At the 1921 Irish elections, he was re-elected for Sligo–Mayo East. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was again re-elected for Sligo–Mayo East at the 1922 general election, this time as pro-Treaty Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD). During the Treaty debate he asserted that the counties of Ulster which comprised "Northern Ireland" could never be incorporated into an Irish Republic while the British Empire was what it was.[5]
He resigned his Dáil seat on 30 October 1924 along with several other TDs, and the resulting by-election on 11 March 1925 was won by the Cumann na nGaedheal candidate Martin Roddy. He did not stand for public office again and returned to his post as a schoolteacher.
In the 1930s he was involved with the short-lived but widely followed Irish Christian Front, serving as the organisation's secretary and announcing its creation to the public on 22 August 1936. He was also a member of the Blueshirts during this period and later the Irish Friends of Germany (later known as the 'National Club') during World War II, a would-be Nazi collaborator group in the event Germany invaded Ireland. McCabe chaired their meetings, denied the group was a fifth column and expressed the belief that a German victory would lead to a United Ireland. He was interned in 1940–1941 due to his pro-German sympathies, which he claimed resulted from the desire to ‘see the very life-blood squeezed out of England’.[2][7]
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