Together, these sweeping powers-unique in Western Europe-allow the occupation forces virtual carte blanche in suppressing resistance. In 1974, this was expanded to the British mainland with the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which allows for indefinite internal deportation of suspected "terrorists." Only Chile, Indonesia, and Britain have the legal power to enforce indefinite internal exile, although the PTA's main use has been as a tool of harassment, with over 5,000 persons detained and only 50 charged under the Act. The PTA, allegedly a "response" to bombings by the IRA, is really a convenient catch-all legal means to oppress anyone whose politics the Government dislikes. Recently, it has been revealed that British intelligence agents provocateurs were behind some of the more spectacular actions for which the IRA had been blamed in the early 1970s. A dozen innocent Irish men and women who had been jailed for up to 16 years were finally released in the early 1990s (including the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four), to the great embarrassment of the British Government, which had held them on the basis of dubious evidence, including "confessions" obtained under torture, for crimes which sources suggest the British intelligence services themselves carried out. As a direct result of these (contrived) bombings, supposedly demonstrating an utter disregard for civilian casualties, the draconian PTA was easily passed by a shocked Labour government.

The Officals' Cease-fire

In 1972 the Officials declared a cease-fire, following a series of unpopular actions, such as the assassination of an Irish Catholic member of the British Army, Ranger Best, who was home on leave in Derry from duty with Britain's Army of the Rhine. In response to criticism of Best's killing, the OIRA had stated:

We are not a Catholic organisation...If there is anyone who has been giving us support in the belief that we are some sort of militant, Catholic, nationalist organisation, then let them withdraw their support now. We are nothing of the sort. We are out to build a revolutionary socialist party of the Irish working class.

Nine days after this defiant statement, the OIRA declared an indefinite cease-fire. This led to bitter accusations of betrayal on both sides; the Provos continued the struggle in arms (following a brief "bilateral truce" and high-level negotiations in London), but remained politically conservative; the Officials refined their political line, but laid down arms. These contradictions would prove untenable, setting the stage for the Republican Socialist movement.

The period of the 1970s was a turbulent time for the struggle in Ireland, highlighted by more splits within the republican movement and internal feuding; a great upsurge in Loyalist sectarian violence in the North; and the development of the prison struggle culminating in the 1981 hunger strike, which focussed worldwide attention on Ireland, the republican struggle and the plight of Irish prisoners.

In 1972, the Official IRA had declared an indefinite, unilateral cease-fire. Official Sinn Féin leader, Tomás MacGiolla felt that the movement needed to move away from the armed struggle and instead focus on working class unity between Protestant and Catholic workers in the North; believing that these groups would eventually see a common purpose and rise together against British imperialism. Opponents to this position in the OIRA argued, at the 1973 Ard Fheis (national party congress), that this position was unrealistic considering the 400 years of sectarian intransigence in the North, and that instead the armed struggle must be maintained and channelled into a socialist direction.

The dominant section of the Officials' leadership was unprepared to allow dissent on the issue, however, and were willing to go to any length to suppress it. Recent revelations have shown that well before the shooting of Ranger Best, which was used to justify a cease-fire, MacGiolla's faction was preparing to end the armed struggle and to crush any opposition to this policy. One of the most popular figures in the OIRA, Joe McCann, had begun dialogue with others opposed to ending the armed struggle within the Officials in mid-1971, and had been stockpiling arms in preparation for a split should this policy be enacted. McCann's wide-spread respect and popularity made his opposition a serious threat to the plans of the MacGiolla faction, and it now seems clear that they cooperated with the British occupation forces to enable his assassination in March 1972. The rage over the assassination of McCann by British soldiers actually forced a the cease-fire to be postponed, when it unleashed a renewed burst of armed actions by OIRA volunteers, until the popular opposition to the Best killing provided a new opportunity to act on the plans.

Following the cease-fire, sporadic action by OIRA volunteers continued, despite official policy, and an opposition was mounted within both the OIRA and Official Sinn Féin. Seamus Costello, who was then Vice President of Official Sinn Féin and Director of Operations of the OIRA, emerged as the primary leader of those opposed to the cease-fire and the new political direction of the movement. In response, he was stripped of both positions and internal democracy was restricted through a series of bureaucratic machinations to isolate those in opposition. Costello continued an internal campaign to reverse the movement's direction, however, which continued up to the 1974 Ard Fheis. When Costello and many of those aligned with him were denied access to the Ard Fheis where they hoped to present their case to the movement, the possibility of internal change seemed useless any longer.

Finally, on December 10, 1974, led by Costello, the opposition held its own Ard Fheis to declare the formation of the Irish Republican Socialist Party and, at a separate Ard Fheis later that day, founded the Irish National Liberation Army. Almost immediately upon its formation, the Irish Republican Socialist Movement came under attack. The Officials, despite their claims to have laid down arms, showed no hesitation in using military force to show their opposition to the new republican grouping. In February 1975, Hugh Ferguson became the first IRSP martyr to sectarian attack by the OIRA. With hostility towards the OIRA still lingering from the 1969-70 split in the Republican Movement, and many former OIRA volunteers disgusted by the attacks on those so recently their comrades, the infant INLA was joined by the Provos and ex-volunteers of the Officials in defending the new movement. The Provisionals declared they had joined in the fight against the Officials to "eliminate the criminal elements masquerading themselves as republicans." This assortment of volunteers came together briefly under the name of the Peoples Liberation Army to defend the IRSM from the attacks, but the Provisional/Official aspect of the feud soon came to a halt when the president of the Falls Road Taxi Association was killed and community pressure demanded an end to the fighting. The OIRA's open campaign against the IRSM was brought to a halt as well, though bitterness and bloodshed would continue sporadically between the two groups for several years to come. In 1977, IRSP leader Seamus Costello was shot dead in Dublin by OIRA gunmen, and the long war between the two groups finally ended in 1983, when the INLA killed the OIRA assassin of Costello. Though INLA volunteers were active in the ranks of the PLA, it was not until 1976 that the INLA carried out its first offensive action under its own banner.

The formation of the IRSP was an important step in the development of the political definitions in the republican struggle. By emphasizing armed struggle accompanied by a commitment to the construction of socialism, the IRSP highlighted the inability of the Provisionals to bring a solid political definition to its struggle. The federalist plan laid out in the Provisional guidebook "Eire Nua" (New Ireland), which was presented as the Provisionals' social/political program, was described by IRSP leader Seamus Costello as a "blueprint for small scale capitalism" and "more of the same politics." At the same time, the IRSP argued that a purely political course, unaccompanied by armed struggle, would lead to reformism; and indeed that was the destination that the Official's movement arrived at after its cease-fire and the 1974 split prompted by the supression of militants within its ranks.

Whereas the Provisionals saw national liberation as a primary objective to be achieved before any social program could be addressed, and the Officials argued social revolution was an essential step before national unification could be considerred, the IRSM returned to the analysis put forward by Connolly, that the struggles for Irish national liberation and for the liberation of the Irish proletarian were inseparable. The IRSM put forward the position that the national liberation struggle was not a step to be climbed before social revolution could be called for, but was simply an aspect of the fight for socialism in Ireland; an essential Irish manifestation of the class war.

With the formation of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, the republican forces settled into three groupings. The Officials, increasingly marginalized in the North, concentrated on electoral politics and building their influence in the trade union movement, eventually changing their name to Sinn Féin the Workers' Party, then simply to the Workers' Party. They became increasingly hostile to the ongoing national liberation struggle, denouncing both the IRA and INLA as "terrorists," and adopting the so-called "two nation theory" regarding the North, which placed them in opposition to the reunification of Ireland. Politically, they moved towards an alignment with the Soviet Union, often out-stripping the Communist Party of Ireland in this regard. The advent of the IRSM served to pressure the Provisionals to place greater emphasis on their political program, by highlighting the inadequacies of "Eire Nua," such as labelling the call for a federal structure based on Ireland's traditional four provinces as little more than an accommodation to Loyalist fears of losing control in their six county remnant of Ulster, or exposing its plan for resolution of the land issue by "collective farms based on the family unit" as nothing more than an attempt to portray the traditional family farm as an advance towards socialism. Indeed, over the course of the two decades following the IRSP/INLA's formation, Provisional Sinn Féin has been forced to develop its political program, and its role as a political party, to an extent almost unimaginable in the early 1970s. Through the mere acts of formation and survival, the IRSM challenged both the Officials' dominance in the field of Irish socialism and the Provisionals' monopoly in armed struggle against the British occupation forces. In doing so, it brought about, or at least quickened the pace of, the transformation of both other republican movements.

Loyalist Opposition and Terror

The year 1974 not only marked the division of the republican forces into three distinct movements, but gave new definition to Loyalism in the occupied six counties. On January 1, 1974 Britain's first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, William Whitelaw, brought together representatives from the moderate Unionist parties, the Alliance Party and the Social Democratic and Labour Party into a powersharing executive. In addition, Whitelaw established a "Council of Ireland," which would provide the Dublin government with a consultive, though powerless, role in matters of concern to both parts of Ireland. The Loyalists were outraged at the prospect of sharing power with "disloyal" representatives of the nationalist community, as well as at the idea of Dublin having even a consultive role in "their" affairs. The anti-powersharing Loyalists joined in coalition as the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC), winning 11 out of 12 seats in the general election held in February 1974. The UUUC electoral victory, however, was not sufficient to bring down the powersharing executive, but their success at the polls lent an air of legitimacy to the strike in May 1974 of the Ulster Workers' Council (UWC). The industrial action of the UWC, backed by intimidation and violence from the UDA, UVF, and other Loyalist paramilitaries allied under the umbrella organization Ulster Army Council, shut down much of the Six Counties' economic activity. The real strength of the UWC strike was their control of the electricity-generating industry. With virtually the entire blue-collar workforce on strike, and the remaining white-collar staff either intimidated by Loyalist paramilitaries, or in sympathy with the strike, power outages became longer and longer until the Unionist members of the powersharing executive resigned and the executive collapsed. The UWC strike provided an excellent demonstration of the ability of the working class to bring a system to its knees through their collective effort, while also providing a chilling glimpse of the reactionary ideology deeply rooted in the Loyalist section of Ireland's workers.

Another aspect of what proved to be a very bloody period in Irish history was the increase in sectarian violence coming from Loyalist paramilitaries in the North. During the UWC strike, car bombs attributed to Loyalist paramilitaries were exploded in Dublin and Monaghan in the South of Ireland, killing 27 people (though recently revealed documents have suggested that the MI6 British intelligence forces may have actually been responsible for the bombings). The Ulster Defense Regiment was formed in 1970 as a "home guard" branch of the British Army. Very soon after its formation, it became a well known fact that many members of the UDR used their position of association with the British Army, and their access to weapons and ammunition, as well as intelligence files, to participate in sectarian murders of Irish Catholics in the occupied Six Counties. Many members of the UDR were also members of Loyalist death squads, such as the Ulster Volunteer Force or the Ulster Freedom Fighters. In a period of nine months (January to September 1975) 196 civilians were murdered in sectarian violence, in addition to many republican deaths. The most heinous of these sectarian killers, such as James McIlwaine, the so-called "Shankhill Butcher" who tortured and killed 19 Catholics with a butcher knife, were convicted by the British government, who could not completely turn their head to such rampant sectarian viciousness; but McIlwaine's membership in the UDR was telling of the relationship between the British Army and these Loyalist killers. As defenders of the nationalist communities, the IRA and INLA were forced to respond to these sectarian murders, assassinating members of the Loyalist paramilitaries, which often prompted further "tit for tat" actions by the Loyalist death squads.

In March 1975, the Loyalist paramilitaries had their own internal struggle, when a feud erupted between the UDA and the UVF. The feud was short-lived and resulted in few deaths. Later that same year, the UVF was legally banned, after a UVF bombing claimed 11 lives in October. Relations began to deteriorate between the RUC and the Loyalists, resulting in Loyalist communities with strong ties to the paramilitaries beginning the practice of policing their own neighborhoods rather than relying on the RUC.

In addition to their primary roles as offensive forces against British occupation, the IRA and INLA serve both as defensive forces within the nationalist communities against Loyalist killers and as a police force. Though both groups made plain their reluctance to play the latter role, the inability of Irish nationalists to turn to the hostile Royal Ulster Constabulary to maintain civil order, and the use of criminal elements in the nationalist community by the Army and RUC as intelligence sources in exchange for turning a blind-eye to their criminal exploits, rendered residents of the Catholic ghettoes at the mercy of gangsters and thugs. As a result, the communities demanded the IRA and INLA take on this responsibility from time to time, though the resulting publicity arising from punishment shootings of anti-social elements provides a great source for the black propaganda mills of the British intelligence services.

The Peace People

In August 1976, British soldiers shot IRA member Danny Lennon while he was driving a car, the car crashed into Ann Maguire and her children, three of whom died. That evening, Betty Williams, a woman from the Protestant community, went on television shown throughout the Six Counties to plead for an end to the ongoing killing. Ann Maguire's sister, Mairead Corrigan, heard the broadcast and contacted Williams. The two founded the Community of the Peace People. The group immediately received massive media coverage and grew rapidly. In its first five months, the organization sponsored over fifty marches in the North and South of Ireland, as well as in Britain. Local chapters popped up throughout Ireland, many undertaking worthwhile efforts to build community centers or create local job growth. In 1977 the two founders were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but when they kept the associated monetary award for themselves personally, many began to question their motives. The campaign also faltered when it appeared to be far more critical of the actions of paramilitaries, especially those waging the national liberation struggle, than of the occupation forces. Among Loyalists, Community of the Peace People chapters exclusively leveled their criticism at the IRA and INLA, while the movement failed to condemn the violence of the British Army. When the organization openly called on Catholics to inform on members of the liberation forces, it lost what credibility it had retained, and invited charges that they were supported by the British government and intelligence services. At the beginning of 1980, Ann Maguire committed suicide and three weeks later Betty Williams resigned from the group for "personal reasons." The organization quickly collapsed into a mere shadow of what it had once been, as the reality of injustice maintained through British occupation made peace unattainable. For a brief period, however, the Peace People, unwittingly or by design, provided assistance to the "normalization" effort of the British imperialists.

Perhaps in response to the Peace People's campaign, 1977 proved to have the lowest incidents of violence since 1971, with only 112 killed as a result of the war. Britain used this lull to begin a process of "Ulsterization," phasing in the RUC and UDR to carry out activities previously done by the British Army. Ulsterization, with normalization and criminalization (which will be examined below), were interlocking strategies to undermine the national liberation struggle, and improve Britain's international image, severely sullied by their policy of internment, charges of torture, and televised images of the Army on the streets of the Six Counties. The British government also stepped up its intelligence gathering network in the occupied Six Counties, announcing in 1977 that it would computerize information on the residents of the North. Through the computer database, the police and army had access to vast amounts of personal information on virtually all nationalist residents. In 1980 the Army went even farther in eroding the privacy of Six County residents by installing closed-circuit television cameras in the streets of nationalist neighborhoods in Belfast and Derry.

The Prison Struggle

One way that the Republican and Republican Socialist movements were able to revive the mass movement and rebuild morale was to focus on the struggle in the prisons. Before 1976 republican prisoners had what was called "special category status," allowing them to be treated as prisoners of war, and providing them with privileges of POWs such as those specified in the Geneva Convention. Special category status had been won through a long hunger strike in 1971 by republican prisoners in Crumlin Road Jail and included:

1. The right to wear their own clothes;
2. The right to abstain from penal labor;
3. The right to free association;
4. The right to educational activities; and
5. The restoration of remission.

In 1975, the British government began phasing out this status, declaring that anyone convicted after March 1, 1976 was to be treated as a common criminal-an ODC, or "Ordinary Decent Criminal," in the bizarre nomenclature of the British. This move was part of the British government's plan to "criminalize" the republican struggle, and was consistent with their constant claim that there was no actual "war" in the North. Combined with special legislation, the juryless Diplock courts, criminalization became part of Britain's plan to smash the national liberation struggle by putting most of its members behind bars.

In opposition, relatives and supporters of the prisoners formed the Relatives' Action Committees to protest criminalisation, while the INLA and IRA promised retaliation, but the strongest protest came from inside the prisons. On September 15, 1976, IRA volunteer Ciarán Nugent refused to put on his prison uniform in symbolic protest against being treated like a convicted criminal. Wrapped in a prison blanket and confined to his cell 24 hours a day, Nugent became the first of what were to become known as the "Blanket Men." He was soon joined by nearly 200 other IRA and INLA prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, and on March 11, 1979, the republican women in Armagh Prison joined the blanket protest as well. By March 1979, a quarter to a third of all sentenced Republican and Republican Socialist prisoners had joined the blanket protest. Mothers and sisters of prisoners in the Relatives' Action Committees organized marches, or demonstrated by sitting out in public areas-sometimes in driving rain and bitter cold-clad only in blankets themselves.

Prison guards tried to halt the protest by beating the Blanket Men when they went to shower or use the toilets. In March 1978, the prisoners responded by refusing to leave their cells, no longer washing and using buckets as toilets. The guards then stopped bringing buckets to the cells, and when the prisoners took to emptying them out their barred windows, the government had the windows bricked shut. With no other option left, the prisoners were forced to smear their own excrement on the walls of their cells. This phase of the struggle became known as the "Dirty Protest"; these prisoners, Republican and Republican Socialist, men and women, protested their criminalization by remaining naked in their cells, refused the most basic privileges, being forced to live unwashed among their own excreta. This struggle by the prisoners became the primary focus of republicans as the 1970s drew to a close.

The Relatives' Action Committee's campaign soon drew broad-based support and what had began as a struggle waged within the isolation of the jails, by the prisoners themselves, was swelling into a mass movement. On October 21, 1979, the National H-Block/Armagh Committee was established at a conference held in the Andersontown area of Belfast. The new organization swiftly grew into a mass organization, which attracted the support of the IRSP, People's Democracy, Sinn Féin, Trade Unionists, and independent activists of various political stripes in the campaign previously waged almost exclusively by the prisoners' families. Despite the participation of many of its rank-and-file members, Sinn Féin initially remained somewhat aloof from the growing movement at an organizational level, until the H-Block/Armagh struggle had gained such widespread support that to remain outside it threatened to eclipse their dominance on the Irish republican political landscape.

The men in the H-Blocks had been considering the possibility of a hunger strike for two years when talks began in February 1980 with Humphrey Atkins, then Northern Ireland Secretary of State, at the urging of Cardinal Tomás O'Fiaich, to end the prisoners' protest. When autumn arrived, however, Britain had offered no concessions whatsoever. The prisoners prepared to take whatever steps were necessary to win the five demands they had raised:

1. The right to wear their own clothes;
2. The right to refuse penal labor;
3. The right to free association;
4. Full 50% remission of their sentences; and
5. Normal visits, parcels, educational and recreational facilities.

Knowing that the only means to avert a hunger strike was to force Britain to concede the prisoners demands, the activists of the National H-Block Armagh Committee waged a tireless struggle to increase the political pressure on Britain to relent. They gained greater success in mobilizing protests, drawing the attention of the world media to the prisoners fight, and thereby to the nature of Britain's occupation of the Six Counties and the reality of the national liberation struggle opposing it. Exposure of the British occupation, and its repression of the Nationalist community, before the eyes of the world began to erode Britain's international image, while drawing sympathy for the plight of the Nationalists people and greater understanding of the war they were waging. As successes mounted for the H-Block/Armagh Committee, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before Britain and their snarling Loyalist attack dogs responded. In June 1980, Loyalist death squads assassinated Miriam Daly, Chairperson of the IRSP and the national head of the H-Block/Armagh Committee, as well as another Committee leader, John Turnley, head of the Irish Independence Party. In October, Loyalist assassins struck again, murdering another of the Committee's national leadership, IRSP member Ronnie Bunting, as well as IRSP member Noel Lyttle who was staying in the house, and leaving for dead Bunting's wife and comrade Suzanne, who was shot in front of her young daughter, but survived. Finally in December, Loyalists struck against another of the Committee's national leadership with the attempted murder independent socialist Bernadette Devlin McAlisky, which she barely survived, leaving her and her husband Michael both seriously wounded. That the Loyalist attack on McAlisky was able to take place while British soldiers were posted virtually accross the street from her home testified to the blood on Britain's hands in the Loyalist violence.

The 1980 Hunger Strike

To attain their five demands, which fundamentally reinstated special category status, the prisoners in the H-Blocks prepared to begin a hunger strike, but on October 23, 1980, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) announced that the men would be permitted to wear civilian clothes (the women in Armagh had never lost this right, but had joined the protest to demonstrate their solidarity). Later that day however, Cardinal O'Fiaich learned that the concession was a sham, the clothes intended were to be prison-issue civilian clothes, simply exchanging one uniform with another. Outraged over Britain's attempt to deceive them, seven prisoners embarked on a hunger strike. IRA prisoners Brendan Hughes, Tom McFeeley, Seán McKenna, Leo Green, Tommy McKearney and Raymond McCartney, and INLA prisoner John Nixon were the first to begin the hunger strike. Both the IRSP and Sinn Féin were opposed to the hunger strike, believing it to be too dangerous a form of protest. They had believed that a broad front protest was the only way to focus world-wide attention on the prison struggle and embarrass England into renewing political status, thereby ending the protest. Despite the H-Block/Armagh Committees having been able to focus international attention on the prisons, the British remained unrelenting, and the prisoners decided, over the objections of their movements outside, that hunger strike could no longer be delayed, as no other option seemed available to them.

An NIO official came to Long Kesh to talk with the hungerstrikers, as the protest reached its 40th day, 30 additional IRA and INLA prisoners joined the hunger strike to put additional pressure on the British government. Three women prisoners in Armagh Jail had already joined the month before. On the 48th day of hunger strike, Seán McKenna went blind. McKenna's condition was deteriorating rapidly, and it was reported that two others were also weakening. Finally, on December 18, Bobby Sands, Officer in Command (OC) of the Provisional prisoners, announced that the hunger strike was over, the British had agreed to concessions. All protesting prisoners ended their fasts before any had died. Almost immediately, however, England denied having made any agreement, and the prisoners discovered they had again been the victims of British duplicity.

The 1981 Hunger Strike

Sinn Féin and the IRA, as well as the IRSP and INLA, were now more opposed to use of the hunger strike than before. The suffering of the men and women prisoners had accomplished nothing, and they fully realized that another hunger strike could not avoid ending in the deaths. Despite this, the INLA prisoners began immediately to talk of resuming the hunger strike rather than accept defeat through Britain's dishonest dealings. Though the IRA prisoners' leadership remained opposed to a renewed hunger strike at the time, already in early January, the INLA prisoners made plain their intentions of doing so. The INLA prisoners' OC, Patsy O'Hara vowed that the prisoners under his command would resume the hunger strike, with or without the IRA prisoners. To avoid the INLA resuming the strike alone, and burdened with feelings of personal responsibility for having been deceived into ending the initial strike, Sands talked the INLA prisoners into delaying for a time to permit a joint effort. It was announced on January 27 that a new hunger strike would begin on March 1, exactly six years after political status was withdrawn, if the demands were not met. Sands himself would be the first to embark on the protest, to be joined later by three others, including an INLA prisoner. The movements outside the prisons increased efforts to dissuade the prisoners from this course, but when, on March 1, 1981, Sands refused his breakfast, beginning the new hunger strike, there was no option but to support the course the prisoners had chosen for themselves.

The National H-Block/Armagh Committees was granted a hearing with the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, on March 11, but they gained nothing of tangible value. On March 15, IRA prisoner Francis Hughes joined the hunger strike, to be followed by the INLA prisoners' OC Patsy O'Hara and IRA prisoner Raymond McCreesh on March 23. The hunger strike continued to grow, and on May 5, Sands became the first of the prisoners to die, after 66 days on hunger strike.

Before his death, Sands became the principal player in a tactic whose success would have lasting impact on world opinion, as well as on the tactics of his own movement. The death of an SDLP MP in the electoral district of Fermanagh/South Tyrone caused a bi-election to be held for the seat, and thereby created a immense opportunity to draw attention to the hunger strike, as well as to demonstrate the popular support for its demands. Sands was nominated for election, and the SDLP withdrew their own candidate rather than split the Nationalist vote. Sands was elected MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone on April 9, demonstrating to the world that the prisoners, and by extension the national liberation struggle, had the support of the masses in the occupied Six Counties. The election tactic was used to advantage in several other instances. Two members each of the IRSP and People's Democracy won seats on the Belfast City Council running on an H-Block/Armagh slate. The vacancy created by Sands death was filled by the election of Sinn Féin member Owen Carron, who had been Sands election agent, on an H-Block/Armagh ticket. A general election in the 26 Counties brought a general election to Ireland in June 1981, two prisoners, Kevin Agnew and hunger striker Kieran Doherty, were elected as TDs (members of the Irish parliament) and two others Tony O'Hara and hunger striker Kevin Lynch only narrowly missed election.

INLA prisoner Michael Devine became the last of ten men to die on hunger strike, on August 20, 1981. The funerals of he, and the nine who died before him, brought out some of the largest crowds ever witnessed in political demonstrations in Ireland. Their deaths brought the attention of the world to the struggle for national liberation in Ireland and the tyranny of Britain. The hunger strike brought masses of people in the 26 Counties out of their lethargy and into the streets in support of the Nationalist struggle in the North. The hunger strike succeeded in bringing large numbers of new recruits into the IRA and INLA, as well as Sinn Féin and the IRSP; and international support organizations for the Irish national liberation struggle sprang up where they had not been before, and grew when they had already existed. Officially, Britain never conceded the five demands, but in reality they strike succeeded in what it set out to accomplish. The prisoners have ever since been allowed the right to their own clothes, to free association, had privledges restored, and continue to exercise their own command struction within the prisons. In looking back, however, the victory won by the prisoners in regard to prison rules for themselves, pales compared to the tremendous thrust forward the hunger strike gave to the national liberation struggle as a whole. The changes brought about through the rapid influx of new members into the national liberation movements would have dramatic effects on them, both positive and negative, throughout the decade which followed the hunger strike.

The decade of the 1980s was one of tremendous change for Ireland, the full extent of which was realized in the November 1992 elections in the South. At that time, "politics as usual" was rejected by the 26 County voters, who dealt Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael a major blow by turning to the Labour Party. No party won a clear majority in that election, but Labour picked up the largest number of seats. It also took weeks for a coalition government to be negotiated. At the same time as the Dáil elections, three referenda were held on the question of abortion. The Southern Irish people voted for a woman's right to leave the country to get an abortion, and for access to information on abortion, though they still rejected a woman's right to have an abortion in Ireland. What led to these dramatic changes by the Irish electorate? It was abundantly clear the Irish people were no longer a quaint, backwards folk.

The Economic Climate

Throughout the '80s and into the '90s, Ireland faced all the social problems found in every other industrialized nation. Ireland, North and South, underwent many changes. In the South, the economic boom of the '70s turned to bust, a result of the world-wide economic crisis. The high-tech industries from the US, Germany and Japan pulled out. Unemployment soared, as did emigration. In addition to the loss of jobs, there was the added problem of repatriation of profits by multinational corporations. A 1987 study showed that in that year, IR£ 17,000 in profits was repatriated per worker. For multinationals, in 1983, profits reached IR£ 1.2 billion, of which 1 billion left the country. The repatriation of profits caused serious economic problems for the government, as its actual revenues fell far short of projections used to plan the national budget.

Ireland, and Britain, had joined the European Economic Community in 1972, and the result for Ireland's agriculture was devastating. The small family farm became a thing of the past, as agribusiness came to the fore. The small farms were taken over by large foreign conglomerates, particularly from Germany. The nature of the EEC was such that livestock raised in Ireland was taken abroad for slaughtering and processing, then brought back into the country for consumption.

The demographics of the nation shifted, as young people moved from the rural areas in the west into cities such as Dublin, or left the country altogether, joining the diaspora in the US, Canada or Britain. Every Irish government has viewed emigration not as a tragedy to be ended, but as a positive release valve for a troubled nation unable to provide a decent standard of living for its best and brightest. Northern demographics shifted as well, by the early 1990's it was found that the Protestant majority so carefully crafted by British partition now stood at only 56% of the Six County's population.

In the North unemployment also rose. The traditional industries of ship building and textiles had all but died, or were moved to developing nations in Asia. While there were attempts to bring in new investment, nothing major took hold. The DeLorean scandal was one of many cases of exploitation by multinationals of the conflict in the North for profit. The North didn't get the massive high-tech development the South did, so it has yet to feel effects of the changes in production being felt elsewhere in the world. It should be noted that unemployment is much higher in Nationalist areas than in Loyalist. A 1992 study by the Fair Employment Commission in the North found that Catholics were twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants, and it is estimated that in some Nationalist areas, male unemployment runs as high as 80%. There are service industry jobs available, which usually go to women. Much of the Nationalist population lives "on the dole," but there are some jobs available "under the table." Some of these jobs are in the food service area, or in domestic work, and have long hours at low pay and no benefits. The British government has yet to come up with an effective plan for economic development in the North.

The Political Arena

Along with multinationals came increased pressure on the 26 Counties to give up its traditional neutrality and join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The west of Ireland became flooded with telecommunications systems, while under-going an exodus of population. Under US President Reagan, the Cold War had reached a fevered pitch, and Ireland, as the western-most nation of Europe, was viewed as being strategically very important. The telecommunications network in the desolate west of Ireland was developed as a necessary part of NATO communications, rather than as any part of an attempt to meet the nation's needs. In the 1980s, several fishing trawlers in the Irish Sea had nets caught in submarines, and suffered damages. Needless to say, NATO denied any involvement in these incidents.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in this atmosphere of NATO machinations, drew great support in Ireland, and during President Reagan's 1984 visit, protested his policies with large demonstrations. In addition to the threat of nuclear weapons on Irish soil, Ireland suffered from the dumping of nuclear waste into the Irish Sea by the Sellafield reactor in England, raising concerns of Irish fishermen who used the sea for their livelihood.

The North was not exempt from the MAD policies of the Cold War. At one point in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher's government seemed to take a cue from her idol in the White House and planned a track missile silo system, to be placed in the Six Counties. Even the Loyalists protested this threat to "their" land, and the idea was scrapped.

Social Issues

Drug abuse was another indication that Ireland had entered the 20th Century. In 1980, the only drugs in the South used by young people were alcohol and, occasionally, inhalents. Then heroin began to enter the country, and by 1984, Dublin had the worst rate, per-capita, of addiction to that drug in Europe, and among the highest in the entire world. Many working class areas of Dublin banded together to get the major pushers out of their communities. These community groups, organized under the Concerned Parents Action Committee, forced the drug sellers from their residences, however, usually they would simply move to a new community. The Irish government seemed unable, or unwilling, to combat the problem effectively, and many of the bigger dealers, if arrested, were able to furnish themselves with comfortable surroundings while in jail. This influx of heroin coincided with a rise in unemployment and a rise in the percentage of the population under the age of 25 (over 50% of the population in the South is under 25). It is this age group that is most likely to be un or under-employed, and many youth have made a career of attending job training programs. Young people able to leave often do so, but many are left behind, to live out a life of poverty and unemployment. While still in school, Irish students are faced with rising costs and less government funding for education at all levels, including college and university.

The sexual revolution came to Ireland in the 1980s. People began to recognize that relationships cannot be regulated, either by a government or by a church. While legislation on social issues remains behind that of most other industrial nations, there are demands for change. Single men and women now have access to contraception, although this is most readily available in the cities. Some pubs have openly violated legal bans on condom vending machines, winning broad popular support for their defiance. Women now have access to information on abortion, and cannot be prevented from leaving the country to obtain one, and many women each year do just that. Statistics show that every year, several thousand Irish women travel to England to terminate pregnancies. There is a growing body of Irish people who would like to see at least some form of limited access to abortion, especially when a woman's health or life is in danger. Though a limited advance, these developments are in sharp contrast to the social attitudes that permitted the passage of a constitutional amendment in 1983, which made abortion not only illegal, but unconstitutional.

Along with abortion, divorce became an issue which illustrated the changes ongoing in Irish society. Divorce is not available in Ireland, even in cases where an annulment has been granted by the Vatican. Legally, children born out of wedlock suffer from the "stigma" of illegitimacy. Divorce, like abortion, brought forth major campaigns for reform. Although divorce is still illegal in Ireland, in 1986, there was a campaign to legalize some forms of divorce, similar to the 1983 campaign to combat making abortion unconstitutional. The campaign drew many people into political action, and the margin by which the measure failed was narrow. Likewise, those seeking a liberalization of abortion laws were unable to defeat the amendment, but the margin by which it passed was greatly narrowed over the course of the campaign.

In the South, the laws on homosexuality were a remnant of the Victorian era, when all Ireland was under British rule. Thus, in Ireland, as in Britain, there were laws only against male homosexuality-Queen Victoria refused to believe that Lesbianism existed. By the early 1980s, Lesbians and Gays began to organize, and repressive legislation was eventually repealed, with the last laws against homosexuality falling in 1993. The Lesbian and Gay rights movement also mobilized in Irish communities in the US in the early '90s, when the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization was denied the right to march in the New York and Boston St. Patrick's Day parades. The US courts ruled that the Ancient Order of Hibernians, who controlled the New York event, had the right to keep any organization out of the parade. There was a certain irony, that in Dublin, Lesbians and Gays marched in the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, while in New York, they were kept out. The irony was extended to the military when Ireland began allowing Gays and Lesbians to serve in the Irish Army, in compliance with EC norms (only Britain maintains such a ban among EC member states), while the Clinton administration instituted its "don't ask, don't tell" policy, continuing the ban on Lesbians and Gays in the US military.

The AIDS crisis has reached Ireland. Unlike the US and Britain, the largest group infected with HIV in Ireland are intravenous drug users and their partners. Women have a higher rate of infection in Ireland than elsewhere in the industrialized world. Since many drug users commit crimes to get money for drugs, AIDS health care in prisons has also become a pressing issue.

All these changes in Irish society have left the bishops in a quandary. How do they keep their grasp on the people, when the people are moving forward? The bishops have been involved in most of the campaigns against social reform in Ireland, however, they themselves have been plagued by scandal, most notably the Bishop Casey affair, a bishop who had a son by an American woman, which the Church kept quiet for 18 years.

The North is not a hotbed of progressive social legislation either. Divorce is frowned upon by the Protestant community, as is abortion, which is available only in limited cases. When the British parliament tried to standardize the laws on homosexuality in the North with those elsewhere in the ³United Kingdom, ³the Reverend Ian Paisley began a "Save Ulster from Sodomy" campaign, which prompted Gay and Lesbian activists to counter with a "Save Sodomy from Ulster" campaign.

Much work needs to be done on social issues if the island is to be reunified. Even in the North's Protestant community, there are progressive people who would like to see social legislation there liberalized. The constitution of Ireland must be changed preparatory to reunification, not only to appease the Protestants of the North, but because many in the Catholic community of both the North and South are also demanding changes on social issues.

British Terror

Immediately following the hunger strike, the British tried several tactics to break political activists and those under arms against the occupation. The British began strip searching women remand prisoners (those awaiting trial without bail) in Armagh and then Maghaberry prisons. This is a particularly degrading tactic for Irish women, who live in a society which regards sexuality and the human body as intensely private matters. The pretext used was security, to prevent smuggling contra-band, however, in the many years this tactic has been used, only two or three items have been found. The searches are conducted after court appearances, when the women have been in contact only with police and attorneys. Sometimes the searches occur in the presence of male guards. Many women have suffered medical problems, including a suspension of menstrual cycles, as a result of the stress strip searches cause. In 1992, a Belfast court upheld the legality of the searches.

Another form of terror the British use are shoot-to-kill tactics, mostly against members of the IRA and INLA, but on occasion, civilians have also been killed. In an official investigation, the killings of six men were examined, three were in the IRA, two in the INLA, and one was a young civilian. A chief constable from England, John Stalker, was named to head the investigation. He was stonewalled by the RUC, and allegations of impropriety were made against him. The "shoot-to-kill" investigation became "Stalker-gate" after he was removed from the investigation. Not surprising to anyone, the RUC and British Army were found innocent of any deliberate attempt to kill IRA and INLA members. In a separate case, the European Convention on Human Rights ruled that Britain should be taken before the European Court on Human Rights, and tried for the deaths of IRA volunteers and staff officers Mairead Farrell, Seán Savage and Danny McCann, known as the Gibraltar 3. The trio were assassinated by the British Army on Gibraltar, after which the British government attempted a coverup, stating that a bomb was found in their car. When this failed, Thatcher's people tried to blame the Spanish security forces, who refused to be the fall guys for the cold-blooded murder of the three. Although the British courts found those involved in the killings innocent of wrong-doing, the families appealed to the European Community. The trial is expected to start in the fall of 1994. The case also exposed the bigotry of the English press towards non-Anglo Saxon peoples. A woman resident of Gibraltar who witnessed the killings, and spoke about what she saw, sued for libel, and won, after a tabloid insulted her character, implying she was a prostitute and not a loyal British subject.

Long suspected by the Nationalist community, the collaboration between the RUC, British Army, Loyalist paramilitaries, and the then-Ulster Defence Regiment (its name was changed in the early 1990s) was confirmed by the British government. This collaboration resulted in the killing of not only political activists who weren't in an armed group, but even members of the Nationalist community who weren't involved in any political group. By 1993, elected representatives of both Sinn Féin and the SDLP increasingly became targets for attack.

Another tactic the British used was the wholesale arrest of members of the Republican and Republican Socialist movements, on the word of a "reformed terrorist," that is, a paid perjurer. Most times, these "supergrasses" ("grass" being slang for informer) would be given a list of names and "crimes" to sign. Although eventually many of these cases were thrown out on appeal, there was a demoralizing effect on activists. As a smaller organization, the Irish Republican Socialist Movement was particularly hard hit. Unlike during the hunger strike, a mass, organized opposition to the informers tactic failed to materialize, in part due to Sinn Féin's insistence on political domination of any mass group. Thus, there were three Nationalist groups (Sinn Féin's, the IRSP's, and an independent one led by Bernadette Devlin McAliskey), as well as a group for Loyalist prisoners.

The National Liberation Forces

The 1981 hunger strike had a tremendous impact on the republican movement as a whole. Sinn Féin, for the first time, saw what mass mobilization could do, and it was a lesson not lost on them. In a return to the 1966 analysis of involvement in social issues, Sinn Féin began to expand work in these areas, though their approach seemed to be "how can this help us," and not, "this is an important issue for the Irish people, so it's important for us, also." Sinn Féin began its foray into electoral politics as a direct result of the hunger strike campaign. The National H-Block/Armagh Committee used elections as a means of highlighting the prison struggle. Four of its members (two each from the IRSP and People's Democracy) were elected to the Belfast City Council as H-Block candidates. Then in 1981, while on hunger strike, Bobby Sands was elected to the Westminster parliament. After his death, his election agent, Owen Carron, replaced Sands. The tactic was also used in the South, with IRA hunger striker Kieran Doherty and Kevin Agnew, another IRA prisoner, were elected to Dáil Eireann, and other Blanket Men also doing well in the polls. After the hunger strike, Sinn Féin began fielding candidates for local councils and the European parliament. In 1983, Gerry Adams, Sinn Féin president, was elected as MP for West Belfast, and held the seat until April 1992. Sinn Féin members were elected to county and city councils in the North and South. The party even went so far as to restructure its Cummain (chapters) along electoral districts. In 1986, after much debate over several years, Sinn Féin dropped its policy of abstentionism in Dáil Eireann. This reflected a change in principle as well as tactics. Sinn Féin began an analysis which would lead to a document called "A Scenario for Peace," which called for a broad front of nationalist forces, and a constitutional convention for the whole island, things the IRSP had called for since 1974. The document also called for the repatriation to mainland Britain of any Loyalist who wished to leave Ireland, to be paid for by the British, i.e., working class British taxpayers. The dropping of abstentionism led to a split in Sinn Féin, when hard-line abstentionists walked out of the Ard Fheis and formed Republican Sinn Féin, a political party with little politics which supported armed struggle, but had no army. The IRA had declared its support for the new order in a convention held several weeks before the Ard Fheis.

In 1982, elections were held for a new assembly in the North. As the British tried to bring in "rolling devolution," but the attempt failed utterly. The Unionist parties supported the Northern Ireland Assembly, but the nationalist community was divided over the issue. The body would have very limited power, and many felt it was just a sop to Loyalists. The bourgeois Nationalists of the SDLP supported the assembly, and sought election with the intention of taking seats. The IRSP advocated a boycott, and initially, Sinn Féin supported the idea. After the SDLP announced it would run, Sinn Féin changed its mind, deciding to also field candidates, but on an abstentionist platform. The IRSP, with the Irish Independence Party, continued to advocate boycotting, but if voting, to vote Sinn Féin. During the election campaign, the INLA engaged in a bombing campaign to disrupt the election. The bombing campaign was criticized by Sinn Féin. The whole mess came to an ignoble end after several years, when the Unionists pulled out over the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and the only party left participating was the SDLP.

The contradictions in Sinn Féin's electoral policies became sharper during the 1992 Westminster election. Recognizing the changes in the world power structure, Sinn Féin, while still stating opposition to the EC, began calling for its investment in the North of Ireland. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has several times called for UN intervention in the North, while the UN has increasingly come to serve US interests in the "New World Order." This is a far cry from the "Ourselves Alone" days of Sinn Féin in the early 1970s.

Sinn Féin seems desperate to be involved in any talks or negotiations leading to the withdrawal of British troops from the North, and even possible reunification. Ard Fheisnna in recent years have emphasized the separation between Sinn Féin and the IRA, repeatedly stating that Sinn Féin is not a party of violence. The IRA continues its campaign in the Six Counties and England. In 1992, the IRA engaged in a Christmas bombing campaign, and set off bombs in England throughout the winter of 1992/93, however, a ceasefire was called for 72 hours beginning on Christmas day. The INLA, in a symbolic action on the first day of the ceasefire, fired upon an observation post, demonstrating its distinct presence in the national liberation struggle.

In the autumn of 1993, Sinn Féin drafted a proposal for a peace settlement jointly with the SDLP. Detail of the document have been closely guarded, but the Dublin government, to which it was presented, has favorablly passed it along to the British government for review, though coalition partner Dick Spring, of the Irish Labour Party, penned his own peace proposal as well. Not to be outdone, Ian Paisley issued his own peace proposal less than two month later. While it is too early to state much with certainty regarding this new peace process, the possibility of an IRA cease-fire has begun to enter the realm of possibility, perhaps even probability, especially since revelations in late 1993 that Britain's Tory government has been engaged in secret negotiations with the IRA for some time.

Meanwhile, Official Sinn Féin became Sinn Féin the Workers Party, then just the Workers Party. The WP became a Soviet-oriented party, competing with the Communist Party of Ireland for ties with the former Soviet Union, before it imploded upon itself in 1992. The majority walked out of a national party congress and formed a rival social democratic party called the Democratic Left. The Irish working class is now watching the spectacle of both parties accusing each other of getting Soviet gold and of having knowledge of the Official IRA. Both parties seem to forget that they were all in the Workers Party together while this was going on. The OIRA still maintained an unofficial existence, engaging mostly in armed robberies, extortion, and other "fundraising" activities. They seem to have been most active in the Belfast building trades, controlling access to job sites by workers and bosses both.

The Irish Republican Socialist Movement entered the period after the hunger strike in a strong position, although still trying to recover from the assassinations of Seamus Costello, Miriam Daly and Ronnie Bunting. The IRSP benefitted from being seen as acting in a principled manner during the H-Block/Armagh campaign, and the INLA won many new recruits to the young organization. However, this rapid growth would prove devastating to the movement.

The IRSM was particularly strong in the South. Unlike the IRA, the INLA had no orders to refrain from engaging Free State forces, and in September, 1982, took on the Free State and NATO by blowing up the Mount Gabriel radar station. The South claimed to be neutral, yet the station was violating that neutrality by transmitting to NATO forces. No one was killed in the attack, and it served to highlight Dublin's ties to the imperialists of Britain and the US.

Extradition became an important issue in the South, when INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey was arrested on St. Patrick's Day, 1984 in County Clare. He was sent to the North that very night, even though there were arrest warrants for him in the South. McGlinchey had become something of a folk hero in Ireland while on the run, and many stories circulated about his avoiding capture. He was also a powerful force within the IRSM, being not only a capable military leader, but also a clear political thinker. He began to weed out undisciplined and opportunist volunteers, but he would pay a high price personally for commitment this undertaking. After his extradition, he was convicted, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. He was then extradited back to the South, to stand trial on charges resulting from his arrest, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years. While in Portlaoise, his wife Mary gave birth to their daughter, Maire, who died 15 months later, without her father having seen her. At the viewing, her tiny coffin was searched, and the grieving family spied upon by the Garda. Mary was assassinated while bathing her two sons in 1987, and Dominic was refused compassionate parole to attend her funeral. Even after his release, his troubles continued. He was shot twice in the face while leaving a son's 16th birthday party, by people who are either still afraid of him, or want revenge; he personally accused the British for the attack.

Extradition has also become a key issue also for Irish activists in the US. Britain succeeded in having IRA member Liam Quinn extradited to London, and Joe Doherty deported to Belfast. Three of the 1983 Maze escapees were arrested in 1992 in California, and as of this writing, are undergoing extradition proceedings. Jim Barr, a member of the IRSP who fled to the US after being named by paid perjurer Harry Kirkpatrick as a member of the INLA, won political asylum in 1993, successfully fighting deportation and extradition attempts. It seems strange that the US government would pursue the case after the others arrested with Barr were all released on appeal. Along with extradition, there have been several notable cases of Irish activists arrested in the United States on charges of gunrunning and developing weapons technology for the national liberation forces. The "Freedom Five" were acquitted in New York, but most others haven't been as fortunate, and have served, or are serving time in federal prisons. These extraditions and arrests solidify the relationship between Britain and the United States, and serve their shared imperialist aims. Britain was the only European nation to allow the US to use its airspace when it bombed Libya, rewarding the US for its aggressive legal persecutions of Irish activists. Strangely, some Irish republican supporters in the US have taken up the call for a US special envoy to mediate in Ireland, despite consistent support for British occupation from it US imperialist ally.

In the South, a major campaign was waged for IRSP member Nicky Kelly, who was convicted of a train robbery. Kelly and three other IRSP members were charged with robbing a mail train in 1976. The first trial ended in a mistrial, and three of the four were retried. Kelly fled to the US when it became obvious the men would be convicted. He returned to Ireland in 1980 after his codefendants were released on appeal, due to proof their confessions resulted from torture. Kelly, however, lost all his appeals, and in 1983, began a hunger strike. An international campaign was mounted, and in July 1984, Kelly was released, on humanitarian grounds. Both Kelly and codefendant Oscar Breatnach, continue to seek financial compensation from the Irish government commensurate to the crimes committed against them. The case of the "Great Train Robbery" was just one of many examples of harassment by the government of members of the IRSP. The IRA, in a very unusual move, repeatedly claimed responsibility for the robbery. The IRSP members were beaten by Garda members known as "the Heavy Gang," and tried in the non-jury Special Courts. Kelly's real "crime" seems to have been that he fled.

In the meantime, within the IRSP, there was much political debate over the direction of the Party. At the 1984 Ard Fheis, a resolution was passed to define the Party's socialism as in the tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Connolly was overwhelmingly passed. There was opposition to the motion from the sidelines, but those opposed rejected the democratic mechanisms available within the Movement to express their views. Problems came to the fore, especially in the prisons. The rapid growth of both the IRSP and INLA, and the day-to-day struggles againast occupation, led to a lack of political education for new members. Some older members were opposed to the new turn the Party was taking; even though in actual analysis, the Party had always been Marxist. There were some elements in the INLA who had joined, not for political reasons, but because they could become a "large fish in a small pond," and some of these elements engaged in criminal gangsterism rather than revolutionary struggle. From 1983-86, the IRSM rid itself of these elements: some left, others were purged. In 1986, in an effort to get the Movement back on track, then-prisoner Ta Power wrote a document which the IRSP and INLA adopted. It called for a recommitment to the Broad Front policy, and stated that, "a revolutionary socialist party means that we must engage in revolutionary politics throughout all of Ireland, on the streets and in the elected chambers." The major change for the IRSM was that the document called for the subordination of the Army to the political direction of the Party. This call came from the Army itself, as a recognition of past mistakes.

Those who had left the movement began to band together, calling themselves the "Irish Peoples' Liberation Organization" (IPLO). In January 1987, while on the way to a meeting between the INLA and IPLO, Ta Power and his colleagues were ambushed. Power and INLA Chief of Staff John O'Rielly were killed, and two other comrades wounded. This began a series of attacks on members of the IRSM which would last until March of that year, when the INLA assassinated the IPLO's military leader, Gerard Steenson. The attacks dealt a major blow to the IRSM, not just through assassination, but because the fear of assassination paralyzed the political work of the IRSP. Party members in many areas feared for their lives, and kept a low profile for several months. Afterwards, the IRSP reemerged, and began to develop relations with Marxist parties in Britain and anti-imperialist governments and movements throughout the world. The INLA remained, though briefly withdrawing from action to reorganize, and is still waging a military campaign against British imperialism, making a sharp resurgence in 1992 in both Ireland and England. During the attacks on the IRSM by the IPLO, while the IPLO declared their attacks were meant to force the INLA to disband, Sinn Féin called on what they termed "both factions of the INLA" to disband as well. The IRA called for the same thing, with the weapons of the INLA to be turned over to themselves! The INLA rejected this call, and held onto its weapons, soon forcing the IPLO to cease their attacks on members of the IRSM. Many of those involved with the IPLO were later identified as having joined the IRA, when they were killed or arrested during IRA actions. Those who remained in the rump-IPLO turned it into a criminal organization which raised funds by dealing drugs, particularly the drug Ecstasy. The IPLO also claimed responsibility for several sectarian attacks on Protestants who weren't members of security forces or Loyalist death squads. Further, the IPLO took responsibility for the bombing of one of the few Gay bars in Belfast. The sorry existence of the IPLO seems to have ended in 1992, when their leading political "theorist," Jimmy Brown, was killed by a rival faction, apparently in a dispute over profits from drug sales. The Brown faction disbanded after another two members were killed, one by the IPLO rival faction, the other by the IRA because of the drug dealing. Under pressure from the IRA the other faction dissolved itself as well.

There are other, small Marxist parties in Ireland. The "indigenous" Irish parties are the rump of People's Democracy (the majority joined Sinn Féin in the '80s) and the Socialist Workers' Group, led by the 1960s civil rights activist Eammon McCann (both Trotskyist) and the Communist Party of Ireland, which became a "Euro-Communist" party. Many of the smaller parties are sister groups of Leninist and Trotskyist parties in England. The analyses of many of these ignore the history of British imperialism and capitalism in Ireland, and call for "uniting the Catholic and Protestant working class," while ignoring the fact that it is Catholics who suffer most from unemployment and sectarian attacks, and that republicans and republican socialists have always welcomed fighters of any or no faith, while also disregarding the role of partition in thwarting working class unity. Religion, for republicans, is not the issue; the economic and political destiny of Ireland is. These Left groups receive little or no support from either the nationalist or loyalist communities, and are irrelevant for the vast majority of the Irish working class. A small group of prisoners broke with the Provisionals and founded an organization calling itself "Congress '86," after the Republican Congress. It briefly issued a publication, adding a new voice for socialism within the republican milleu, but the organization seems to have withered away.

Loyalist Reaction

The Loyalists have felt increasingly "betrayed" by the British government. By the early 1980s, some Loyalists, especially the paramilitary groups, were beginning to advocate an "independent Ulster" theory, that the Six Counties could be a viable independent nation. Along with this was an ideology of a separate "race" of "Ulstermen," and an economic critique of capitalism reminiscent of Fascism. There was an increasing alienation between the paramilitaries and "moderate" politicians, but when the Anglo-Irish Agreement was reached, the Unionists and Loyalists both rejected it, bringing renewed unity. This resulted in increased sectarian attacks on Nationalists.

The British government has begun to distance itself from the Loyalist community, even banning the Ulster Defence Association in 1992, including banning them from the airwaves, as with Sinn Féin, the IRSP and individual republicans in 1988. The Loyalist death squads linked up with other fascist groups in the US and Europe in the 1980s, and Unionist politician Peter Robinson, long associated with Loyalist paramilitaries visited Israel to "study" their security systems. However, the relationship between Britain and the Loyalist community remains viable. By the summer of 1993, there were widespread rumors of a deal between British Prime Minister John Major and the Ulster Unionist Party, who supported him over the European Community treaty. The details remain a mystery.

Things to Come

Ireland today is at a crossroads. Many things may happen, but it is clear that, especially in the Nationalist areas of the North, there is a war-weariness amongst the people. British troops have been in their communities since August 1969. An entire generation has grown up with that reality. The world is much changed since the days of the civil rights movement and Bloody Sunday. The UN and EC are increasingly coming to the fore in world disputes. It may be thought that these bodies could play a role in Ireland. This raises many serious questions for the national liberation struggle in Ireland. What does that border really mean, in a unified Europe? Will the South remain all that concerned with its token claim over "the entire island of Ireland" when unemployment hovers at 20%? Can Sinn Fééin force the IRA into a ceasefire in exchange for withdrawal of British troops and a place at the table of any talks between the British and Irish governments, Loyalists and other nationalist parties? As socialists, the IRSM believes that any settlement which does not answer the questions of national liberation and socialism cannot succeed, but will only put off the inevitable class struggle. The Irish Republican Socialist Movement is not frightened by this prospect; it will continue to organize as a revolutionary segment of the Irish working class, in the tradition of Connolly and Costello.