Social Credit Party (Ireland)
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The Irish Social Credit Party was a political party active in the
Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...
. Founded as the Financial Freedom Federation in 1932, it was renamed in 1935.


History

Formed in 1932 as the Financial Freedom Federation (FFF), it became the Irish Social Credit Party in late 1935. The party sought to reform Ireland's financial and economic system on lines consistent with the
social credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...
economics as espoused by Major
C. H. Douglas Major (rank), Major Clifford Hugh Douglas, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, MIMechE, Institution of Electrical Engineers, MIEE (20 January 1879 – 29 September 1952), was a British engineer, economist and pioneer of the social credit economi ...
. The FFF had split in two factions: one operating under the banner of the Financial Freedom Federation and the other under the banner of the Financial Freedom Federation of Ireland. A list of the party's executive committee member submitted to the 1934 Banking Commission includes
Maud Gonne MacBride Maud Gonne MacBride (, born Edith Maud Gonne); 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an Irish republican revolutionary, suffragette and actress. She was of Anglo-Irish descent and was won over to Irish nationalism by the plight of people evict ...
and Josephine Fitzgerald. As of 1936, the Party's headquarters was based in Gardiner Street, Dublin. In the ''Irish Independent'' in 1936, Gonne criticised Ernest Blythe's denunciation of social credit economics. She wrote: "I read with amazement the report of Mr. Blythe's broadcast attack on Social Credit. Major Douglas's contention that production has outstripped distribution with disastrous results of unemployment and starvation, tending to war and anarchy is uncontrovertible, and is apparent to all in the desperate scramble for markets, the restriction of output and destruction in almost every country of consumable goods, while millions of people who need these goods are allowed to starve." Along with Gonne, other notable names on the party's executive committee of the organisation were those of
Patrick Lenihan Patrick James Lenihan (4 September 1902 – 11 March 1970) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Longford–Westmeath constituency from 1965 to 1970. He held the distinction of being the only parent t ...
and former captain of the British army, Henry Neville Roberts. Former chief organiser of the IRB in Ulster, Seamus Dobbyn, presided as president for most of the decade. When the movement was revived under a different moniker in the 1940s, it was led by James Lennon, from Carlow, who had been elected as a TD to the first Dáil in 1919. The party went into decline by the late 1930s and it had become confused in the public mind with the
Communist Party of Ireland The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) is a Marxist–Leninist party, founded in 1970 and active in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland following a merger of the Irish Workers' Party and the Communist Party of Northern Ireland. It ra ...
. An example of this was at a public meeting of the party at the Gloucester Diamond, Dublin in April 1936. Before the meeting could commence, an angry anti-Communist mob, seemingly provoked by a party banner exclaiming ‘social justice through Social Credit’, smashed the platform and destroyed books and literature before launching missiles, including cabbage stalks at party members, including Gonne. In 1941,
Denis Ireland Denis Liddell Ireland (29 July 1894 – 23 September 1974) was an Irish essayist and political activist. A northern Protestant, after service in World War I he embraced the cause of Irish independence. He also advanced the social credit ideas o ...
published ''
Éamon de Valera Éamon de Valera (; ; first registered as George de Valero; changed some time before 1901 to Edward de Valera; 14 October 1882 – 29 August 1975) was an American-born Irish statesman and political leader. He served as the 3rd President of Ire ...
Doesn’t See it Through: A Study of Irish Politics in the Machine Age'', in which he defended Douglas's distributive philosophy. "
Social credit Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made t ...
" or "national dividend" payments to citizens were essential to redress the otherwise chronic lag in "the machine-age" between their capacity to consume and the "productive capacity" of industry. In a "world of artificial scarcity" the alternative, he suggested, was fascism. Ireland's position with regard to the Social Credit party, however, is unclear. In 1948, he entered the
Seanad Éireann Seanad Éireann ( ; ; "Senate of Ireland") is the senate of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature), which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann (defined as the house of representatives). It is commonly called the Seanad or ...
for
Clann na Poblachta Clann na Poblachta (; "Family/Children of the Republic") was an Irish republican Irish republicanism () is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed var ...
, the republican and broadly social-democratic party of Maud Gonne's son,
Seán MacBride Seán MacBride (26 January 1904 – 15 January 1988) was an Irish Republican activist, politician, and diplomat who served as Minister for External Affairs from 1948 to 1951, Leader of Clann na Poblachta from 1946 to 1965 and Chief of Staff o ...
, making him the first Northern Ireland resident to serve in the
Oireachtas The Oireachtas ( ; ), sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of the president of Ireland and the two houses of the Oireachtas (): a house ...
.


References

{{Social Credit Defunct political parties in the Republic of Ireland 1932 establishments in Ireland 1940 disestablishments in Ireland Political parties established in 1932 Political parties disestablished in 1940 Social credit parties