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Irish Republican Socialist Party
Leader	Ard Chomhairle
Founded	December 8, 1974 (1974-12-08)
Headquarters	Costello House, 392 Falls Road, Belfast, BT12 6DH
Ideology	Irish republicanism, Republican communism, Socialism, Marxism-Leninism, Formerly physical force Irish republicanism
European affiliation	None
European Parliament Group	None
Official colours	Blue, white
Website
www.irsm.org/irsp/
Politics of the Republic of Ireland Political parties Elections Politics of Northern Ireland Political parties Elections

The Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) is a republican socialist party meaning that it is both Marxist and republican. Like many political parties in Ireland, it claims the legacy of socialist revolutionary James Connolly, who founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in 1896 and was executed after the Easter Rising of 1916.

[edit] History

The Starry Plough is often used as a symbol to represent the Irish Republican Socialist Party, its armed wing the Irish National Liberation Army, and other Irish republican socialist groups.

The Irish Republican Socialist Party was founded on 8 December 1974 by former members of the Official Republican Movement, independent socialists, and trade unionists headed by Seamus Costello. A paramilitary wing, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), was founded the same day, although its existence was intended to be kept hidden until such a time that the INLA could operate effectively. Seamus Costello was elected as the party's first chairperson and the army's first chief of staff. Together, the IRSP and the INLA refer to themselves as the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM).

Costello was expelled from the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) following a court-martial, and from Official Sinn Fein on the same basis. Along with other activists he was dissatisfied with the group's tactics and policies especially on the issues surrounding the 1972 OIRA ceasefire and the arising belief that the emerging conflict was sectarian. In 1977 he was shot dead in his car by a man armed with a shotgun. His supporters blame the Official IRA for the killing.

Although a truce was eventually reached following meetings between the INLA and OIRA leadership in Dublin, in one of the first of the INLA's armed operations, Billy McMillen, Belfast Battalion OIRA Officer Commanding in Belfast was murdered by Gerard Steenson. In the following years the IRSP and INLA saw many members killed in attacks from state forces and loyalist paramilitaries including leading members Miriam Daly, Ronnie Bunting and Noel Little.

Three members of the INLA died in the 1981 Hunger Strikes in HM Prison Maze (aka Long Kesh). They were Patsy O'Hara, Kevin Lynch, and Michael Devine.

In 1981, party members Gerry Kelly and Sean Flynn won two seats on Belfast City Council in a joint campaign with People's Democracy, although neither councillor served a full term with one going on the run after being implicated during the Supergrass trials and another resigning his seat citing disillusionment with the IRSP and later claiming in the Irish News that he had received threats from his former colleagues.

In December 1982 the INLA was responsible for the Droppin Well bombing, one of the most gruesome bombings of the troubles. Seventeen people died, 11 of them were soldiers, when an INLA bomb exploded in the Droppin' Well public house in Ballykelly.

[edit] Policies

The IRSP opposes both the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Peace Process, viewing both as simply cementing British rule in Ireland. As of 11th October, 2009 the INLA has ordered an end to the armed struggle.

[edit] Membership

Party members often refer to themselves as the 'Irps' (pronounced 'Erps').

[edit] Representation

The party is represented in North America by the Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America.

[edit] Milestones in the IRSP's history

• 1975: At the IRSP's inaugural convention, it becomes the first political party in Ireland to support the legalisation of abortion and equal rights for gays and lesbians (in 2000, it becomes the first Irish party to support equal rights for bisexual and transgender people).
• 1981: The IRSP wins two seats on the Belfast City Council, and comes close to winning a third. The IRSP runs two candidates, Kevin Lynch and Tony O'Hara, in the Irish parliamentary election as Independent Anti H-Block candidates. Neither candidate wins, but Lynch comes within 300 votes of winning a seat, while O'Hara garnered a respectable number of votes.
• 1982: Party member Brigid Makowski wins a seat on the Shannon Town Commission.^[1]
• 1984: At the IRSP's convention, two motions are put forward:

1. That the IRSP stands in the tradition of Marx, Engels, and James Connolly. (Drafted by party member John Gilligan [now an elected Independent member of Limerick City Council] and put forward by the party's Limerick branch).
2. That the IRSP stands in the tradition of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. (Drafted by the party's chairperson, Jim Lane, and put forward by the party's Cork city branch.)
   Both motions are passed and combined into a single statement: that the IRSP stands in the tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Connolly.

• 2000: The IRSP passes a new ideological motion at its convention, which affirms:
  • That the IRSP is a revolutionary Marxist organisation, and that by this we mean that the IRSP believes:
  • Class conflict is the motive force in human history;
  • The IRSP stands unreservedly and exclusively for the interests of the working class against all others;
  • Only the creation of a 32-county Irish socialist republic can provide the means by which Irish national liberation can be realised;
  • That there can be no socialism without national liberation in Ireland, nor can there be national liberation without socialism;
  • That there is no parliamentary road to socialism, because socialism cannot be forged by seizing the bourgeois state apparatus; nor is there a guerilla road to socialism, because a social revolution requires the active participation of the masses; and therefore a socialist republic can only be established through the mass revolutionary action of the working class in the political, economic, and social spheres;
  • That socialism means the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange collectively by the entire working class, with an end to wage labour, an end to production for profit and its replacement by a system of production based on human need; and
  • That socialism must be administered democratically by the working class itself, recognising the class dictatorship of the workers, because the vast majority of society is formed by that class. This does not suggest the need for a political dictatorship of a single party. Rather it calls out for a class dictatorship, administered through new working class institutions created to permit the greatest degree of political freedom for all working people.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Jim Lane
• Sallins Train Robbery

[edit] External links

• Irish Republican Socialist Party Official web site
• Republican Socialist Forum Public forum