Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Irish Republican Socialist Party" in English language version.
The Officials later murdered the INLA's founder, Seamus Costello, while senior OIRA member Billy McMillen was shot dead in April 1975 by the infamous INLA killer Gerard Steenson.
The murders took place over a year after Tory MP Airey Neave was killed when an INLA booby trap bomb exploded under his car at the House of Commons in London. In the months after Mr Neave's death, several high profile figures linked to the IRSP and the National H-Block Committee were shot dead or seriously injured, including Miriam Daly who had resigned from the party shortly before she was killed in June 1980. John Turnly, a Protestant who was a member of the National H-Block Committee, was killed in Co Antrim in June 1980 while former IRSP member and H-Block campaigner Bernadette McAliskey was also injured in her Co Tyrone home in January 1981.
A FORMER British soldier who embraced Irish nationalism and campaigned for republican prisoners has been described as "brave" on the 40th anniversary of his murder by a loyalist gang linked to the SAS. ... In 2016 it emerged that one of the three, William McClelland, had been a member of the UDR. Brothers Robert and Eric McConnell were also convicted for their part in the murders. During his 1982 trial Robert McConnell claimed he had been working for the SAS saying they supplied him with weapons, uniforms and listening devices. ... He was one of several prison H-Block campaigners targeted by the UDA including former IRSP member Miriam Daly (45), who was killed weeks later on June 26 at her home in Andersonstown in west Belfast. In October that year IRSP members Ronnie Bunting (32) and Noel Little (45) were both shot dead at a house in west Belfast. ... Although the murders have been attributed to the UDA, the SAS is suspected by some of being involved. Former IRSP member and H-Block campaigner Bernadette McAliskey was injured in a UDA gun attack at her Co Tyrone home in January 1981. It later emerged that a British soldiers were watching the house but failed to intervene.
Thomas 'Ta' Power (33) and then INLA 'chief of staff ' John Gerard O'Reilly (26) were gunned down as they sat in the Rossnaree Hotel, near Drogheda, in January 1987 by members of the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO).
IRSP: 3,418 (2.6%), 2 Councillors
However, the Beechmount man said the decision to stand on May 5 comes off the back success of IRSP initiatives like its 'Drop the Rents' campaign to reduce private rental costs in line with housing benefit levels. "We've found ourselves in a really good position and we want to push this campaign forward," he said. ... Mr Murphy said that housing is the most pressing issue in the current election campaign. "There's a lack of social housing in West Belfast, high rents, and there's a cost-living-crisis," he said. "These all fit into the same bubble. People just can't afford to live anymore. That's the black and white reality of it. "We want to bring rentals in areas of high social housing demand down to what the social housing benefit level is," he continued. "Ultimately the goal of the 'Drop the Rents' campaign is to make private landlordism unprofitable. I'm not going to say that private landlordism is single-handedly to blame for the housing crisis, but it has played a major role in it. There's no doubt about that. The more people we drive away from that the better. Putting more pressure on the Housing Executive to either buy back or build new houses is pivotal to make those changes on a structural level. We're not going in thinking that a single MLA is going to change the structural issues facing the people of West Belfast, but we can act as a serious voice for changing things in that direction."
In 1981, the party had two members elected to Belfast City Council following a joint campaign with People's Democracy.
He was proud, as a Mayo activist for the Irish Republican Social Party, to have delivered much vital PPE to the frontline staff at Mayo University Hospital in Castlebar in recent weeks with a commitment to continue to do so 'until the virus is beaten'.
... and in October 1992 took action against the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO). The IPLO had a history of criminal activities including a gang rape of a woman in the Divis flats complex and involvement in the growing drug trade. The IRA's action resulted in the execution of one IPLO member and the shooting of a further 20 members with assault rifles in Belfast. The IPLO disbanded shortly after this.
After the protest the IRSP stated: "The IRSP and 32CSM were joined by community groups and residents outside the Capita Offices in Derry, protesting at the ongoing implementation of Tory/Stormont Welfare reform that continues to wreak economic chaos on working class people across the North of Ireland. "Capita, which is a private profit making organisation, was assigned by the Tory government following the approval of Sinn Féin, DUP and the Alliance Party to implement welfare reform and in particular, facilitate the changing of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) payment to the new PIP system." The IRSP was referring to the replacement of the old DLA sickness entitlement payment to PIP in June, 2016, which has resulted in a deeply unpopular system of rolling reviews that has seen many stripped of their entitlements.
"These attacks and threats come at a time when the IRSP and wider Republican Socialist Movement have been involved in a sustained and essential effort to provide much needed PPE to care homes and doctors surgeries across Derry and indeed across Ireland," a spokesperson said. "Thousands of items such as visors, masks, aprons and hand sanitiser have been given to front line workers across our community by the IRSP through an initiative called Republican Socialist Aid."
The death of Steenson in a hail of bullets in west Belfast on March 15th effectively ended the feud. The IPLO did retaliate, killing two minor INLA figures a week later, but only to demonstrate that the group was not dependent on Steenson alone. An uneasy peace has since broken out, engineered by two Belfast priests.
Gregory joined the IRSP 'on paper' and had been 'devastated' by Costello's assassination.
... and in October 1992 took action against the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO). The IPLO had a history of criminal activities including a gang rape of a woman in the Divis flats complex and involvement in the growing drug trade. The IRA's action resulted in the execution of one IPLO member and the shooting of a further 20 members with assault rifles in Belfast. The IPLO disbanded shortly after this.
Along with members from Donegal Water Warriors, Inishowen Against Water Charges and Donegal Right2Water, delegates from Sinn Fein, the IRSP and Buncrana Together were also in attendance.
In 1986, fighting between IPLO and INLA started shortly after IPLO had been formed by expelled members as a breakaway faction of the INLA.
The Irish People's Liberation Organization, a splinter from the Irish National Liberation Army, under the direction of Jimmy Brown, were the first to commence with the importation of drugs on a sizable scale, mainly ecstasy tablets popular at rave parties in the late 1980s. Brown, who fancied himself as something of an intellectual, justified this by pointing to the guerrillas in Colombia, who finance their war against the state through proceeds from the trade in cocaine. The IPLO was forced to disband by the Provisional IRA in November 1992. But the drug trade goes on, mainly in the hands of elements within the Ulster Defense Association.
The Officials later murdered the INLA's founder, Seamus Costello, while senior OIRA member Billy McMillen was shot dead in April 1975 by the infamous INLA killer Gerard Steenson.
The murders took place over a year after Tory MP Airey Neave was killed when an INLA booby trap bomb exploded under his car at the House of Commons in London. In the months after Mr Neave's death, several high profile figures linked to the IRSP and the National H-Block Committee were shot dead or seriously injured, including Miriam Daly who had resigned from the party shortly before she was killed in June 1980. John Turnly, a Protestant who was a member of the National H-Block Committee, was killed in Co Antrim in June 1980 while former IRSP member and H-Block campaigner Bernadette McAliskey was also injured in her Co Tyrone home in January 1981.
A FORMER British soldier who embraced Irish nationalism and campaigned for republican prisoners has been described as "brave" on the 40th anniversary of his murder by a loyalist gang linked to the SAS. ... In 2016 it emerged that one of the three, William McClelland, had been a member of the UDR. Brothers Robert and Eric McConnell were also convicted for their part in the murders. During his 1982 trial Robert McConnell claimed he had been working for the SAS saying they supplied him with weapons, uniforms and listening devices. ... He was one of several prison H-Block campaigners targeted by the UDA including former IRSP member Miriam Daly (45), who was killed weeks later on June 26 at her home in Andersonstown in west Belfast. In October that year IRSP members Ronnie Bunting (32) and Noel Little (45) were both shot dead at a house in west Belfast. ... Although the murders have been attributed to the UDA, the SAS is suspected by some of being involved. Former IRSP member and H-Block campaigner Bernadette McAliskey was injured in a UDA gun attack at her Co Tyrone home in January 1981. It later emerged that a British soldiers were watching the house but failed to intervene.
Thomas 'Ta' Power (33) and then INLA 'chief of staff ' John Gerard O'Reilly (26) were gunned down as they sat in the Rossnaree Hotel, near Drogheda, in January 1987 by members of the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO).
He was one of two IRSP candidates elected to Belfast City Council in 1981 but served only half of his four-year term after going on the run to the Republic when he was implicated in paramilitary activity on the word of supergrass Harry Kirkpatrick.
Kevin Lynch, Waterford, 3,337; Tony O'Hara, Dublin West, 3,034;
A military wing, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), was founded the same day, although its existence was intended to be kept hidden until such times when the INLA could operate effectively. Seamus Costello was elected as the party's first chairperson and the army's first chief of staff. Together, the IRSP and the INLA refer to themselves as the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM).
In the early hours of the 15th October, British death squads entered the home of Ronnie; assassinating both Ronnie & Noel. While the killing was claimed by the UDA at the time, it is widely believed through eyewitnesses that the SAS were involved on the direct orders of Margaret Thatcher who had a personal agenda to smash the IRSP/INLA and in particularly to kill Ronnie.
Last month the IRSP challenged Sinn Féin ,the party who claim to oppose austerity, to reveal whether or not – under the Stormont House Deal – they had agreed to the destruction of Disability Living Allowance, the subsequent degradation of Carers Allowance, the introduction of a benefits cap, and the ending of Severe Disability Premiums via the deliberately deceptive 'Universal Credit' system, all of the core attacks which made up the savage Tory Welfare Reform Bill.
When we say that we are not an abstentionist party, what we mean by this is that we are not a party, in principle, committed to abstention. But there are circumstances and conditions under which is might be desirable to abstain and if we felt that it was tactically desirable at any particular point in time, in either the North or the South to abstain from Parliament, then we would do so. That would depend, however, on the circumstances existing at that particular point of time. If a situation existed, for instance, where there was a possibility of large scale dissatisfaction, on the part of the people, with either the 26 County parliament or the 6 County parliament then abstention, on our part would be a legitimate tactic. We are not, however, abstentionist in principle
Thank you for reading the first issue of Irish Republican Socialist News, which is published by the North American section of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement.
He was one of two IRSP candidates elected to Belfast City Council in 1981 but served only half of his four-year term after going on the run to the Republic when he was implicated in paramilitary activity on the word of supergrass Harry Kirkpatrick.
20 members of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) resigned on 1 December 1975. Two days earlier, 11 members of its National Executive had walked out of an Ard Comhairle in a dispute over control of the INLA. These included Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, who had helped found the party the previous year with chairman Seamus Costello, and meant that the presence of the IRSP in Northern Ireland was substantially weakened.
When we say that we are not an abstentionist party, what we mean by this is that we are not a party, in principle, committed to abstention. But there are circumstances and conditions under which is might be desirable to abstain and if we felt that it was tactically desirable at any particular point in time, in either the North or the South to abstain from Parliament, then we would do so. That would depend, however, on the circumstances existing at that particular point of time. If a situation existed, for instance, where there was a possibility of large scale dissatisfaction, on the part of the people, with either the 26 County parliament or the 6 County parliament then abstention, on our part would be a legitimate tactic. We are not, however, abstentionist in principle
In 1986, fighting between IPLO and INLA started shortly after IPLO had been formed by expelled members as a breakaway faction of the INLA.
