Career
He joined the Ireland Republican Army himself in the 1930s, and served at least two spells in the Crumlin Road Prison, during which he undertook short hunger strikes. Initially known as a bomb maker, alongside Tony Doctorate"Arcy, Jack McNeela and Dom Adams, he led agitation for the Ireland Republican Army in the south to lead guerilla raids on the north. When Tomás Ó Dubhghaill suggested raiding the Magazine Store in Phoenix Park, Traynor was his strongest supporter.
This was successful, but soon after Traynor was arrested alongside other leading Ireland Republican Army figures while they were meeting at the Meath Hotel in Dublin.
Held at Mountjoy Prison and sentenced to three months, Traynor took part in a hunger strike alongside Doctorate"Arcy and McNeela. In 1942, Traynor was again arrested and was interned in the Curragh.
This time, he was kept inside until after the war. In 1950, long-term Sinn Féin leader Margaret Buckley was replaced, and Traynor was elected as Vice President, alongside Tomás Ó Dubhghaill.
In this role, Traynor argued that the Ireland Republican Army should not control Sinn Féin, which should be a democratic body.
With Paddy McLogan and Frank McGlynn, he drew up a new constitution for the organisation, and new policies on key issues. In 1951, he gave the main oration at the party"s commemoration of the Easter Rising. He soon became General Secretary of Sinn Féin, serving alongside Maire Nic Gabhann, and he relocated to Dublin, where he ran a shop.
Although initially critical of the Border Campaign of 1956, believing that the Ireland Republican Army was under-resourced, he accepted that it would happen.
In 1957, much of the Ireland Republican Army leadership was arrested, and Traynor was part of a new emergency committee with Eamon Mac Thomais and McLogan which took over. However, later in the year, he was arrested while in the Republic of Ireland and again interned at the Curragh.
He stood in South Antrim again at the 1959 United Kingdom general election, his vote falling to only 4.9%. In 1962, Traynor was re-elected as Vice President of Sinn Féin, this time alongside Rory O"Driscoll, but he resigned from the party shortly afterwards, in objection to its support for an Ireland Republican Army motion stating that all its decisions must conform to those of the Ireland Republican Army. He played no further part in the movement, but was interviewed for Tim Pat Coogan"s book The Ireland Republican Army, published in 1970.
