{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/641338125bde790011089c5b/6998ef79f863de959a91cd70?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"How close did Ireland come to military dictatorship?","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/641338125bde790011089c5b/1771630377132-05369ae3-20c0-4260-8072-ef59363b5857.jpeg?height=200","description":"<p>In March 1922, a relatively unknown member of the IRA was asked by journalists if they could take from his answers that Ireland would have a military dictatorship.</p><p>‘You can take it anyway you like,’ he replied.</p><p>On Free State today we look at the life of Rory O’Connor who was prepared to go to any lengths for the Republic of his ideals.&nbsp;</p><p>We talk to the author of a new biography of O’Connor Gerard Shannon about the fanaticism that drove him.</p><p>O’Connor became the public face of opposition to the Treaty but he also became the most human face when he was executed in December 1922, following a decision by the Free State cabinet including his great friend Kevin O’Higgins.</p><p>O’Connor had been best man at O’Higgins’s wedding a year before and now O’Higgins was part of the brutal decision to have him executed.&nbsp;</p><p>Shannon explains too why O’Connor faded from memory after his death and the extraordinary coincidence behind the killing of O’Higgins as he walked home from Mass in 1927.</p>","author_name":"Gold Hat Productions"}