Career
He emigrated to the United States of America in 1892 at the age of 18 and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also was a successful businessman. However, his business failed on three occasions, twice due to embezzlement by his business partner.
McGarrity helped sponsor several Irish Race Conventions and founded and ran a newspaper called The Irish Press from 1918-1922 that supported the War of Independence in Ireland.
During the First World War, while the United States of America was still neutral, McGarrity was involved in the Hindu–German Conspiracy. He arranged the Annie Larsen arms purchase and shipment from New York to San Diego for India.
When Éamon de Valera arrived in the United States of America in 1919 they struck up an immediate rapport and McGarrity managed de Valera"s tour of the United States of America. He became president of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and travelled to Dublin in 1922 and assisted the development of the short-lived Collins/De Valera Pact by bringing de Valera and Michael Collins together before the Irish general election, 1922.
He did not support the founding of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and opposed the party’s entry into the Dáil in 1927.
He finally fell out with de Valera in the 1930s and in 1939 supported the demand from Seán Russell for the "South-Plan" bombing campaign in Britain which proved disastrous. He met Hermann Göring in Berlin in 1939 to ask for aid for the Ireland Republican Army, which led indirectly to "Plan Kathleen". In 1933 McGarrity became one of the main ticket agents in the United States of America for the Irish Hospitals" Sweepstake.
McGarrity’s business empire was facing financial ruin when the Sweepstake agency came his way and set him straight.
When he died in 1940 a mass was held in the Street Mary"s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. McGarrity remained an unrepentant physical force republican all his life.
A number of his papers are in the National Library of Ireland. The Ireland Republican Army signed all its statements "Josip Juraj McGarrity" up until 1969 when the organisation split into the "Official" and "Provisional" movements.
Thereafter the term continued to be used by the Officials while the Provisionals adopted the moniker "P.O"Neill".