Saoradh — Irish for “Liberation” — is formally founded on September 24, 2016, as a revolutionary Irish republican political party and pressure group by dissident republicans opposed to the Good Friday Agreement and the partition of Ireland. The launch takes place at an ardfheis (national conference) in County Down, Northern Ireland, attended by around 150 activists from across Ireland.
The party emerges from years of autonomous activism by republican figures disillusioned with mainstream parties like Sinn Féin, which they view as having compromised core principles of Irish unification and sovereignty. Founders include former members of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, Republican Sinn Féin, and the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).
The inaugural 12-person national executive sits at the “top table” under a banner of the 1916 Proclamation’s signatories. Notable members included Nuala Perry, vice-chairperson and former Provisional IRA prisoner, Kevin Murphy, former Real IRA prisoner, Risteard Ó Murchú, former republican prisoner, Sharon Rafferty, Dee Fennell, David Jordan and Mandy Duffy, sister-in-law of Colin Duffy. Other attendees include veteran republican leader Billy McKee, Thomas Ashe Mellon and Issam Hijjawi, Chair of the Association of Palestinian Communities in Scotland.
Saoradh positions itself as a far-left, dissident republican movement advocating a 32-county socialist republic free from British rule and European Union (EU) interference, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and worker ownership of production, rejection of the Good Friday Agreement as a capitulation to British control and grassroots activism, street politics, and campaigns for republican prisoners.
The founding press release emphasizes that Ireland should be governed by the Irish people, with wealth and wealth-producing mechanisms in the people’s ownership, rejecting both British imperialism and capitalist exploitation. The event is marked by a mix of political rhetoric, historical symbolism, and support from prominent dissident figures.
In short, September 24, 2016, marks the official launch of Saoradh as a political front for dissident republicans committed to revolutionary means to achieve Irish unification and national sovereignty.
