Communist Party of Ireland (1933)

The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) was a political party founded in June 1933 in the Irish Free State. It was the second party to call itself by this name, being preceded by Socialist Party of Ireland which used the name Communist Party of Ireland briefly in the early 1920s. The party found it extremely difficult to operate in 1930s Ireland and never gained much traction. The party was involved in the failed attempt to unite the various left-wing political factions in Ireland into one force known as the Republican Congress. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, many of the CPI's members volunteered on the Republican side. Following the entry of the Soviet Union in World War II in 1941, the party was disbanded in July 1941 and its members were encouraged to join the Labour Party.