Editing John A. Costello (section)

===Blueshirts speech===
On 28 February 1934, a Dáil debate was held on a bill to outlaw the wearing of uniforms (specifically designed to curtail the [[Blueshirts]], a uniformed movement then associated with Fine Gael and formed to defend their candidates, meeting and rallies from IRA attack). Costello made a speech opposing the bill that has generated controversy ever since. In response to an assertion by [[Minister for Justice (Ireland)|minister for justice]] [[P. J. Ruttledge]], that the Blueshirts had fascist leanings like the Italian [[Blackshirts]] and German [[Brownshirts]], and that other European nations had taken similar actions against similar organisations, Costello stated:

{{cquote|The Minister gave extracts from various laws on the Continent, but he carefully refrained from drawing attention to the fact that the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and that the Hitler Shirts were victorious in Germany, as, assuredly, in spite of this Bill [..] the Blueshirts will be victorious in the Irish Free State.<ref name=Oireachtas>{{cite book |title=Dáil Éireann – Volume 50 – 28 February 1934 |publisher=Oireachtas |location=Dublin |page=15 |url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0050/D.0050.193402280015.html |access-date=17 June 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120925204515/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0050/D.0050.193402280015.html |archive-date=25 September 2012}}</ref>}}

The remark was a small part of a much longer speech whose main point was that the bill was an unconstitutional overreaction by the Fianna Fáil government and an unfair scapegoating of the Blueshirts movement.<ref name=Oireachtas /> However, the quote has since been the subject of much debate regarding the extent to which the Blueshirts, and by extension Fine Gael – and Costello himself – had ties to European fascist movements.<ref>{{cite book |title=Opposing fascism: community, authority and resistance in Europe |url=https://archive.org/details/opposingfascismc00kirk |url-access=limited |last=Kirk |first=Tim |author2=Anthony McElligott |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/opposingfascismc00kirk/page/n102 91]|isbn=9780521483094 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=International solidarity with the Spanish Republic, 1936–1939 |author=Anonymous |year=1974 |publisher=Progress Publishers |location=Moscow |page=191}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Reluctant Taoiseach: A Biography of John A. Costello |last=McCullagh |first=David |year=2010 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |location=Dublin |isbn=978-0-7171-4646-8 |pages=536}}</ref>