The Dunne clan

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Father Duffy statue

Photo by NYC Gov Parks

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During this time he also formed various other pro-fascist groups, which were banned by the government. In 1936 he organized the Irish Brigade to fight with Franco in the Spanish Civil War. A Duffy with a fascinating career was Charles Gavan Duffy (1816-1903) who was also born in Monaghan.

Although having little formal education, he taught himself through extensive reading and became a journalist. In 1842 he founded (with Thomas Davis and others) The Nation, the famous voice of the Young Ireland rebel movement. In 1848, on the eve of the rebellion, he was arrested and The Nation was closed down, only to be revived again on Duffy's release in 1849.

In 1852 he became the Member of Parliament for New Ross. In 1855, however, he left Ireland and went to Australia. He remained active in politics and in 1871 he became Prime Minister of Victoria and was knighted by the Queen. In 1880 he retired to the south of France and wrote biographies and histories of Irish revolutionary interest.

His son George Gavan Duffy (1882-1951) became a solicitor in Dublin and was active in the republican movement. In 1921 he was one of the Sinn Fein signatories of the Anglo-Irish Treaty which gave independence to the South of Ireland but which also split the republican movement and caused a brief Civil War. He was later Minister for Foreign Affairs in the first independent Irish government.

His sister Louise Gavan Duffy (1884-1969) was also an active republican and educationalist. She was one of the rebel force that occupied Dublin's General Post Office in 1916. Later she founded Scoil Bridhe. a girls' school that taught exclusively through the Irish language.

In the U.S. Duffys have also been prominent in the fight for independence. There were 78 Duffys listed in the American Revolutionary Army. Among these were Captain Patrick Duffy of Proctor's Pennsylvania Artillery, Timothy Duffy, a surgeon's mate of Hazen's Continental Regiment, and Ensign Hugh Duffy of Lancaster Company, Pennsylvania Militia.

Duffy Square, on 43rd Street and Broadway in New York City, was named for the Reverend Francis Duffy, chaplain of the Fighting Sixty-ninth during the First World War. His statue stands there.

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