Post-Irish Independence
In the 1920s and 1930s, the ICA was kept alive by veterans such as Seamus Mc Gowan, Dick McCormick and Frank Purcell, though largely as an old comrades association by veterans of 1916.
Uniformed Citizen Army men provided a guard of honour at Constance Markievicz's funeral in 1927.
In 1934, Peadar O'Donnell and other left wing republicans left the IRA and founded the Republican Congress. For a brief time, they revived the ICA as a paramilitary force, intended to be an armed wing for their new movement. According to Brian Hanley's history of the IRA, the revived Citizen Army had 300 or so members around the country in 1935. However, the Congress itself split in 1935 and collapsed shortly afterwards.
The ICA's last public appearance was to accompany the funeral procession of union leader James Larkin in Dublin in 1947.
Read more about this topic: Irish Citizen Army
Famous quotes containing the word independence:
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)