the blueshirts were an organisation that sprang up to defend members of one of the merging parties, prior to the merger.
Apileofballyhoo
Not necessarily the case...
The Blueshirts supported several right wing, anti-Communist, heavily RC, and formerly Pro-Treaty factions and parties in the elections of the 1930s. Support was of the hands on variety. Under the leadership of Eoin O'Duffy they also became a political force in their own right.
The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later the National Guard, then Young Ireland[1] and finally League of Youth, but better known by the nickname The Blueshirts (Irish: Na Léinte Gorma), was a Right-wing movement in the Irish Free State in the early 1930s. The organisation provided physical protection for political groups such as Cumann na nGaedheal from intimidation and attack by the anti-Treaty IRA.[2] Some former members went on to fight for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. (It had been dissolved before the civil war started.)
Most of the political parties whose meetings the Blueshirts protected would merge to become Fine Gael, and members of that party are still sometimes nicknamed "Blueshirts".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshirts
The Army Comrades Association was an association of former Free State Army members, who had fought the Civil War against the IRA. There was a period of massive distrust among all parties that had been involved in the civil war. Both of the major political groupings sprang from the Civil War and the mutual distrust and often outright hatred remained strong for many decades.
The election of 1933 saw much intimidation of campaign meetings, which were often held in town squares. (My grandfather was injured while making a speech on behalf of a Fianna Fail candidate in Wexford when lorries full of Blueshirts arrived and waded into the crowd swinging batons, sticks, and fists). The Blueshirts weren't all that comical at the time.
As the article illustrates, the Blueshirts were not merely one of many factions that made up FineGael. They acted in support of many factions, so their presence was extensive, and consciousness of their existence as well as the support they enjoyed among the RC hierarchy and RC priests was a factor in and of itself in the politics of the early 1930s. Those parties and factions that they supported became identified with the Blueshirts and with their right wing aims and ambitions. Fine Gael has never shaken off the legacy of identification with the Blueshirts. You lie down with dogs...
Nowadays it is possible to look back and see the Blueshirts as a rather unoriginal bunch of amateurs, but at the time they looked different. Mussolini was well established in Italy and Hitler had come to power in Germany in 1933 with tremendous displays of public support - rallies, marches, enormous fanfare. There were 30,000 Blueshirts and the fact that they openly copied continental Fascist movements as well as Mosley's Blackshirts was alarming, as was their continued links to Ireland's standing Army. Would the Army support the elected government if a fascist coup were to take place, or would it take sides? This was a significant issue, and it caused deValera to take a much softer approach to O'Duffy than he took during WW2 with old Republican comrades.
The Blueshirts and other fascist and rabidly anti-Communist individuals put their money where their mouth was - about 700 under the command of Eoin O'Duffy went on to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War (while the IRA sent members to fight on the anti-Franco side). 7000 had initially volunteered to go with O'Duffy.
Eoin O'Duffy in particular was quite the committed fascist.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenshirts_(National_Corporate_Party)
The Greenshirts were members of the fascist National Corporate Party (NCP) in Ireland in the 1930s. The NCP was founded by Eoin O'Duffy after he broke from the Fine Gael party in 1935. The Greenshirts were different from the better known Blueshirts, O'Duffy's followers before he left Fine Gael. Only eighty of the Blueshirts later became Greenshirts. It was an influence to a later fascist party, Ailtirí na hAiséirghe.
In 1936 O'Duffy led a volunteer Irish Brigade to fight for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, and retired on his return in 1937. Without him, both the Greenshirts and NCP faded away.
The National Corporate Party (Irish: Páirtí Náisiúnta Corparáidíoch, PNC) was a fascist political party in Ireland founded by General Eoin O'Duffy in June 1935 at a meeting of 500.[1][2] It split from Fine Gael when O'Duffy was removed as leader of that party, which had been founded by the merger of O'Duffy's Blueshirts, formally known as the National Guard or Army Comrades Association, with Cumann na nGaedheal, and the National Centre Party.[3]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Corporate_Party
The National Corporate Party wished to establish a corporate state in Ireland and was strongly anti-communist.[3] Its military wing was the Greenshirts.[3] The party raised funds through public dances. [4]
It failed to gain much support however, with the majority of Fine Gael members remaining loyal to that party and O'Duffy only securing a handful of loyal supporters for his group.[5]
O'Duffy left Ireland in 1936 to become involved in the Spanish Civil War, a fact which led to further decline in the National Corporate Party.[5] The party was defunct by 1937
The Irish Catholic Church's support for the Franco side in the Spanish Civil War complicated Irish politics immensely in the early 30s. The Spanish Civil War was presented in Catholic Europe (and also of course in Ireland, and also in the US) as a fight between Catholicism and Godless Communism, which along with worries about the impartiality of the Army greatly hampered deValera's room to manouver in dealing with O'Duffy and with the Blueshirts. Again, a snippet of family history - my grandfather stood up and marched out of the parish church during Mass when the priest preached a sermon on his support for the Blueshirts and for Franco.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Brigade_(Spanish_Civil_War)
A useful article on the inspiration, influences and history of the Irish Brigade under O'Duffy and the Spanish Civil War.