view of Fianna Fáil, and at that point in time believed their goals differed little from his own and those of the IRA. Nevertheless, Gilmore encouraged the IRA to not become too closely associated with Fianna Fáil, fearing the IRA would become a subservient body. Gilmore himself had ascended to the IRA's army council upon his release, and in March 1932 was amongst representatives of the Army Council that liaised with de Valera about a possible partnership between the IRA and Fianna Fáil. On 14 August 1932, he and fellow Irish Republican T.J. Ryan were beaten badly, shot and wounded by plain-clothes members the Garda Síochána (Criminal Investigation Department) in Kilrush, County Clare. This incident that was blamed on the police by an official Tribunal of Inquiry that reported one month later. In March 1934 Gilmore, alongside Frank Ryan and Peadar O'Donnell, refused to continue on as members of the IRA executive as part of a deepening rift over the direction of the IRA. Left-wing members of the IRA such as Gilmore, Ryan and O'Donnell insisted that the IRA needed to tie their activity to social agitation in addition to their military aims, but this was a minority viewpoint, with the majority believing the IRA should have a "strictly military" outlook. The rift would ultimately spiral into Gilmore, Ryan and O'Donnell being "court-martialled" and expelled in April. In the aftermath, Gilmore worked with Roddy Connolly, Nora Connolly O'Brien, Peadar O'Donnell to found the Republican Congress, a left-wing socialist Irish Republican group The group broke up in 1935 over internal differences; Gilmore, Ryan and O'Donnell believed that the Republican Congress should be a "United Front", an alliance of all Republican groups in Ireland. Roddy Connolly and other members of the Communist Party of Ireland believed that the Congress should be a Vanguard Party. A conference was held by the Republican Congress in Rathmines, Dublin in September 1934 to vote on the issue. Before the vote was taken, Gilmore gave a speech in which he accused Fianna Fáil of using republicanism as means to promote Irish capitalism. When the votes were taken on whether the Republican Congress should be a united front or a vanguard party, Gilmore's united front faction won. However, supporters of the vanguard party concept such as Roddy Connolly immediately resigned from the Congress in protest and walked out on the group. It proved to be a blow that