Irish People's Liberation Organisation Explained

Irish People's Liberation Organisation
War:the Troubles
Ideology:Irish republicanism
Left-wing nationalism
Revolutionary socialism
Active:1986 – May 1992
Split:Irish National Liberation Army
Leaders:Jimmy Brown, Gerard Steenson
Sammy Ward (IPLOBB Leader), Martin O'Prey
Clans:Republican Socialist Collective (political wing)
Area:Ireland
Size:150–200
Predecessor:Irish National Liberation Army
Opponents: United Kingdom

Ulster loyalist paramilitaries
Provisional IRA
Irish National Liberation Army

Battles:The Troubles

The Irish People's Liberation Organisation was a small Irish socialist republican paramilitary organisation formed in 1986 by disaffected and expelled members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), whose factions coalesced in the aftermath of the supergrass trials. It developed a reputation for intra-republican and sectarian violence as well as criminality, before being forcibly disbanded by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1992.

Some of the IPLO's most notable attacks during its short existence were:

On 1 May 1990 the IPLO became a proscribed organisation by the British government.[3] Although officially disbanded, the IPLO retains that classification under the Terrorism Act 2000.[4]

Foundation

The IPLO emerged from a split within the INLA. After the 1981 Irish hunger strike, in which three of its members died, the INLA began to break apart. The INLA virtually dissolved as a coherent force in the mid-1980s. Factions associated with Belfast and Dublin fell into dispute with each other. When INLA man Harry Kirkpatrick turned supergrass, he implicated many of his former comrades in various activities and many of them were convicted on his testimony.

Members both inside and out of prison broke away from the INLA and set up the IPLO. Some key players at the outset were Tom McAllister, Gerard Steenson, Jimmy Brown and Martin "Rook" O'Prey. Jimmy Brown formed a minor political group, known as the Republican Socialist Collective, which was to act as the political wing of the IPLO.[5]

The IPLO's initial priority was to forcibly disband the Irish Republican Socialist Movement from which it had split, and most of its early attacks reflected this, being more frequently against former comrades than on the security forces. The feud with the INLA lasted from 1986 to 1987 and resulted in the deaths of 12 people including IPLO leader Gerard Steenson who was shot in March 1987.[6]

Internal feud

The IPLO was accused of becoming involved in the illegal drug trade, especially in ecstasy. Some of its Belfast members were also accused of the prolonged gang rape of a North Down woman in Divis Flats in 1990.[7] Many of its recruits had fallen out of favour with the IRA and the portents for its future were not good. Sammy Ward, a low-level IPLO member, broke away from the main body of the organisation with a few supporters when the IPLO were severely depleted and weak in Belfast. His faction attacked the rest of the IPLO, culminating in the killing of Jimmy Brown. A full-scale feud followed between two factions terming themselves "Army Council" (formerly led by Jimmy Brown) and "Belfast Brigade" (led by Ward), which led to the 3000th killing of the Troubles, Hugh McKibben, a 21-year-old "Army Council" man. Brown had been the previous victim when he was shot dead in West Belfast on 18 August 1992.[8] This feud was described by the IPLO's critics as a lethal squabble over money and drugs.

Disbandment

The Provisional IRA – by far the largest armed republican group in Ireland – decided to attack and remove the IPLO, given its involvement in the drug trade and due to increasingly provocative actions by the IPLO towards the Provisional IRA. On Saturday 31 October 1992, in an event that was later dubbed "Night of the Long Knives" by locals in Belfast,[9] the IRA attacked the two IPLO factions in Belfast, killing the breakaway Belfast Brigade leader Sammy Ward in the Short Strand.[10] There were also raids on pubs and clubs where IPLO members were kneecapped. On 2 November 1992 the second-in-command of the IPLO Belfast Brigade formally surrendered to the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade adjutant, which brought an end to the group in Belfast.[11]

Outside Belfast the IRA did not attack any IPLO units and issued statements absolving the IPLO units in Derry, Newry and Armagh from any involvement in the drugs trade that was alleged against those in Belfast. In Dublin the IRA reprieved the IPLO Chief of Staff in return for surrendering a small cache of arms held in Ballybough.

The IPLO also had a presence in Strabane,[12] and in Munster; like the INLA drawing its support from the Cork, Limerick, and Shannon areas.[13] Reportedly the group had also established small support bases in Continental Europe including France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.[14]

Casualties

According to the Sutton database of deaths at the University of Ulster's CAIN project, the IPLO was responsible for 22 killings during the Troubles. Among its victims were twelve civilians, six INLA members, two loyalist paramilitary figures, a Royal Navy reservist, and one member of the British security forces, a Royal Ulster Constabulary constable.

List of attacks and actions

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1997

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: CAIN: Victims: Memorials: Search Results Page .
  2. Web site: CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1987 . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  3. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1990/may/01/northern-ireland-emergency-provisions Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978 (Amendment) Order 1990: HL Deb 1 May 1990 vol 518 cc976-9
  4. Terrorism Act 2000 . Terrorism Act 2000 . 2000-07-20 . sched. 2 . Proscribed Organisations . UK Public General Acts . 2000 c. 11 . http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/2 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130121085241/http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/schedule/2 . 2013-01-21 . live.
  5. Web site: Irish Nationalist & Irish Republican political groups . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110818162736/http://irishconflict.webs.com/nationalistparties.htm . 18 August 2011.
  6. Web site: 22 August 1992 . Terrorists' split could erupt into bloody feud: Violence in Northern . The Independent.
  7. Ballymurphy and the Irish War by De Baroid p. 331
  8. INLA – Deadly Divisions by Holland and McDonald, Torc (1994), p. 334
  9. INLA Deadly Divisions Jack Holland p. 342
  10. INLA Deadly Divisions Jack Holland p. 341
  11. INLA Deadly Divisions Jack Holland p. 343
  12. Strabane Chronicle, 21 November 1992.
  13. Evening Echo, 9 December 1987.
  14. Irish Independent, 12 December 1989.
  15. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994 p.279
  16. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994
  17. Irish Independent, 1 December 1986
  18. Web site: CAIN: Victims: Memorials: Search Results Page . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  19. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994, p. 279
  20. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  21. Web site: CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1986 . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  22. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994, p. 285-286
  23. Web site: Guerrilla Group Feud Heats Up with Two More Killings. Associated Press News.
  24. Belfast Telegraph, 23 December 1986
  25. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  26. INLA – Deadly Divisions by Holland and McDonald, Torc (1994)
  27. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  28. News: Clines . Francis X. . Times . Special to The New York . 29 March 1987 . A Dozen Die as Ulster's Rebels Feud . The New York Times .
  29. Web site: 'Burn Catholics' man was in UVF . BBC News . 6 July 2023 . English . 23 August 2006 . A hardline former DUP councillor murdered by republicans in Belfast in December 1987 was in the loyalist paramilitary UVF, it has been revealed:.- Glasgow-born George Seawright, who was expelled from the party in 1984 for sectarian comments, was shot in Belfast by an INLA splinter group, the IPLO. .
  30. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  31. Fortnight Magazine, Issue 258, p. 17. Fortnight Publications, 1988.
  32. Fortnight Magazine, Issue 260, p. 18-19. Fortnight Publications, 1988.
  33. Belfast Telegraph 9 March 1988.
  34. Belfast Telegraph 27 July 1988.
  35. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994, p. 310
  36. Sunday Tribune, 14 August 1988.
  37. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994, p. 367
  38. Aberdeen Press and Journal, 13 August 1988.
  39. Holland, Jack; McDonald, Henry (1994). INLA Deadly Divisions.
  40. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  41. Sunday Tribune, 9 October 1988.
  42. Belfast Telegraph, 23 December 1988.
  43. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths. cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  44. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994, p. 314
  45. Book: Galvin, Anthony. Blood on the Streets A Murderous History of Limerick. 2012-04-11. Mainstream Publishing. 9781780577074. en.
  46. Belfast Telegraph, 1 June 1989.
  47. Belfast Telegraph, 8 June 1989.
  48. Irish Independent, 24 August 1989.
  49. Web site: Inside Ulster. BBC Rewind.
  50. Irish Press, 4 September 1989.
  51. Irish Press, 7 September 1989.
  52. Irish Independent, 13 December 1989
  53. Web site: Belfast Man Arrested in Holland . RTÉ Archives.
  54. Sunday Life, 18 March 1990.
  55. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  56. Dundee Courier, 16 July 1990.
  57. Irish Press, 21 March 1990.
  58. Web site: The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1978 (Amendment) Order 1990. dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081007064050/http://www.uklaws.org/statutory/instruments_05/doc05058.htm . 7 October 2008 .
  59. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994, p. 315
  60. Sunday Tribune, 20 October 1991.
  61. Web site: William Sloss Killed By IPLO . RTÉ Archives.
  62. Sunday Tribune, 13 October 1991.
  63. Ulster Star, 21 December 1990.
  64. Ulster Star, 4 January 1991.
  65. Web site: CAIN: Peter Heathwood Collection of Television Programmes – Search Page . 2020-08-31 . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  66. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions, 1994, p. 368
  67. Irish Independent, 1 February 1992.
  68. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  69. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths. cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  70. Fortnight Magazine, Issue 298, p. 26-29. Fortnight Publications, 1991.
  71. Fortnight Magazine, Issue 299, p. 30-31. Fortnight Publications, 1991.
  72. Book: Lister . David . Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company' . Jordan . Hugh . 19 April 2013 . Random House . 9781780578163 . Google Books.
  73. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  74. Sunday Life, 13 October 1991.
  75. Dundee Courier, 26 October 1991.
  76. Sunday Tribune, 22 December 1991.
  77. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  78. Jack Holland & Henry McDonald. INLA: Deadly Divisions. Poolbeg, 2010. p.320
  79. Web site: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths . cain.ulster.ac.uk.
  80. Irish Independent, 13 April 1992.
  81. Web site: McDonald . Henry . Holland . Jack . 29 June 2016 . I.N.L.A – Deadly Divisions . Poolbeg Press Ltd . Google Books.
  82. Sunday World, 21 June 1992.
  83. Sunday Times, 5 July 1992.
  84. Web site: Inside Ulster. BBC Rewind.
  85. Sunday Tribune, 13 September 1992.
  86. Irish Independent, 21 June 1992.
  87. Fortnight Magazine, Issue 311, p. 24-25. Fortnight Publications, 1992.
  88. Evening Herald, 19 September 1992.
  89. Web site: Bombed out shell of "The Waterfront" pub|Belfast MS Ditto| MS Ditto|... . Getty Images. 10 May 2017 .
  90. Sunday Tribune, 4 October 1992.
  91. Web site: CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1997 . cain.ulster.ac.uk.