Editing Tom Maguire

{{Short description|Irish politician and republican (1892–1993)}}
{{other people}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}}
{{Use Hiberno-English|date=November 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|image         = TomMaguire.jpg
|name          = Tom Maguire
|nationality   = [[Irish people|Irish]]
|birth_name    = Thomas Maguire
|birth_date    = {{birth date|1892|3|28|df=y}}
|birth_place   = Cross, [[County Mayo]], Ireland
|death_date    = {{Death date and age|1993|6|5|1892|3|28|df=y}} 
|death_place   = [[Castlebar]], County Mayo, Ireland
|resting_place = Cross, County Mayo, Ireland
|spouse        = {{marriage|Ann Feeney|1925}}
|children      = 5
|education     = 
|office        = [[Teachta Dála]]
|term_start    = [[1923 Irish general election|August 1923]]
|term_end      = [[June 1927 Irish general election|June 1927]]
|constituency  = [[Mayo South (Dáil constituency)|Mayo South]]
|term_start2   = [[1921 Irish elections|May 1921]]
|term_end2     = [[1923 Irish general election|August 1923]]
|constituency2 = [[Mayo South–Roscommon South (Dáil constituency)|Mayo South–Roscommon South]]
|office3       = [[Leader of Sinn Féin#Vice Presidents|Vice-President of Sinn Féin]]
|leader3       = [[Cathal Ó Murchadha]]
|term_start3   = 1935
|term_end3     = 1937
|party         = [[Sinn Féin]]
|battles       = {{Ubl|[[Irish War of Independence]]|[[Irish Civil War]]}}
|unit          = South Mayo Brigade 
|rank          = [[Commandant-general]]
|branch        = {{Ubl|[[Irish Republican Army (1919–1922)|Irish Republican Army]]|[[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|Anti-Treaty IRA]]}}
}}
[[File:Piece 207-122; Thomas Maguire (1922).pdf|page=3|thumb|right|alt=British Army military intelligence file for Thomas Maguire|British Army military intelligence file for Thomas Maguire]]
'''Tom Maguire''' (28 March 1892 – 5 July 1993) was an [[Irish republicanism|Irish republican]] who held the rank of commandant-general in the Western Command of the [[Irish Republican Army]] (IRA) and led the South [[County Mayo|Mayo]] flying column.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mansergh|first=Martin|title=The legacy of history: for making peace in Ireland : lectures and commemorative addresses|author-link=Martin Mansergh|publisher=Mercier Press|year=2003|pages=304|isbn=1-85635-389-3}}</ref>

==Early life==
Tom Maguire was born 28 March 1892 in Cross, [[County Mayo]], the fourth of eleven children of William Maguire, and Mary Grehan.<ref name=dib>{{cite web|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/maguire-tom-a5368|title=Maguire, Tom|work=[[Dictionary of Irish Biography]]|last=MacEvilly|first=Michael|last2=Coleman|first2=Marie|access-date=1 February 2022}}</ref> He joined the [[Irish Volunteers]] on their foundation in 1913, and after the 1916 [[Easter rising]], he formed the first company of Volunteers in Cross in 1917. He was elected as a  member of [[Mayo County Council]] in June 1920 and was subsequently chairman of [[Ballinrobe]] district council.<ref name=dib/>

==Irish Republican Army==
On 18 September 1920, the Mayo Brigade was reorganised, it was split up into four separate brigades. Maguire was appointed commander of the South Mayo Brigade.

On 3 May 1921, Maguire led an ambush on a [[Royal Irish Constabulary]] (RIC) patrol in [[Toormakeady]], [[County Mayo]], killing five members of the RIC.<ref>O'Halpin, Eunan & Ó Corráin, Daithí (2020), ''The Dead of the Irish Revolution'', Yale University Press, p. 405</ref> Maguire's [[flying column]] then made for the [[Partry Mountains]]. One account claimed that the column were surrounded by over 700 soldiers and policemen guided by aeroplanes. Maguire was wounded and his adjutant (Michael O'Brien) killed, but the column managed to escape with no further casualties.<ref name=dib/> British casualties were not revealed but were believed to have been high. Some recent research has raised the possibility that fewer than forty British soldiers were in the vicinity and that Maguire's column was forced to abandon their weapons with only one British officer wounded.<ref>Donal Buckley, The Battle of Tourmakeady, 2008</ref>

Maguire was involved in numerous other engagements including the Kilfall ambush.<ref>{{cite web|title=Memories of the men of the west|author=James Laffey|url=http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story.asp?j=35163|archive-url=https://archive.today/20080301051521/http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story.asp?j=35163|url-status=dead|archive-date=1 March 2008|publisher=Western People|date=27 February 2007|access-date=27 February 2007}}</ref>

At the [[1921 Irish elections|1921 election]] to [[Dáil Éireann]], Maguire was returned unopposed as [[Teachta Dála]] (TD) for [[Mayo South–Roscommon South (Dáil constituency)|Mayo South–Roscommon South]] as a [[Sinn Féin]] candidate. He opposed the [[Anglo-Irish Treaty]], and apart from saying "Níl" ("No" in English) when the vote was called, did not participate in any substantial way in the Dáil treaty debates. He was returned unopposed at the [[1922 Irish general election|1922 general election]].<ref name=oireachtas_db>{{cite web|url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Thomas-Maguire.D.1921-08-16/|title=Thomas Maguire|work=Oireachtas Members Database|access-date=24 March 2012|archive-date=8 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181108144458/https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Thomas-Maguire.D.1921-08-16|url-status=live}}</ref> At the [[1923 Irish general election|1923 general election]], Maguire faced a contest and succeeded in securing the second of five seats in the [[Mayo South (Dáil constituency)|Mayo South]] constituency, winning 5,712 votes (17.8%).<ref name="walker">{{cite book|title=Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1918–92|editor=Walker, Brian M|publisher=Royal Irish Academy|location=Dublin|year=1992|isbn=0-901714-96-8|issn=0332-0286|page=114}}</ref><ref name=elecs_irl>{{cite web|url=http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=1145|title=Thomas Maguire|work=ElectionsIreland.org|access-date=24 March 2012|archive-date=20 October 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111020165226/http://electionsireland.org//candidate.cfm?ID=1145|url-status=live}}</ref> He was a member of the [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|anti-Treaty IRA]] executive which commanded rebel troops during the [[Irish Civil War]]. Maguire was captured by the [[National Army (Ireland)|National Army]] while in bed and was told that he would be executed, but his life was spared. While in prison his brother, Sean Maguire, aged 17, was executed by the government.<ref>"They remained faithful". 1985. An Phoblacht/Republican News, 25 April 1985, pp. 8–9.</ref>

Maguire remained a TD until 1927. He had initially indicated a willingness to contest the [[June 1927 Irish general election|June 1927 general election]] as a Sinn Féin candidate but withdrew after the IRA threatened to [[court-martial]] any member under IRA General Army Order 28, which forbade its members from standing in elections. (Despite this ban, IRA officers [[Seán Farrell]] ([[Leitrim–Sligo (Dáil constituency)|Leitrim–Sligo]]) and [[John Madden (Irish politician)|John Madden]] ([[Mayo North (Dáil constituency)|Mayo North]]) contested the election, the latter successfully).

Maguire subsequently drifted out of the IRA and became vice-president of Sinn Féin from 1931 to 1933 during the presidency of [[Brian O'Higgins]].<ref>"Tom Maguire Remembered", ''Saoirse - Irish Freedom'', August 2005, p. 15.</ref> In 1932, a Mayo IRA officer reported that Maguire, now firmly aligned with Sinn Féin, refused to call on men to join the IRA when speaking at republican commemorations. When challenged on this, Maguire claimed that, as the IRA "were no longer the same as they used to be", he disagreed with the organisation.

==Maguire and republican legitimacy==
{{Main|Irish republican legitimism}}

In December 1938, Maguire was one of a group of seven people, who had been elected to the [[Second Dáil]] in 1921, who met with the IRA Army Council under [[Seán Russell]]. At this meeting, the seven signed over what they contended was the authority of the Government of Dáil Éireann to the Army Council. Henceforth, the IRA Army Council perceived itself to be the legitimate government of the [[Irish Republic]] and, on this basis, the IRA and Sinn Féin justified their rejection of the states of the [[Republic of Ireland]] and [[Northern Ireland]] and political [[abstentionism]] from their parliamentary institutions. According to [[J. Bowyer Bell]], in ''The Secret Army'', "With the possible exception of Tom Maguire, who went along, the Dáil members felt that the IRA request gave them the moral recognition so long denied by all factions and that their conditional devolution of power would in turn give the IRA the moral basis for the impending campaign" of 1939–45.<ref>J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army, 1997, p. 154.</ref>

When the majority of IRA and Sinn Féin decided to abandon abstentionism in the 1969–1970 split, [[Ruairí Ó Brádaigh]] and [[Dáithí Ó Conaill]] sought and secured Maguire's recognition of the [[IRA Army Council|Provisional IRA Council]] as the [[rump legitimist Second Dáil of 1938|legitimate successor to the 1938 Army Council]]. Of the seven 1938 signatories, Maguire was the only one still alive.<ref group="fn">Other former members of the Second Dáil were still alive in 1969, but were disregarded by legitimists because they did not support the Irish Republic before 1938.</ref> Maguire's support meant that the Provisional Army Council could claim to being the legitimate government of Ireland and the caretaker of true Irish Republicanism.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/organ/docs/ryan01.htm |title=The Birth of the Provisionals - A Clash between Politics and Tradition |last=Ryan |first=Patrick |date=2001 |website=CAIN Web Service |publisher=Ulster University |access-date=14 April 2024 |quote=}}</ref> 

Likewise, in the aftermath of the 1986 split in the [[Republican Movement (Ireland)|Republican Movement]], both the [[Provisional IRA]] and the [[Continuity IRA]] sought Maguire's support.<ref>Robert White, Ruairi O Bradaigh, The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary, 2006, p. 310.</ref> Maguire signed a statement which was issued posthumously in 1996. In it, he conferred legitimacy on the Army Council of the [[Continuity IRA]] (who provided a firing party at Maguire's funeral in 1993). In ''The Irish Troubles'', J. Bowyer Bell describes Maguire's opinion in 1986, "abstentionism was a basic tenet of republicanism, a moral issue of principle. Abstentionism gave the movement legitimacy, the right to wage war, to speak for a Republic all but established in the hearts of the people."<ref>J. Bowyer Bell, The Irish Troubles, 1993, {{ISBN|0-312-08827-2}}, page 731.</ref>

==Death==
He died on 5 July 1993. He is buried in [[Cross, County Mayo|Cross]], [[County Mayo]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Sanders |first = Andrew | title = Inside The IRA: Dissident Republicans And The War For Legitimacy | publisher = [[Edinburgh University Press]] | year = 2012 | page = 202 | isbn = 978-0-7486-4696-8}}</ref> [[Republican Sinn Féin]] have held multiple commemorations by his graveside.

==Writings==
* Tom Maguire, ''[https://poblachtach.wordpress.com/2018/03/22/the-mind-of-wolfe-tone-tom-maguire/ The Mind of Wolfe Tone]''

==Footnotes==
{{Reflist|group="fn"}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHkp5DBQwvc Interview in 1989]

==Further reading==
*Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, ''Dílseacht – The Story of Comdt General Tom Maguire and the Second (All-Ireland) Dáil'', Dublin: Irish Freedom Press, 1997, {{ISBN|0-9518567-9-0}}
{{commons category}}

{{Mayo South–Roscommon South (Dáil constituency)/TDs}}
{{Mayo South (Dáil constituency)/TDs}}
{{IRA}}
{{ATIRA}}
{{Sinn Féin}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maguire, Tom}}
[[Category:1892 births]]
[[Category:1993 deaths]]
[[Category:Early Sinn Féin TDs]]
[[Category:Irish men centenarians]]
[[Category:Irish nationalists]]
[[Category:Irish Republican Army (1919–1922) members]]
[[Category:Irish Republican Army (1922–1969) members]]
[[Category:Irish republicans]]
[[Category:Members of the 2nd Dáil]]
[[Category:Members of the 3rd Dáil]]
[[Category:Members of the 4th Dáil]]
[[Category:Politicians from County Mayo]]