He was later sentenced to eight months of imprisonment. During the 1930s senior IRA officers and veterans of the Tan and Civil Wars such as McCool were sent to different areas for weeks at a time to help train local IRA recruits. In 1931, despite not being a member of the party, Fianna Fáil members in Stranorlar, Co. Donegal attempted to select McCool as a candidate, without success. That same year the IRA attempted to launch its own political party, Saor Éire. McCool attended the inaugural meeting and seconded a motion sending fraternal greetings to the USSR. The success Fianna Fáil and the IRA at this time encouraged McCool, writing to fellow republican Frank Ryan in 1932 he said that the crowd (at the Drumboe march) "did one's heart good after all the black years... the youth are with us and that's everything". McCool continued to be active on both the military and political fronts. In 1932 he joined Peadar O'Donnell, Charlotte Despard and David Fitzgerald on the governing Committee of the Workers College, a group close to the Revolutionary Workers Group which would later morph into the Communist Party of Ireland. Later that year, while still involved in training activities, an IRA unit under the command of McCool and Mick Price took over Donamon Castle in County Roscommon to set up a training camp. He also found time to address the Drumboe commemoration in his native County Donegal. McCool wrote to then IRA Chief of Staff Moss Twomey requesting permission to issue a statement, ahead of a planned Orange march in Donegal, denouncing imperialist displays. This plan was vetoed by Twomey and Peadar O'Donnell's appeal to the Orange Order was issued instead. By 1933 McCool was commander of the IRA Donegal No.2 Battalion and presided over the organising of a new slua of na Fianna Éireann (IRA youth wing) in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal and attended a ‘Release the Prisoners' meeting in Derry City. He was also selected to stand as an abstentionist Republican candidate for the Foyle Constituency in County Londonderry where he received 3,031 votes. This result, along with the votes obtained by other Republicans in Northern Ireland was hailed as significant with the IRA proclaiming ‘the fight in the North has been given new life'. The early 1930s saw increasing clashes between the IRA and the General Eoin O'Duffy's Blueshirts, At the 1934 IRA General Army Convention differences began to arise between those who thought that fighting Irish fascism in the form of the Blueshirts was the most important task for the IRA and those who believed that the Fianna Fáil government was using these clashes to turn against, and clamp down on the IRA.