Fionnán Sheahan

For many, many years, Fianna Fáil retained that they would have almost anyone if they were prepared to come on board.

For example, it took a lot of left-wing radicals who were aging and becoming less convinced of left-wing radical politics.

They had no hang-ups about taking them.

There's a significant event now that we can look back on in 1940 with De Valera in that long period of power.

And it was the execution of two IRA, old IRA men.

Why was that so significant?

And what did it say about Fianna Fáil's view of

having to maintain law and order in the country.

If you go back to the start of Fianna Fáil, 1926, as you say, civil war, still very, very raw and fresh.

De Valera, a fellow traveller with those who bore arms against the treaty,

and a friend of the IRA right in through the 1930s.

But little by little, he was distancing himself from that and took some very decisive steps in the 1930s.

Remarkable that these two people were executed by a Fianna Fáil government.

Not only that, but the Minister for Justice at the time was Gerald Boland, Gerry Boland.

Some of our older readers and listeners will remember him as the father of Kevin Boland, who was very big in the 1970s arms trial, very much an IRA fellow traveler.

Yet they took that step to show that

They, in many ways, mimicked the Commonwealth government in 1922 to 1932 in taking a stand against anybody who bore arms against the state, anybody who subverted the state.

Yeah, so Fianna Fáil was clearly saying, we will stand by the institutions of the state.

This is what we are signed up to.

We may not...