Ireland's OWN: IRSN

32nd Anniversary of IRSM's Founding Remembered

Date: 13 December 2006
From: International Republican Socialist Network

The International Republican Socialist Network pauses to remember the
founding of both the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the Irish National
Liberation Army on this day 32 years ago.

The founding of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement was a watershed
in Irish history, returning to the Irish political arena a
fully-realised movement
representing the revolutionary Marxist tendency which James Connolly
and those around him had first brought to its full flower decades earlier.

The IRSM was born in the fire of revolutionary struggle and baptised in the blood of martyrs — first those cut down by their erstwhile comrades in the Official Republican Movement, including founding IRSP Chairperson and INLA Chief of Staff Seamus Costello, and later by agents of the SAS, who robbed the young movement of Miriam Daly, Noel Little, and Ronnie Bunting in 1980, as well as shoot-to-kill murders.

It struggled back to its feet again through the years of the blanket, no wash, and dirty protests in the gaols, as well as the hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981; then struggled further through the 'supergrass' trials and vicious state persecution. After finally cleaning house of rogue elements and setting a clearly Marxist course for itself, it was again violently assaulted by the
former war lords purged from the INLA, now re-christened as the IPLO and obviously encouraged, if not actually conceived by the Provisionals.

That blow nearly destroyed the movement, but through the efforts of the republican socialist POWs, a handful of supporters in North America, and leaders of the calibre of Kevin McQuillen, Paul Little, Terry Harkin, and Gerry Burns they managed
to keep the movement alive. Then, upon his release from prison, INLA leader Gino Gallagher threw himself into the breach and, through his clear-sighted strategy and charismatic leadership, once again put the movement fully on its feet. In doing so,
however, Gino became a target for all of the reactionary forces on the isle of Ireland and it is no surprise — though no less a tragedy — that he was killed in 1996 by purged former INLA men, acting at the behest of British intelligence.

It is a tribute to the leadership provided by Gino Gallagher in re-shaping the IRSM that it soldiered through following his murder, without any threat to its internal unity or any slowing of its rebuilding.

Since the INLA cease-fire of 1998, however, the IRSM has been forced to struggle against a greater threat to its continued vitality than at any time in the preceding 24 years--the respectability gained as a result of the cease-fire, coupled with the
radically changed reality on the ground brought about by the Good Friday Agreement and the misguided analysis of those who have come to control the IRSP's leadership now threatens the future of the IRSM with the siren song of reformism.

We in the International Republican Socialist Network, some of whom dedicated more than two decades to the struggle to build the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, continue to hope that the rank-and-file of that movement will return some of the great revolutionary republican socialist activists still within the movement to the leadership of the IRSP and reclaim its proud revolutionary heritage.

Even confronted with its present leadership problems, the IRSM remains the best expression of the revolutionary aspirations of the Irish working class today.

The need for a movement drawn from Ireland's republican socialist tradition is greater today that at any time in recent memory and we in the IRSN hope that the IRSM will rise to fill this need, but whether that is the case or not, the history of the IRSP and INLA will continue to serve as a model for Irish revolutionaries and we in the International Republican Socialist Network salute this anniversary of their founding.

ENDS

Peter Urban
irsp@netwiz.net
International Republican Socialist Network