Anons here don't understand that 95% of the IRA did not identify as Socialists or had any interest in Socialism.
They also don't understand that Ulster Unionist government and Paramilitaries were far more focused on repressing the Catholic Population than the English were, who actually were the spearhead behind reform to make Northern ireland representative and equal, especially during Harold Wilson's government.
Anons here like simple conflicts with clear cut sides.
This tbh.
The only really good guys back then were James Connolly (actually a non sectarian who saw no real difference in Anarchism and Marxisms concept of people holding power and sought to preserve the IWW) and Bobby Sands, and that's only because they only fired when absolutely necessary (Fuck the OIRA massacres), while using non violent tactics first and foremost.
This. After the 1975 Ceasefire, the PIRA nearly collapsed and essentially went full on terror, bombing civilians and attacking those who had nothing to do with the conflict.
They weren't socialists. They exacerbated the conflict out of self interest and attempted to bring down agreements that might have brought peace and equality to Catholic communities.
Fuck all sides in the conflict, except maybe the constitutional groups like the SDLP.
weren't the Official IRA /ourguys/
they really had a good marxist class analysis of thje conflict, saying we shouldn'T shoot at other workers, right?
seems relevent
i'll be ready to come out and fight on the rocky road to Dublin, in Johnson's motorcar when I need to.
Yeah, they essentially kicked out the old guard Republicans. The PIRA and OIRA both generally accepted attacking other workers was pointless and hurt the cause, and usually denounced the attacks. Until the 75 ceasefire, that is.
The 1950's and Early 60's IRA Campaigns were laughably pathetic and led to young Marxist Catholics born in the 6 county state kicking out the 'Old Guard'.
The new Marxist IRA was still a modest size and gave small support to the growing, liberal and parliamentarian civil rights movement led by Nationalist Catholics. A mainly middle-working class UVF saw the Civil rights movement as a sign the IRA were back and began organising Protestant attacks and marchs into Catholic areas and streets. (Stormont Unionists like Craig and Paisley helped this)
This led to the IRA swelling in numbers, but the new members promptly became frustrated with the new, Marxist line of this die-hard IRA, and split off to form the Provisional IRA (Nationalist-Republican). The Provisional IRA exploded in popularity and outpaced the Official IRA (The Marxists).
The death of the OIRA came in 1974, really, when they became involved in bloody Feuds with the PIRA, ultimately leading them to collapse in various splinter movements that petered out.
As the new PIRA's movement developed with the continued war against the British occupation forces, figures such McGuinness, Gerry Adams and Kelly took on a more dominant role in a more centralised force. they shifted the ideological window from 'A war of equal rights for Catholics' to 'A war against British occupation' and eventually to 'A war of the Irish nation'. They actively fought against the 1985 agreement, stopped accepting ceasefires with the Army, and began pursuing a more aggressive campaign on the British Mainland.
As the Troubles dragged on, it became less political and far more nationalistic. Thatcher's government didn't help this.
But the PIRA fucked themselves, in that this ideological shift made support amongst the working class slowly dry up into the early 90's, as they saw the war as pointless, and were exhausted by the refusal of the PIRA to accept constituional agreements. By the mid 90's, the PIRA was heavily infiltrated by the British, attacks were responded to faster and morale drained. The Unionist Paramilitaries were also a joke at this point.
They fucked themselves by rejecting class conflict.
damn…
lets hope the Irish will spark the fight once again in the near future
btw are you the KPD comrade by any chance?
The larger 32 County Republican movement was birthed in 1791 with the United Irishmen, whose leader Wolfe Tone wished to create a 32 County Republic which prioritised the Men Of No Property.
This can be considered to a proto-Marxism, as Connolly did.
Other individuals of the time are similarly considered to operate within the same vein, such as Robert Emmet and William Thompson.
The late 1800s saw the resurgence of Republicanism in a Socialist format : the ITGWU Worker's Union and the formation of the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP).
By the time the IRA was established, the Marxist Irish Citizen's Army was largely spent after 1916 with the execution of Connolly.
The brand-new IRA of 1919 was largely populated by Subsistence Farmers and the Urban Working Class, who not only wanted an end to British rule but also stronger economic conditions for those in Irish society who lived in poverty.
The big change in the first two decades of the 20th Century is that the National Bourgeoisie decided to side with Republicanism, whereas beforehand they had sided with Unionism or John Redmond's Irish Parliamentary Party of the late 1800s.
The 26 County Statelet was a British invention, approved by the Dublin Bourgeoisie. They never supported the 32 County project in the first place, so why would they object to their own Designated Playground?
What resulted was compounded decades of working class emigration, and thus an electorate representative of the property-owning classes.
The Border Campaign of 56-62 obviously failed, as they were still attempting to utilise the Peasant Revolt tactics of the 1910s.
This is when it starts to get interesting : in the 1961 Census, the 26 Counties experienced a population growth for the first time for over 120 years, most of whom were Irish-born returning home.
It is no coincidence that the Fianna Fáil government started attracting FDI from the USA in the mid-1950s, and thus began investing in Irish communities for the first time. These two processes are directly intertwined (keep in mind that this process relieves the Dublin Upper Class of actually investing in their communities, as did joining the EEC).
How does this effect the IRA?
Seamus Costello was arrested in 1946 for orchestrating the bombing of the Magherafelt Courthouse. Whilst in jail, he started reading extensively on the Vietnamese liberation struggle and became very interested in Ho Chi Minh and the National Liberation Front.
After the failure of the Border Campaign, he started advocating Leninist tactics where the IRA should wage a war whilst simultaneously placing emphasis on taking seats in elections.
In 1953, Cathal Goulding was interned in Wakefield Prison, where he shared a cell with Volunteers from EOKA.
They were Cypriot seperatists, also waging war again they British. They shared Marxist literature with him, and he was principally impressed with the writings of Josip Broz Tito.
He was especially impressed with how Yugoslavia managed to get the various Balkan ethnicity to work together under the banner of one State, which he felt would prove very helpful in the establishment of the 32 County Republic.
Cathal Goulding managed to convince Seán Garland of the Marxist ideology, and so it was spread throughout the 1960s IRA.
Some of the main detractors of Leninism were Seán Mac Stíofáin and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who went on to form PIRA.
However, when the OIRA and PIRA split on different terms, the majority of volunteers sided with the OIRA. Especially West of the Bann.
This whole talk about the talk about how the IRA was never socialist is merely British National Chauvinism.
This is explicitly incorrect, look at pic 3. The Éire Nua programme was also explicitly Socialist.