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Frank Aiken
Francis Thomas Aiken (13 February 1898 – 18 May 1983) was an Irish revolutionary and politician. He was chief of staff of the Anti-Treaty IRA at the end of the Irish Civil War. Aiken later served as Tánaiste from 1965 to 1969 and Minister for External Affairs from 1951 to 1954 and 1957 to 1969. He was also Minister for Finance from 1945 to 1948, Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures 1939 to 1945, and Minister for Defence from 1932 to 1939. He was a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Louth constituency from 1923 to 1973, making him the second longest-serving member of Dáil Éireann and the longest-serving cabinet minister. Originally a member of Sinn Féin, he was later a founding member of Fianna Fáil.[2] Early lifeEarly yearsFrank Aiken was born on 13 February 1898 at Carrickbracken, Camlough, County Armagh, Ireland, the seventh and youngest child of James Aiken, a builder from County Tyrone, and Mary McGeeney of Corromannon, Beleek, County Armagh. James Aiken built Catholic churches in South Armagh. Aiken was a nationalist, a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a county councillor, who refused an offer to stand as a member of parliament. James was Chairman of the Local Board of the Poor Guardians. In 1900, on her visit to Ireland, he told Queen Victoria that he would not welcome her "until Ireland has become free".[3] Frank Aiken was educated at the Camlough National School and in Newry by Irish Christian Brothers at Abbey Christian Brothers Grammar School, although he had only a 'vague' recollection of school. Revolutionary periodIrish Volunteers and IRAHe was elected a lieutenant in 1914 when he joined the Camlough Company of Irish Volunteers and the Gaelic League. But the northern nationalists split so they took no part in the Easter Rising. He became secretary of the local branch in 1917 and joined Sinn Féin. His sister Nano Aiken organised Cumann na mBan in Newry, setting up a local branch at Camlough. While working at the Co-Operative Flax-Scutching Society, Aiken committed to speaking Irish, which he learned at the Donegal Gaeltacht and Omeath Irish College.[citation needed] He first met Éamon de Valera at the East Clare election in June 1917, riding despatches for Austin Stack.[4] During a rowdy by-election at Bessbrook in February 1918, Aiken was elected a captain of Volunteers, stewarding electioneering. As secretary and chairman of the South Armagh district executive (comhairle ceanntair) it was his job to be chief fund-raiser for the Dublin Executive, responsible for the Dáil loan masterminded by Michael Collins. In 1917, making an outward display of defiance, Aiken raised the republican Irish tricolor, opposite Camlough Barracks in Armagh, a move designed as deliberate provocation.[5] In March 1918 he was arrested by the RIC for illegal drilling — an act of open defiance that provoked a sentence of imprisonment for one month. On release that summer he joined the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood fighting Hibernianism in the area. By 1919 Aiken's clandestine activities mainly consisted of arms raids on dumps of the Ulster Volunteers who had imported weapons to resist Home Rule in 1913–14. As well as UVF dumps, Aiken and the Newry Brigade also raided prominent local unionist barracks at Dromilly, Ballyedmond Castle and Loughall Manor. Although they failed to capture many weapons the raids gave experience to newly recruited Volunteers.[6] Aiken was also responsible for setting up GAA Club, Gaelic League branch, a Cumann na mBan Camogie League.[7] Within a few years he was Chairman of Sinn Féin in Armagh, and was also elected to Armagh County Council. War of IndependenceOperating from the south Armagh/north Louth area, Aiken's unit was one of the most effective IRA in Ulster during the Irish War of Independence. This success is attributed primarily to Aiken's leadership and training methods.[8][9] In May 1920, he led 200 IRA men in an assault on the RIC barracks in Newtownhamilton, attacking the building and then burning it with paraffin spayed from a potato sprayer; however, the garrison did not surrender.[10] Aiken himself led a squad which blasted a hole in the wall of the barracks with gelignite and entered through it, exchanging shots with the policemen inside.[11] At a sports event in Cullyhanna in June 1920, Aiken led a group of three men that demanded that three RIC men hand over their weapons. Shooting broke out and one man on each side was killed. In July, he was almost killed at Banbridge. While riding a motorcycle to Lurgan he was chased by an angry mob.[12] In December 1920, he led another assault, this time abortive, on the RIC station in his home village of Camlough. In reprisal, the newly formed Ulster Special Constabulary burned Aiken's home and those of ten of his relatives in the Camlough area. They also arrested and killed two local republicans. From this point onward, the conflict in the area took on an increasingly bitter and sectarian quality. Aiken tried on a number of occasions to ambush USC patrols from the ruins of his family home.[13] In April 1921, Aiken's men mounted an operation in Creggan, County Armagh to ambush the police and Special Constabulary. One Special constable was killed in the ensuing firefight. Some accounts have reported that Aiken took the Protestant Church congregation in the village hostage to lure the Specials out onto the road.[14] However, Mathew Lewis states that both Catholic and Protestant churchgoers were held in a pub to prevent their getting caught in the crossfire.[15] Nevertheless, sectarian bitterness deepened in the area. The following month, the Special Constabulary started shooting Catholic civilians in revenge for IRA attacks. In June 1921, Aiken organised his most successful attack yet on the British military, when his men derailed a British troop train heading from Belfast to Dublin, killing the train guard, three cavalry soldiers and 63 horses.[16] Shortly afterwards, the Specials took four Catholics from their homes in Bessbrook and Altnaveigh, shooting them dead. After an IRA reorganisation in April 1921, Aiken was put in command of the Fourth Northern Division of the IRA.[17] The cycle of violence in south-east Ulster area continued the following year, despite a formal truce with the British from 11 July 1921 (see The Troubles in Ulster (1920–1922)). Michael Collins organised a clandestine guerrilla offensive (Northern Offensive) against the newly created Northern Ireland State. In May 1922, for reasons that have never been properly determined, Aiken and his Fourth Northern Division never took part in the operation, although it was planned that they would. He was quickly promoted through the ranks, rising to commandant of Newry Brigade and eventually commander of 4th Northern Division from spring 1921. The IRA units he would eventually command extended from County Louth, southern and western County Down, and from March 1921 the whole of County Armagh. Aiken was named by (the IRA Chief of Staff) Eoin O'Duffy as head of the newly formed IRA Ulster Council Command which was tasked with coordination of attacks and preventing the new northern government from functioning effectively.[18] Nonetheless, the local IRA's inaction at this time did not end the bloodshed in South Armagh. Aiken has been accused by unionists of ethnic cleansing of Protestants from parts of South Armagh, Newry and other areas of the north.[19] In particular, Aiken's critics cite the killing of six Protestant civilians, on an incident called the Altnaveigh Massacre, on 17 June 1922.[20] The attack was in reprisal for the Special Constabulary's killing of two nationalists near Camlough on 13 June and a sexual assault on Una McGuill, the wife of one of Aiken's friends, James McGuill.[21][22] As well as the six civilians, two Special Constables were killed in an ambush, and two weeks later a unionist politician, William Frazer, was abducted, killed and his body secretly buried. It was not found until 1924.[23] Civil WarAfter the IRA split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922, Aiken ultimately became aligned with the anti-Treaty side in spite of personal efforts to prevent division and civil war and by remaining neutral at first. After fighting broke out between pro- and anti-Treaty units in Dublin on 28 June 1922, he wrote to Richard Mulcahy on 6 July 1922 calling for a truce, the election of a new reunited IRA army council and the removal of the Oath of Allegiance from the Free State constitution.[24] Mulcahy was evasive, however, and said he 'could not see a way to advise the government' to agree with Aiken's proposals. Subsequently, Aiken travelled to Limerick meet with anti-Treaty IRA leader Liam Lynch, and urged him to consider a truce in return for the removal of references to the British monarch from the constitution.[25] Aiken later felt that without the sterling work done in support of the Treaty by Eoin O'Duffy, aided by Mulcahy and Eoin MacNeill, civil war would have been avoided.[26] Despite his neutrality and pleas for a negotiated end to the Civil War, Aiken was arrested by pro-Treaty troops on 16 July 1922, under Dan Hogan and imprisoned at Dundalk Gaol along with about 200 to 300 of his men.[27] After just ten days imprisonment, he was freed in a mass escape of 100 men from Dundalk prison on 28 July. Then, on 14 August, he led a surprise attack of between 300 and 400 anti-treaty IRA men on Dundalk. They blew holes in the army barracks there and rapidly took control of the town at a cost of just two of his men killed. The operation freed 240 republican prisoners seizing 400 rifles. While in possession of the town, Aiken publicly called for an end to the civil war. For the remainder of the conflict he remained at large with his unit, carrying out no major attacks on Free State forces.[28] Aiken was to remain unenthusiastic about the internecine struggle.[29] His son Frank Jr. recalls "I did ask him about the Civil War a little bit, but he wouldn't answer. He'd give me an answer like terrible things happen in wars and worse in civil wars."[30] Chief of StaffAiken was with IRA leader Liam Lynch's patrol when they were ambushed at Knockmealdown on 10 April 1923. Lynch was shot and killed. Aiken rescued crucial IRA papers, "saved and brought through at any cost".[31] He succeeded Lynch as IRA Chief of Staff on 20 April. Always ambivalent about the war against the Free State, Aiken soon issued a letter ordering a suspension of offensive operations from 30 April.
Aiken had remained close to Éamon de Valera, who had long wanted to end the Civil War, and together the two came up with a compromise that would save the anti-Treaty side from a formal surrender. Instead of giving up their weapons, their fighters would receive a further order to 'dump arms' and simply return home as honourable republicans. Aiken wrote: "We took up arms to free our country and we'll keep them until we see an honourable way of reaching our objective without arms".[33] The ceasefire and dump-arms order, issued on 24 May 1923, effectively ended the Irish Civil War, though the Free State government did not issue a general amnesty until the following year. Aiken remained IRA Chief of Staff until 12 November 1925. That summer the IRA sent a delegation led by Pa Murray to the Soviet Union for a personal meeting with Joseph Stalin, in the hope of gaining Soviet finance and weaponry assistance.[34] A secret pact was agreed whereby the IRA would spy on the United States and the United Kingdom, and pass information to Red Army military intelligence in New York City and London in return for £500 a month.[34] The pact was originally approved by Aiken, who left his position as chief of staff soon after. He was succeeded by Andrew Cooney and Moss Twomey, who kept up the secret espionage relationship.[34] Founder of Fianna FáilAiken was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin candidate for Louth in 1923. Aiken was at the April 1925 Commemoration ceremony at Dundalk, but by March 1926—when de Valera founded a new party, Fianna Fáil—he was in America. In June 1927 he was re-elected for Louth for Fianna Fáil, continuing to be re-elected for that party at every election until his retirement from politics in 1973.[35] In May 1926 he bought Dun Gaoithe, a dairy farm, at Sandyford, County Dublin. Aiken was an innovator, an amateur inventor who took out patents throughout his life for a turf stove, a beehive, an air shelter, an electric cooker and a spring heel for a shoe among others and also powered the family home in Sandyford through use of a wind turbine.[36] He entered the first Fianna Fáil government in 1932 as Minister for Defence. Clash with the Governor General.jpg) On de Valera's urging, Vice-President of the Executive Council Seán T. O'Kelly and Aiken publicly snubbed the Governor-General of the Irish Free State, James McNeill, by staging a public walkout at a function in the French legation in Dublin. When McNeill took offence at de Valera's response and, against government advice, published his correspondence, de Valera advised King George V to dismiss the Governor General. The King arranged a special deal between both men, whereby McNeill would retire from his post a few weeks earlier than planned, with the resignation coinciding with the dates de Valera had suggested for the dismissal. While agreeing that the situation was "regrettable" de Valera, instead of chastising the ministers, suggested that the Governor-General inform the Executive Council of his social engagements to enable ministers to avoid ones he was attending. MacNeill was a brother of Eoin MacNeill and this was a campaign to encourage him to resign as Governor-General which he did. Having done so, de Valera appointed appointed Domhnall Ua Buachalla, a Fianna Fáil founding member, to the office.[citation needed] Minister for DefenceAiken had in March 1932 been trying to reach a new rapprochement, and "reconciled the Army to the new regime".[37] On 9 March he visited republican prisoners, including George Gilmour, in Arbour Hill prison; they were released the next day. This was the same day he had been appointed as Minister for Defence.[citation needed] Aiken was given a vice-presidency, 'Agriculture', by James Ryan at the Ottawa Conference. He advised on the usage of cutting peat bogs in County Meath and visited the Curragh Camp in County Kildare to accelerate land distribution to poor tenantry. Land was released in the 'Midlands' for development. C.S. Andrews credits Aiken for the Turf Development Board in his second autobiography, Man of No Property.[citation needed] The Turf Development Board would later become Bord na Móna. According to Andrews, Lemass said to him "I want you to head this organisation to get Aiken off my back".[citation needed] Aiken remained interested in the development of Ireland's natural resources throughout his political life.[citation needed] Aiken was not involved in the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement negotiations which took place on 25 April 1938. According to some sources this was because of his associations with the IRA, while other sources suggest that he was tactically left at home by de Valera – as Aiken was perceived in the UK as a vexed Anglophobe who the Irish would have to convince of their support for the agreement in Dublin.[citation needed] The EmergencyAt the outbreak of Second World War, a period known in Ireland as The Emergency, Aiken was appointed as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures by de Valera with Oscar Traynor assuming the role of Minister for Defence, in de Valera's first major cabinet reshuffle as the country was put on a wartime footing to defend Irish neutrality.[citation needed] He gained notoriety in Dublin media circles for overseeing censorship: his clashes with R. M. Smyllie, editor of The Irish Times, ensured this censorious attitude was resented by many.[who?] Aiken not only corrected war coverage by The Irish Times, whose editorial line was largely pro-British, but also banned pro-allied war films and even forbade the reporting of parliamentarians' speeches that went against the government line of strict neutrality.[38] Aiken justified these measures, citing the 'terrible and all prevailing force of modern warfare' and the importance therein of morale and propaganda.[39][page needed] However, it was the former government minister, Joseph Connolly, and fellow Ulster founder member of Fianna Fáil, who was appointed to the office of censor.[citation needed] Aiken remained opposed to a British role and partition in Ireland, and was therefore a strong supporter of de Valera's policy of Irish neutrality that denied Britain use of Irish ports during the Battle of the Atlantic. Aiken considered that Ireland had to stand ready to resist invasion by both Germany and Britain, and the Irish Army was expanded under Aiken's ministry. It increased to a strength of 41,000 regulars and 180,000 in auxiliary units – the Local Defence Force and Local Security Force – by 1941, although these formations were relatively poorly equipped.[40] Aiken wanted to incorporate the IRA into the Army and offered the former an amnesty in the spring of 1940, which the underground organisation turned down.[41] Nevertheless, during wartime as the IRA cooperated with German intelligence and pressed for a German landing in Northern Ireland, the government, with Aiken's approval, interned several hundred of its members and executed six for the shooting of Irish police officers. Even so, Aiken remained somewhat sympathetic to them in private and visited their prisoners in Arbour Hill prison in Dublin. However, he did not appeal for clemency for those condemned to death.[42] Thinking that Britain would lose the war in 1940, he refused to back senior British civil servant Malcolm MacDonald's plan for the unification of Ireland in return for the Irish state joining the British effort. In diplomatic negotiations Aiken told him that a united Ireland, if it was conceded, would still stay neutral to safeguard its security and that further talks were 'a sheer waste of time'. Furthermore, the Irish people 'would not support their government taking them into the war without some actual provocation from Germany'.[43] When asked on American radio about the offer of unity in return for entering the war, he replied, 'most certainly not. We want union and sovereignty, not union and slavery'.[44] In March 1941, Aiken was sent to America to secure US supplies, both military and economic, that DeValera claimed Britain was withholding owing to Irish neutrality. Aiken had a bad-tempered meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington DC. Roosevelt urged Aiken and Ireland to join the war on the allied side asking if it was true that he had said that 'Ireland had nothing to fear from a German victory'. Aiken denied saying this but cited the British 'supply squeeze' as an act of aggression and asked the US to help. Roosevelt agreed to send supplies, but only if Britain consented. At the close Aiken asked the President to 'support us in our stand against aggression'. 'German aggression, yes' Roosevelt replied, to which Aiken retorted 'British aggression too'. This infuriated Roosevelt, who shouted 'nonsense' and 'pulled the tablecloth [from under his lunch] sending cutlery flying around the room'.[45] Ultimately, Aiken was not able to secure a promise of American arms, but was able to get a shipment of grain, two merchant ships and coal. Roosevelt also gave 'his personal guarantee' that Britain would not invade Ireland.[46] Minister for External Affairs
 Aiken was Minister for Finance for three years following the war and was involved in economic post–war development in the industrial, agricultural, educational and other spheres. However, it was during his two periods as Minister for External Affairs—1951 to 1954, and 1957 to 1969—that Aiken fulfilled his enormous political potential.[47] As Foreign Minister he adopted where possible an independent stance for Ireland at the United Nations and other international forums such as the Council of Europe. Despite a great deal of opposition, both at home and abroad, he stubbornly asserted the right of smaller UN member countries to discuss the representation of communist China at the General Assembly. Unable to bring the issue of the partition of Ireland to the UN, because of Britain's veto on the Security Council and unwillingness of other Western nations to interfere in what they saw as British affairs at that time (the US taking a more ambiguous position), Aiken ensured that Ireland vigorously defended the rights of small nations such as Tibet and Hungary, nations whose problems he felt Ireland could identify with and had a moral obligation to help. Aiken also supported the right of countries such as Algeria to self-determination and spoke out against apartheid in South Africa. Under Ireland's policy of promoting the primacy of international law and reducing global tension at the height of the Cold War, Aiken promoted the idea of "areas of law", which he believed would free the most tense regions around the world from the threat of nuclear war. The 'Aiken Plan' was introduced at the United Nations in an effort to combine disarmament and peace in the Middle East, Ireland a country being on good terms with both Israel and many Arab countries. In the UN the Irish delegation sat between Iraq and Israel forming a kind of physical 'buffer': in Aiken's time (who as a minister spent a lot of time with the UN delegation) both the Italians (who on their turn sat in the vicinity of the Iraqi delegation), the Irish and the Israelis claimed to be the one and only UN delegation of New York, a city inhabited by many Irish, Jewish and Italians. Aiken was also a champion of nuclear non-proliferation, for which he received the honour of being the first minister to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968 at Moscow. Aiken's impact as Minister for External Affairs was such that he is sometimes referred to as the father of Irish foreign policy.[48] His performance was praised in particular by a later Minister for Foreign Affairs, Fine Gael's Garret FitzGerald. Later yearsAiken retired from Ministerial office and as Tánaiste in 1969. During the Arms Crisis it is said that the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, turned to Aiken for advice on a number of issues. Aiken retired from politics in 1973 due to the fact that Charles Haughey, whose style of politics Aiken strongly disliked, was allowed to run as a Fianna Fáil candidate in the 1973 general election.[49] Initially he planned to announce the reason for his decision, but under pressure finally agreed to announce that he was retiring on medical advice.[50] Refusal of candidacy for the presidency of IrelandAfter his retirement, the outgoing President of Ireland Éamon de Valera, sought to convince Aiken—one of his closest friends—to run for Fianna Fáil in the 1973 presidential election. However, Aiken refused all requests to run and the party finally selected Erskine H. Childers to be its candidate. Childers won the election. Family In 1934 Aiken married Maud Davin, the director of the Dublin Municipal School of Music. The couple had three children.[29] The couple first met in County Wicklow in the house of Aiken's friend, James Ryan, who helped encourage the relationship.[citation needed] Death Frank Aiken died on 18 May 1983 in Dublin from natural causes at the age of 85. He was buried in his native Camlough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.[51] Honours and memorialsAiken received many decorations and honours, including honorary doctorates from the National University of Ireland and University College Dublin. He received the Grand Cross of St. Olav, the highest honour Norway can give to a foreigner, during a state visit to Norway in 1964.[52] He was also a lifelong supporter of the Irish language. His son, also named Frank, ran unsuccessfully in the 1987 and 1989 general elections for the Progressive Democrats. His wife died in a road accident in 1978. Having been denied the right, through an exclusion order, to attend his family home the former IRA Commander's dying wish was respected by local Fianna Fáil organisation, the Dundalk & District Old IRA and by the 27 Infantry Battalion of the barracks that now bears his name who followed his funeral cortege through Dundalk to the border out of respect to their fallen comrade.[citation needed] His former ministerial colleague, Seán MacEntee, gave the graveside oration.[citation needed] Aiken Barracks in Dundalk, County Louth, now the headquarters of the 27 Infantry Battalion is named in his honour.[citation needed] References
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