in tone from Quill’s article and others
went even further in terms of abuse. Some were poignant, like that of Mollie
Dunn, a munitions worker from Connecticut, who wanted an explanation for
de Valera’s action as she had faced hostile questioning all day in the defense
plant in which she worked. Miss J. Mullaney of Akron, Ohio, a former
member of the AARIR, considered the visit to the legation an “insult to the
Irish.” Elmer M. Murphy of Pasadena, California, felt that there was “no man
of Irish blood” in the United States who did not resent the condolences on
behalf of “that brute” Hitler. Miss Gussie Ryan of St. Louis called Hitler the
“worst enslaver the world has ever known.” A member of the American
military (Army Airforce) based in South Carolina felt de Valera had “degraded
all the people of Ireland and those of Irish extraction.” George Riley of New
York felt the visit was the “greatest disgrace to the Irish race.” J. H. Sheridan
of Bancroft, Iowa, expressed his revulsion by calling de Valera an “old
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 262

turncoat.” Mary McGreevy described herself as an “ardent admirer” of de
Valera’s; now she was “heartsick and confused” by condolences for a man “who
caused so much sorrow by leading so many of our boys to slaughter.” Angela
Walsh was disgusted that the “head of a Catholic country” could express
sympathy for Hitler; she asked what would “the valiant Irish patriots” think?
Others were more direct, like Mary Murphy of Brooklyn who hoped to hear
of de Valera’s “unhealthy end before long,” or James O’Leary of Chicago who
called him simply a “plain son of a bitch.” Mildred O’Brien of the same city
was more Cagneyesque: “you dirty rat . . . you are a disgrace to the Irish
nation.”99 These reactions, almost all dating from the immediate aftermath of
the legation visit, give us a glimpse of another segment of Irish America. What
is notable about them, however, is that only one describes him or herself as
having been born in Ireland. All the others refer to Irish ancestry of some
description, such as being “an American of Irish blood,” but seem to have
been American-born. While many express sympathy for the cause of Irish
nationalism, only one mentions having ever been a member of an Irish
organization. They also came from many different areas of the United States,
and the majority of them were women. What, then, is the more authentic
voice of Irish America? These outraged letters or the missives from the county
associations of New York? Quill’s attack on de Valera, had they read it, would
probably have reflected many of the feelings of the above letter-writers.
VI
There was another complicating factor. Quill’s attack contained a number of
factual errors. The Irish government did not support Italy’s invasion of
Abyssinia (although the opposition party Fine Gael did so), nor did de Valera
recognize Franco’s regime until 1939. (On both these issues, especially Spain,
the Fianna Fail government faced intense pressure, as southern Irish public
opinion was largely pro-Franco.)100 Quill’s rhetoric betrayed a lack of
understanding of wartime Irish policy. His enemies, especially Father Curran,
were quick to capitalize on the fact that between 1939 and 1941 Quill, along
with the TWU, was in favor of neutrality.101 However, in the aftermath of the
backlash against his May 1945 article, Quill seemed to realize the complexity
99 All letters are contained in Eamon de Valera Papers, University College Dublin Archives,
P150/2689.
100 Fearghal McGarry, Irish Politics and the Spanish Civil War (Cork: Cork University Press,
1999).
Brian Hanley 263
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 263

of New York Irish views. He successfully confronted his critics in the Kerry
Association and managed to face down a threat to expel him. He replied
cleverly to Curran’s demand for a debate by agreeing in principle, but
proposed the topic as “Was it correct for Mr. de Valera on behalf of the Irish
people to publicly mourn the death of the great murderer of civilization, A.
Hitler?”102 He refused to apologize to de Valera and charged that, as far as
many of his critics were concerned, he was “happy” to throw their threats
back into “their fascist faces.” However, he also acknowledged that “hundreds
of honest, well-meaning Irish nationalists” had “strongly” opposed his article.
Many of these people, he conceded, were “excellent trade union members”
whose “sincerity” he respected.103 Quill’s recognition that the backlash
against his article was not simply a right-wing attack suggests once again the
diversity of views on the war and Ireland’s role in it in just one segment of
Irish America.
102 The Advocate, June 9, 1945.
103 Transport Workers Union of America, Transport Bulletin, June 1945.
R5-11 22/07/2008 12:40 Page 264

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