The explosion injures up to 60 people. The bomb is planted in a car, which is known to have been stolen in London the previous night. It is parked outside Horseferry House, a building occupied by the Home Office, and opposite Thames House, which is mainly occupied by the Department of Trade and Industry, when it explodes. Both buildings, and others nearby, are extensively damaged.
Two warnings are given prior to the bombing. The first is by means of an anonymous telephone call to the offices of The Evening News at 8:22 a.m. The caller says that there is a bomb in Horseferry Road and Marshall Street and that these streets should be cleared immediately. It is presumed that the caller must have meant Marsham Street and not Marshall Street. The police are informed and start their search in these streets. While the search is in progress there, the bomb explodes in Thorney Street.
The second warning, also anonymous, is received by the telephone operator in Horseferry House at 8:45 a.m., saying that there is a car bomb outside, timed to explode in half an hour. Precautionary action is being taken when the bomb explodes only about five minutes later.
The Westminster bombing is one of many IRA car bombings in Northern Ireland and England during the almost 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.
In the week following the Westminster car bombing, several more IRA bombs explode in London. On December 19, the day after the Westminster bombing, one person is injured when an IRA letter bomb explodes at a London postal sorting office. Five days later, on Christmas Eve 1973, the IRA bombs two London pubs, first the North Star public house, where six people are injured, and secondly at the Swiss Cottage Tavern, in which an unspecified number of people are injured. The last bombs explode on Boxing Day, December 26, 1973, when the Stage Door public house is bombed, injuring one person, and another bomb explodes at the Sloane Square tube station where there are no injuries.
Price and her sister, Marian, also an IRA member, are the daughters of Albert Price, a prominent Irish republican and former IRA member from Belfast. Their aunt, Bridie Dolan, is blinded and loses both hands in an accident while handling IRA explosives.
Price becomes involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s and she and Marian participate in the Belfast to Derrycivil rights march in January 1969 and are attacked in the Burntollet Bridge incident.
In 1971 Price and her sister join the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 1972 she joins an elite group within the IRA called “The Unknowns” commanded by Pat McClure. The Unknowns are tasked with various secretive activities and transport several accused traitors across the border into the Republic of Ireland where they are “disappeared.” She personally states that she had driven Joe Lynskey across the border to face trial. In addition, she states that she, Pat McClure and a third Unknown were tasked with killing Jean McConville, with the third Unknown actually shooting her.
Price leads the car bombing attacks in London on March 8, 1973, which injure over 200 people and is believed to have contributed to the death of one person who suffers a fatal heart attack. The two sisters are arrested, along with Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney and six others, on the day of the bombing as they are boarding a flight to Ireland. They are tried and convicted at the Great Hall in Winchester Castle on November 14, 1973. Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, which is to run concurrently for each criminal charge, their sentence is eventually reduced to 20 years. She serves seven years for her part in the bombing. She immediately goes on a hunger strike demanding to be moved to a prison in Northern Ireland. The hunger strike lasts for 208 days because the hunger strikers are force-fed by prison authorities to keep them alive.
On the back of the hunger-striking campaign, Price’s father contests Belfast West at the February 1974 United Kingdom general election, receiving 5,662 votes (11.9%). The Price sisters, Hugh Feeney, and Gerry Kelly are moved to Northern Ireland prisons in 1975 as a result of an IRA truce. In 1980 she receives the royal prerogative of mercy and is freed on humanitarian grounds in 1981, purportedly suffering from anorexia nervosa due to the invasive trauma of daily force feedings.
After her release in 1980, Price marries Irish actor Stephen Rea, with whom she has two sons, Danny and Oscar. They divorce in 2003.
The Price sisters remain active politically. In the late 1990s, Price and her sister claim that they have been threatened by their former colleagues in the IRA and Sinn Féin for publicly opposing the Good Friday Agreement (i.e. the cessation of the IRA’s military campaign). she is a contributor to The Blanket, an online journal, edited by former Provisional IRA member Anthony McIntyre, until it ceases publication in 2008.
In 2001, Price is arrested in Dublin and charged with possession of stolen prescription pads and forged prescriptions. She pleads guilty and is fined £200 and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
In February 2010, it is reported by The Irish News that Price had offered help to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains in locating graves of three men, Joe Lynskey, Seamus Wright, and Kevin McKee. The bodies of Wright and McKee are recovered from a singular grave in County Meath in August 2015. It is unclear if Price played a role in their recovery. The remains of Joe Lynskey have not been recovered as of April 2021.
Price is the subject of the 2018 feature-length documentary I, Dolours in which she gives an extensive filmed interview.
In 2010, Price claims Gerry Adams had been her officer commanding (OC) when she was active in the IRA. Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA, denies her allegation. She admits taking part in the murder of Jean McConville, as part of an IRA action in 1972. She claims the murder of McConville, a mother of ten, was ordered by Adams when he was an IRA leader in West Belfast. Adams subsequently publicly further denies Price’s allegations, stating that the reason for them is that she is opposed to the Provisional Irish Republican Army’s abandonment of paramilitary warfare in favour of politics in 1994, in the facilitation of which Adams has been a key figure.
Oral historians at Boston College interview both Price and her fellow IRA paramilitary Brendan Hughes between 2001 and 2006. The two give detailed interviews for the historical record of the activities in the IRA, which are recorded on condition that the content of the interviews is not to be released during their lifetimes. Prior to her death in May 2011, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) subpoena the material, possibly as part of an investigation into the disappearance of a number of people in Northern Ireland during the 1970s. In June 2011, the college files a motion to quash the subpoena. A spokesman for the college states that “our position is that the premature release of the tapes could threaten the safety of the participants, the enterprise of oral history, and the ongoing peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland.” In June 2011, U.S. federal prosecutors ask a judge to require the college to release the tapes to comply with treaty obligations with the United Kingdom. On July 6, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit agrees with the government’s position that the subpoena should stand. On October 17, 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily blocks the college from handing over the interview tapes. In April 2013, after Price’s death, the Supreme Court turns away an appeal that seeks to keep the interviews from being supplied to the PSNI. The order leaves in place a lower court ruling that orders Boston College to give the Justice Department portions of recorded interviews with Price. Federal officials want to forward the recordings to police investigating the murder of Jean McConville.
Price dies in her Malahide, County Dublin, home on January 23, 2013, from a toxic effect of mixing prescribed sedative and anti-depressant medication. Her body is found the following day. The inquest returns a verdict of death by misadventure. She is buried at Milltown Cemetery in West Belfast.
On December 12, 1993, a unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army‘s (IRA) East Tyrone Brigade ambushes a two-men unmarked mobile patrol of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Fivemiletown, County Tyrone. Two constables, Andrew Beacom and Ernest Smith, are shot and killed instantly. A military helicopter is also fired at by a second IRA unit in the aftermath of the incident, during a follow-up operation launched in the surroundings of the town by both the British Army and the RUC. A number of suspects are questioned, but the perpetrators make good their escape. The action occurs just three days before the Downing Street Declaration.
Fivemiletown lays in the western edge of the Clogher Valley, near the border between County Fermanagh and County Tyrone. No deaths directly related with paramilitary activity has occurred there during the Troubles prior to the 1993 IRA shootings, though there are a number of incidents in the region in the previous months.
On May 7, 1992, members of the IRA South Fermanagh Brigade detonate a 1,000-pound bomb delivered by a tractor after crossing through a hedge outside the local RUC part-time barracks. The huge explosion leaves ten civilians wounded and causes widespread damage to the surrounding property. The security base itself is heavily damaged and the blast is heard 30 miles away. According to a later IRA statement, the destruction of the security base compels the British forces to organise their patrols from the nearby RUC barracks at Clogher, allowing the East Tyrone Brigade to study their pattern and carry out the 1993 ambush at Fivemiletown’s main street.
A secondary incident occurs some hours later, on May 9, when a British soldier kills his company’s sergeant major in a blue-on-blue shooting at the same place while taking part in a security detail around the wrecked facilities.
On January 20, 1993, the RUC base in Clogher is hit and severely damaged by a Mark-15 “barrack buster” mortar bomb launched by the IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade. A number of constables receive minor injuries.
Constable Andrew Beacom and Reserve Constable Ernest Smith are patrolling Fivemiletown’s Main Street in a civilian-type, unmarked Renault 21 on the early hours of December 12, 1993. Both men are part of the RUC Operational Support Unit, which surveils the border along with the British Army. The constables are based at Clogher RUC barracks.
The IRA reports that two active service units from the East Tyrone Brigade had taken up positions in the centre of Fivemiletown and identified the RUC unmarked vehicle before the ambush.
At 1:30 a.m., up to the junction of Main Street and Coneen Street, at least two IRA volunteers open fire from both sides of the road with automatic weapons, hitting the vehicle with more than 20 rounds. Beacom and Smith die on the spot. Constable Beacom lives in Fivemiletown, just a hundred metres from the site of the ambush, where his wife owns a restaurant. She is one of the first persons to arrive to the scene of the shooting. Smith resides with his family at Augher.
According to a colleague in the Operational Support Unit, himself a reserve constable deployed at Lisnaskea and a former Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier, their deaths “hit the unit very hard.” The men are appreciated for their in-depth knowledge of the area.
A “major” follow-up security operation is mounted between Fivemiletown and the border with the Republic of Ireland, supported by airborne troops and RUC reinforcements, in an attempt to block the attacker’s escape.
Approximately an hour after the ambush, an Army Air Corps (AAC) Westland Lynx helicopter comes upon a number of IRA volunteers in the searching area, just a few miles from the site of the shooting, but the aircraft becomes the target of automatic rifle fire and is forced to disengage. Though the helicopter is not hit, the assailants break contact successfully. The IRA East Tyrone Brigade report claims that the attack on the Westland Lynx is carried out by a second active service unit, which set up a firing position on the predicted path of the British helicopters carrying reinforcements into Fivemiletown after the initial shooting. A number of people are arrested and questioned about the killings, but the perpetrators manage to slip away.
The shootings are widely condemned. RUC Chief Constable Sir Hugh Annesley says that “At a time when the whole community is looking toward peace, the Provisional IRA has yet again shown they have absolutely nothing to offer but deaths and suffering.”
Presbyterian Moderator Rev. Andrew Rodgers calls on the governments to break any contact with Sinn Féin and other “men of blood in both sections of the community.”
A former IRA member cites instead the answer of an IRA volunteer in the area when questioned by him about the futility of the actions at Fivemiletown. He replies that “The war must go on.”
(Pictured: A photograph showing a British Army sentry guarding the scene of the IRA ambush on a Royal Ulster Constabulary mobile patrol, December 12, 1993)
IRA intelligence establishes that an Auxiliary patrol usually leaves Victoria Barracks (in the north of the city) each night at 8:00 p.m. and makes its way to the city centre via Dillon’s Cross. On December 11, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue receives intelligence that two lorries of Auxiliaries will be leaving the barracks that night and travelling with them will be British ArmyIntelligence Corps Captain James Kelly.
A unit of six IRA volunteers commanded by O’Donoghue take up position between the barracks and Dillon’s Cross, a “couple of hundred yards” from the barracks. Their goal is to destroy the patrol and capture or kill Captain Kelly. Five of the volunteers hide behind a stone wall while one, Michael Kenny, stands across the road dressed as an off-duty British officer. When the lorries near he is to beckon the driver of the first lorry to slow down or stop.
At 8:00 p.m., two lorries, each carrying 13 Auxiliaries, emerge from the barracks. The first lorry slows when the driver spots Kenny and, as it does so, the IRA unit attacks with grenades and revolvers. The official British report says that 12 Auxiliaries are wounded and that one, Spencer Chapman, a former Officer in the 4th Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), dies from his wounds shortly after. As the IRA unit makes its escape, some of the Auxiliaries fire on them while others drag the wounded to the nearest cover: O’Sullivan’s pub.
The Auxiliaries break into the pub with weapons drawn. They order everyone to put their hands over their heads to be searched. Backup and an ambulance are sent from the nearby barracks. One witness describes young men being rounded up and forced to lie on the ground. The Auxiliaries drag one of them to the middle of the crossroads, strip him naked and forced him to sing “God Save the King” until he collapses on the road.
Angered by an attack so near their headquarters and seeking retribution for the deaths of their colleagues at Kilmichael, the Auxiliaries gather to wreak their revenge. Charles Schulze, an Auxiliary and a former British Army Captain in the Dorsetshire Regiment during World War I, organizes a group of Auxiliaries to burn the centre of Cork.
At 9:30 p.m., lorries of Auxiliaries and British soldiers leave the barracks and alight at Dillon’s Cross, where they break into houses and herd the occupants onto the street. They then set the houses on fire and stand guard as they are razed to the ground. Those who try to intervene are fired upon and some are badly beaten. Seven buildings are set on fire at the crossroads. When one is found to be owned by Protestants, the Auxiliaries quickly douse the fire.
British forces begin driving around the city firing at random as people rush to get home before the 10:00 p.m. curfew. A group of armed and uniformed Auxiliaries surround a tram at Summerhill, smash its windows, and forced all the passengers out. Some of the passengers, including at least three women, are repeatedly kicked, hit with rifle butts, threatened, and verbally abused. The Auxiliaries then force the passengers to line up against a wall and search them, while continuing the physical and verbal abuse. Some have their money and belongings stolen. One of those attacked is a Catholicpriest, who is singled out for sectarian abuse. Another tram is set on fire near Father Mathew‘s statue. Meanwhile, witnesses report seeing a group of 14–18 Black and Tans firing wildly for upwards of 20 minutes on nearby MacCurtain Street.
Soon after, witnesses report groups of armed men on and around St. Patrick’s Street, the city’s main shopping area. Most are uniformed or partially uniformed Auxiliaries and some are British soldiers, while others wear no uniforms. They are seen firing into the air, smashing shop windows and setting buildings on fire. Many report hearing bombs exploding. A group of Auxiliaries are seen throwing a bomb into the ground floor of the Munster Arcade, which houses both shops and flats. It explodes under the residential quarters while people are inside the building. They manage to escape unharmed but are detained by the Auxiliaries.
The Cork City Fire Brigade is informed of the fire at Dillon’s Cross shortly before 10:00 p.m. and are sent to deal with it at once. On finding that Grant’s department store on St. Patrick’s Street is ablaze, they decide to address it first. The fire brigade’s Superintendent, Alfred Hutson, calls Victoria Barracks and asks them to tackle the fire at Dillon’s Cross so that he can focus on the city centre. The barracks take no heed of his request. As he does not the resources to deal with all the fires at once, he has to prioritize the order in which the fires are addressed. He oversees the operation on St. Patrick’s Street and meets The Cork Examiner reporter Alan Ellis. He tells Ellis that “all the fires were being deliberately started by incendiary bombs, and in several cases, he had seen soldiers pouring cans of petrol into buildings and setting them alight.”
British forces hindered the firefighter’s attempts to tackle the blazes by intimidating them and cutting or driving over their hoses. Firemen are also shot at, and at least two are wounded by gunfire. Shortly after 3:00 a.m. on December 12, reporter Alan Ellis comes upon a unit of the fire brigade pinned down by gunfire near City Hall. The firemen say that they are being shot at by Black and Tans who have broken into the building. They also claim to see uniformed men carrying cans of petrol into the building from nearby Union Quay barracks.
At about 4:00 a.m. there is a large explosion and City Hall and the neighbouring Carnegie Library go up in flames, resulting in the loss of many of the city’s public records. According to Ellis, the Black and Tans had detonated high explosives inside City Hall. When more firefighters arrive, British forces shoot at them and refuse them access to water. The last act of arson takes place at about 6:00 a.m. when a group of policemen loot and burn the Murphy Brothers’ clothes shop on Washington Street.
After the ambush at Dillon’s Cross, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue and volunteer James O’Mahony make their way to the farmhouse of the Delaney family at Dublin Hill on the northern outskirts of the city, not far from the ambush site. Brothers Cornelius and Jeremiah Delaney are members of F Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Cork Brigade IRA. O’Donoghue hides some grenades on the farm and the two men go their separate ways.
At about 2:00 a.m., at least eight armed men enter the house and go upstairs into the brothers’ bedroom. The brothers get up and stand at the bedside and are asked their names. When they answer, the gunmen open fire. Jeremiah is killed outright, and Cornelius dies of his wounds on December 18. Their elderly relative, William Dunlea, is wounded by gunfire. The brothers’ father says the gunmen wore long overcoats and spoke with English accents. It is thought that, while searching the ambush site, Auxiliaries had found a cap belonging to one of the volunteers and had used bloodhounds to follow the scent to the family’s home.
Over 40 business premises and 300 residential properties are destroyed, amounting to over five acres of the city. Over £3 million worth of damage (1920 value) is caused, although the value of property looted by British forces is not clear. Many people become homeless and 2,000 are left jobless. Fatalities include an Auxiliary killed by the IRA, two IRA volunteers killed by Auxiliaries, and a woman who dies from a heart attack when Auxiliaries burst into her house. Several people, including firefighters, are reportedly assaulted or otherwise wounded.
Conservative Party leader Bonar Law says, “in the present condition of Ireland, we are much more likely to get an impartial inquiry in a military court than in any other.” Greenwood announces that a military inquiry would be carried out by General Peter Strickland. This results in the “Strickland Report,” but Cork Corporation instructs its employees and other corporate officials to take no part. The report blames members of the Auxiliaries’ K Company, based at Victoria Barracks. The Auxiliaries, it is claimed, burned the city centre in reprisal for the IRA attack at Dillon’s Cross. The British Government refuses to publish the report.
(Pictured: Workers clearing rubble on St. Patrick’s Street in Cork after the fires)
Barrett is born on December 17, 1889, in Knockacullen (Hollyhill), Ballineen, County Cork, the son of Richard Barrett, farmer, and Ellen Barrett (née Henigan). Educated at Knocks and Knockskagh national schools, he enters the De La Salle College, Waterford, where he trains to be a teacher. Obtaining a first-class diploma, he first teaches at Ballinamult, County Waterford but then returns to Cork in early 1914 to take up a position at the St. Patrick’s Industrial School, Upton. Within months he is appointed principal of Gurrane National School. Devoted to the Irish language and honorary secretary of KnockavillaGAA club, he does much to popularise both movements in the southern and western districts of Cork. He appears to have been a member of the Cork Young Ireland Society.
Through planning and participating in raids and gunrunning episodes, Barrett comes into close contact with many GHQ staff during the Irish War of Independence, thereby ensuring his own rapid promotion. He is an active Irish Republican Army (IRA) brigade staff officer and occasionally acts as commandant of the West Cork III Brigade. He also organises fundraising activities for the purchase of weapons and for comrades on the run. In July 1920, following the arrest of the Cork III Brigade commander Tom Hales and quartermaster Pat Harte, he is appointed its quartermaster. He is arrested on March 22, 1921, and imprisoned in Cork jail, later being sent to Spike Island, County Cork.
As one of the senior officers held in Spike Island, Barrett is involved in many of the incidents that occur during his time there. After the truce is declared on July 11, 1921, some prisoners go on hunger strike, but he calls it off after a number of days on instructions from outside as a decision had been made that able-bodied men are more important to the cause. In November, Barrett escapes by rowboat alongside Moss (Maurice) Twomey, Henry O’Mahoney, Tom Crofts, Bill Quirke, Dick Eddy and Paddy Buckley.
Following the Irish War of Independence, Barrett supports the Anti-Treaty IRA‘s refusal to submit to the authority of Dáil Éireann (civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919). He is opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and calls for the total elimination of English influence in Ireland. In April 1922, under the command of Rory O’Connor, he, along with 200 other hardline anti-treaty men, take over the Four Courts building in the centre of Dublin in defiance of the new Irish government. They want to provoke British troops, who are still in the country, into attacking them. They hope this will restart the war with Britain and reunite the IRA against their common enemy. Michael Collins tries desperately to persuade O’Connor and his men to vacate the building. However, on June 28, 1922, after the Four Courts garrison had kidnapped J. J. O’Connell, a general in the new National Army, Collins’s soldiers shell the Four Courts with British artillery to spark off what becomes known as the Battle of Dublin. O’Connor surrenders following two days of fighting, and Barrett, with most of his comrades, is arrested and held in Mountjoy Gaol. This incident marks the official outbreak of the Irish Civil War, as fighting escalates around the country between pro- and anti-treaty factions.
After the death of Michael Collins in an ambush, a period of tit-for-tat revenge killings ensues. The government implements martial law and enacts the necessary legislation to set up military courts. In November, the government begins to execute Anti-Treaty prisoners, including Erskine Childers. In response, Liam Lynch, the Anti-Treaty Chief of Staff, gives an order that any member of the Dáil who had voted for the ‘murder legislation’ is to be shot on sight.
On December 7, 1922, Teachta Dála (TD) Sean Hales is killed by anti-Treaty IRA men as he leaves the Dáil. Another TD, Pádraic Ó Máille, is also shot and badly wounded in the incident. An emergency cabinet meeting is allegedly held the next day to discuss the assassination of Hales. It is proposed that four prominent members of the Anti-Treaty side currently held as prisoners be executed as a reprisal and deterrent. The names put forward were Barrett, O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey. It is alleged that the four are chosen to represent each of the four provinces – Munster, Connacht, Leinster and Ulster respectively, but none of the four is actually from Connacht. The executions are ordered by Minister for JusticeKevin O’Higgins. At 2:00 AM on the morning of December 8, 1922, Barrett is awoken along with the other three and informed that they are all to be executed at 8:00 that morning.
Ironies stack one upon the other. Barrett is a member of the same IRA brigade as Hales during the Anglo-Irish War, and they were childhood friends. O’Connor had been best man at O’Higgins’ wedding a year earlier. The rest of Sean Hales’ family remains staunchly anti-Treaty, and publicly denounces the executions. In reprisal for O’Higgins’ role in the executions, the Anti-Treaty IRA kills his father and burns his family home in Stradbally, County Laois. O’Higgins himself dies by an assassin’s hand on July 10, 1927.
The executions stun Ireland, but in terms of halting the Anti-Treaty assassination policy, they have the desired effect. The Free State government continues to execute enemy prisoners, and 77 official executions take place by the end of the war.
Barrett is now buried in his home county, Cork, following exhumation and reinternment by a later government. A monument is erected by old comrades of the West Cork Brigade, the First Southern Division, IRA, and of the Four Courts, Dublin, garrison in 1922 which is unveiled on December 13, 1952, by the TánaisteSeán Lemass.
The 32CSM has been described as the “political wing” of the now defunct Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), but this is denied by both organisations. The group originates in a split from Sinn Féin over the Mitchell Principles.
Those present at the initial meeting are opposed to the direction taken by Sinn Féin and other mainstream republican groups in the Northern Ireland peace process, which leads to the Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement) the following year. The same division in the republican movement leads to the paramilitary group now known as the Real IRA breaking away from the Provisional Irish Republican Army at around the same time.
Most of the 32CSM’s founders had been members of Sinn Féin. Some had been expelled from the party for challenging the leadership’s direction, while others felt they had not been properly able to air their concerns within Sinn Féin at the direction its leadership had taken. Bernadette Sands McKevitt, wife of Michael McKevitt and a sister of hunger strikerBobby Sands, is a prominent member of the group until a split in the organisation.
The name refers to the 32 counties of Ireland which are created during the Lordship and Kingdom of Ireland. With the partition of Ireland in 1920–22, twenty-six of these counties form the Irish Free State which is abolished in 1937 and is now known as Ireland since 1949. The remaining six counties of Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom. Founder Bernadette Sands McKevitt says in a 1998 interview with the Irish Mirror that people did not fight for “peace” – “they fought for independence” – and that the organisation reaffirms to the republican position in the 1919 Irish Declaration of Independence.
Before the referendums on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the 32CSM lodges a legal submission with the United Nations challenging British sovereignty in Ireland. The referendums are opposed by the 32CSM but are supported by 71% of voters in Northern Ireland and by 94% in the Republic of Ireland. It is reported in February 2000 that the group established a “branch” in Kilburn, London.
In November 2005, the 32CSM launches a political initiative titled Irish Democracy, A Framework for Unity.
On May 24, 2014, Gary Donnelly, a member of the 32CSM, is elected to the Derry City and Strabane District Council. In July 2014, a delegation from the 32CSM travels to Canada to take part in a six-day speaking tour. On arrival the delegation is detained and refused entry into Canada.
In 2015, the 32CSM organises a demonstration in Dundee, Scotland, in solidarity with the men convicted of shooting Constable Stephen Carroll, the first police officer to be killed in Northern Ireland since the formation of the PSNI. The organisation says the “Craigavon Two” are innocent and have been victims of a miscarriage of justice.
The group is currently considered a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in the United States, because the group is considered to be inseparable from the Real IRA, which is designated as an FTO. At a briefing in 2001, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State states that “evidence provided by both the British and Irish governments and open-source materials demonstrate clearly that the individuals who created the Real IRA also established these two entities to serve as the public face of the Real IRA. These alias organizations engage in propaganda and fundraising on behalf of and in collaboration with the Real IRA.” The U.S. Department of State’s designation makes it illegal for Americans to provide material support to the Real IRA, requires U.S. financial institutions to block the group’s assets and denies alleged Real IRA members visas into the U.S.
The 32CSM also operates outside of the island of Ireland to some extent. The Gaughan/Stagg Cumann covers England, Scotland and Wales, and has an active relationship of mutual promotion with a minority of British left-wing groups and anti-fascist organisations. The James Larkin Republican Flute Band in Liverpool, and the West of Scotland Band Alliance, the largest section of which is the Glasgow-based Parkhead Republican Flute Band, are also supporters of the 32CSM. As of 2014, the 32CSM’s alleged paramilitary wing, the Real IRA, is reported to have been still involved in attempts to perpetrate bombings in Britain as part of the Dissident Irish Republican campaign, which has been ongoing since 1998.
In 1974 and 1975, London is subjected to a 14-month campaign of gun and bomb attacks by the Provisional IRA. Some 40 bombs explode in London, killing 35 people and injuring many more. The four members of what becomes known as the “Balcombe Street gang,” Joe O’Connell, Edward Butler, Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty, are part of a six-man IRA Active Service Unit (ASU) that also includes Brendan Dowd and Liam Quinn.
The Balcombe Street siege starts after a chase through London, as the Metropolitan Police pursues Doherty, O’Connell, Butler and Duggan through the streets after they had fired gunshots through the window of Scott’s restaurant in Mount Street, Mayfair. The four IRA men ultimately run into a block of council flats in Balcombe Street, adjacent to Marylebone station, triggering the six-day standoff.
The four men go to 22b Balcombe Street in Marylebone, taking its two residents, middle-aged married couple John and Sheila Matthews, hostage in their front room. The men declare that they are members of the IRA and demand a plane to fly both them and their hostages to Ireland. Scotland Yard refuses, creating a six-day standoff between the men and the police. Peter Imbert, later Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, is the chief police negotiator.
The siege ends peacefully on December 12, 1975, after the men free their two hostages and surrender following several days of intense negotiations between Metropolitan Police Bomb squad officers, Detective Superintendent Peter Imbert and Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Nevill, and the unit’s leader Joe O’Connell, who goes by the name of “Tom.” The other members of the gang are named “Mick” and “Paddy,” thereby avoiding revealing to the negotiators precisely how many of them are in the living room of the flat. The resolution of the siege is a result of the combined psychological pressure exerted on the gang by Imbert and the deprivation tactics used on the four men. The officers also use carefully crafted misinformation, through the BBC Radio news to further destabilise the gang into surrender. A news broadcast states that the British Special Air Service are going to be sent in to storm the building and release the hostages. This seems to deter the gang and they eventually give themselves up to the police.
The four are found guilty at their Old Bailey trial in 1977 of seven murders, conspiring to cause explosions, and falsely imprisoning John and Sheila Matthews during the siege. O’Connell, Butler and Duggan each receive 12 life sentences, and Doherty receives 11. Each of the men is later given a whole life tariff, the only IRA prisoners to receive this tariff. During the trial they instruct their lawyers to “draw attention to the fact that four totally innocent people were serving massive sentences” for three bombings in Woolwich and Guildford. Despite telling the police that they are responsible, they are never charged with these offences and the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven remain in prison for 15 more years, until it is ruled that their convictions are unsafe.
A rally of twelve to fifteen thousand Peace People from both north and south takes place at the new bridge over the River Boyne at Drogheda, County Louth, on December 5, 1976. In general, the Peace People’s goals are the dissolution of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and an end to violence in Northern Ireland. The implicit goals of the Peace People rallies are delegitimization of violence, increasing solidarity, and gaining momentum for peace.
In the 1960s, Northern Ireland begins a period of ethno-political conflict called the Troubles. Through a series of social and political injustices, Northern Ireland has become a religiously divided society between historically mainland Protestants and Irish Catholics. Furthermore, the Irish people have become a fragmented body over a range of issues, identities, circumstances and loyalties. The conflict between Protestants and Catholics spills over into violence, marked by riots and targeted killings between the groups beginning in 1968. In addition, paramilitary groups, including the prominent IRA, launch attacks to advance their political agendas.
The violence continues to escalate. On August 10, 1976, Anne Maguire and her children are walking along Finaghy Road North in Belfast. Suddenly, a Ford Cortina slams into them. The car is being driven by Danny Lennon, who moments before had been shot dead by pursuing soldiers. The mother is the only survivor. The collision kills three of her four children, Joanne (8), John (2), and Andrew (6 months). Joanne and Andrew die instantly while John is injured critically.
The next day, immediately following John’s death, fifty women from the Republican neighborhoods of Andersonstown and Stewartstown protest Republican violence by marching with baby carriages. That evening, Mairead Corrigan, Anne Maguire’s sister, appears on television pleading for an end to the violence. She becomes the first leader of the Peace People to speak publicly.
However, she was not the only one to initiate action. As soon as she hears Mairead speak on the television, Betty Williams begins petitioning door-to-door for an end to sectarian violence. She garners 6,000 signatures of support within a few days. This support leads directly into the first unofficial action of the Peace People. On 14 August, only four days after the incident, 10,000 women, both Protestant and Catholic, march with banners along Finaghy Road North, the place of the children’s death, to Milltown Cemetery, their burial site. This march mostly includes women along with a few public figures and men. The marchers proceed in almost utter silence, only broken by short bouts of singing from the nuns in the crowd and verbal and physical attacks by Republican opposition.
The following day, the three who become leaders of the Peace People – Mairead Corrigan, Betty Williams, and journalist Ciaran McKeown – come together for their first official meeting. During these initial meetings they establish the ideological basis of nonviolence and goals for the campaign. The essential goals for the movement are the dissolution of the IRA and an end to the violence in Northern Ireland. The goals of the campaign implicit in their declaration are awareness, solidarity, and momentum. Peace People’s declaration:
“We have a simple message to the world from this movement for Peace. We want to live and love and build a just and peaceful society. We want for our children, as we want for ourselves, our lives at home, at work, and at play to be lives of joy and peace. We recognise that to build such a society demands dedication, hard work, and courage. We recognise that there are many problems in our society which are a source of conflict and violence. We recognise that every bullet fired, and every exploding bomb make that work more difficult. We reject the use of the bomb and the bullet and all the techniques of violence. We dedicate ourselves to working with our neighbours, near and far, day in and day out, to build that peaceful society in which the tragedies we have known are a bad memory and a continuing warning.”
During the four-month campaign, Peace People and partners organize and participate in 26 marches in Northern Ireland, Britain, and the Republic of Ireland. In order to organize these marches effectively they establish their main headquarters in Belfast.
After the initial Finaghy Road March, the Peace People, both Protestants and Catholics, rally in Ormeau Park on August 21. The official Declaration of the Peace People is first read at this rally, the largest rally of the entire campaign. The group numbers over 50,000. The rally even includes some activists from the Republic of Ireland, most notably Judy Hayes from the Glencree Centre of Reconciliation near Dublin. After the rally, she and her colleagues return to the south to organize solidarity demonstrations.
In the few days before the next march, the organization “Women Together” request Peace People to call off the march, disapproving of Catholics and Protestants participating in a joint march. The Peace People are not dissuaded. The next Saturday, 27,000 people march along Shankill Road, the loyalist/Protestant neighborhood.
In the next three months, Peace People organize and participate in a rally every Saturday; some weeks even have two. Some of the most notable marches include the Derry/Londonderry double-march, the Falls march, the London march, and the Boyne march.
The Saturday following the Shankill march marks the Derry/Londonderry double-march. At this march, Catholics march on one side of the River Foyle and Protestants on the other. The groups meet on the Craigavon Bridge. Simultaneously, 50,000 people march in solidarity in Dublin.
On October 23, marchers meet in the Falls, Belfast, in the pouring rain on the same Northumberland street corner where the Shankill March had started. The Falls Road rally is memorable for the fear and violence that ensues. During this rally Sinn Féin supporters throw stones and bottles at the marchers. The attackers escalate the violence as the marchers near Falls Park. The marchers are informed by others that more attackers await them at the entrance to the park, inciting fear within the body of the rally. The leaders decide that this is an important moment of conflict in the rally and that they must push on. They continue verbally encouraging the marchers through the cloud of bottles, bricks, and stones.
The leaders plan to escalate the campaign momentum for the last two major symbolic rallies in London and Boyne, Drogheda. A week before the rallies, on November 20-21, they plan a membership drive. Over 105,000 people sign within two days.
The symbolic week of the culminating rallies begins on November 27 at the glamorous London Rally. They begin to march at Hyde Park, cut through Westminster Abbey, and end at Trafalgar Square. Some groups sing “Troops Out,” and others resound with civil rights songs.
On December 5, Peace People holds its final march of the campaign, along the River Boyne. The Northern and Southern Ireland contingents met at the Peace Bridge. This is an important point in the legacy of the Peace People movement. Now that the enthusiastic rallies are over, the people are responsible for the tedious local work and continuing the momentum and solidarity that the rallies have inspired. The shape of the Peace People is changing.
After the planned marches are over, the rally portion of the campaign fades and the Peace People take a new shape. Corrigan, Williams, and McKeown stop planning marches, but continue to be involved in action that takes the form of conferences and traveling overseas. However, the leaders begin doing more separated work. Ciaran McKeown increases his focus on radical political restructuring.
In 1977, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Issues regarding the use of the monetary award impact the two leaders’ relationships in an irreconcilable manner.
Due to the fact that many people, unlike McKeown, are less interested in the political side of the equation, the People continue actions along the lines of rallies and social work. Actions continue through the People’s initiative in the form of Peace Committees that each does separate work in local areas.
The Peace People makes a substantial impact. They help to de-legitimize violence, increase solidarity across sectarian lines, and develop momentum for peace. Although the violence does not fully subside until 1998 with the negotiation of political change, Ireland sees in 1976 one of its most dramatic decreases in political violence, accompanying the Peace People’s marches and rallies. The campaign dramatizes how tired the people are of bloodshed, their desperate desire for peace, and the clear possibility of alternatives.
(From: “Peace People march against violence in Northern Ireland, 1976” by Hannah Lehmann, Global Nonviolent Action Database, https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/, 2011 | Pictured: The Peace People organisation rally in Drogheda, County Louth, December 5, 1976)
After experiencing the political and social turmoil in Ireland after the 1913 Dublin lock-out and the 1916 Easter Rising, Byrne becomes an active member of the Postal Trade Union. In 1918 he loses his position as a telegraph operator in Limerick’s general post office because of his political activities, his attendance at the funeral of John Daly and an anti-conscription meeting at Limerick Town Hall in 1918. In 1919, he holds the rank of battalion adjutant of 2 Battalion, Mid Limerick Brigade of the IRA.
After a raid on Byrne’s home by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), Byrne is arrested and charged for the possession of a revolver with corresponding ammunition and binoculars in front of a court-martial. Because he does not recognize the legitimacy of British Officers holding court over an Irish citizen, he denies entering a plea or even participating in the trial itself. Ignoring his protests, the court finds him guilty and sentences him to twelve months in prison and hard labour. Directly after the verdict is spoken, he is transferred to Limerick Prison to start his sentence.
As a prisoner, Byrne and sixteen other republican prisoners started a campaign, demanding status as political prisoners. As this is denied, they began barricading themselves in their cells, singing republican songs and damaging the interior and furniture of the cells. These protests are so loud that after a short while, onlookers and supporters start gathering outside the prison in support of the prisoners. The RIC reacts to these developments with physical violence and solitary confinement. As a last resort, in February 1919, the prisoners go on hunger strike to continue their protest. After his health deteriorates because of the hunger strike, in mid-March 1919, he is transferred to the Limerick Union Hospital, where he is placed in an ordinary ward under armed guard.
On April 6, 1919, two IRA companies under the lead of John Gallagher (D Company) and Michael Stack (E Company), the only two who bring arms to the rescue attempt, go into the hospital disguised as ordinary visitors and attempt a rescue operation. Around twenty volunteers go to the station on which Byrne is lying and after a signal whistle is blown, attack and attempt to overwhelm the two RIC officers that are posted as guards. The RIC officers quickly realize the attempt and RIC constable James Spillane shoots at Byrne, who wants to stand up from his bed, from close range, hitting him in the lung. Michael Stack, in response, shoots at constable James Spillane, injuring him, and his colleague constable Martin O`Brien, killing him.
The volunteers leave the hospital with the gravely injured Byrne, but the escape car and driver have in the meantime been ordered to another IRA operation. Instead, they stop a horse carriage at Hasset’s Cross. The occupants of the carriage, John Ryan and his wife of Knockalisheen, Meelick, County Clare, bring the bleeding and injured Byrne to their house, put him to bed and call for medical and clerical assistance. Dr. John Holmes arrives and examines Byrne, finding a large bullet wound on the left side of his body, which has perforated his lung and his abdomen. Byrne dies from his wounds in the evening of April 7, 1919.
After Byrne’s body is discovered by the authorities, the RIC place Limerick under martial law and declare it a “Special Military Area.” In response, the trade unions in Limerick start a “general strike against British militarism.” This strike is called the “Limerick Soviet” by foreign journalists who report from Limerick.
On the evening of April 8, 1919, Byrne’s funeral is held. He is not able to be buried in his IRA uniform, because the RIC had removed it from him. Nevertheless, the funeral procession is accompanied by huge crowds and his remains, which lay in state in front of the high altar in St. John’s Cathedral, are visited by thousands from Limerick and surrounding areas.
O’Sullivan is a member of the Irish Republican Army and is one of three IRA men to die on hunger strike in 1923. IRA VolunteersJoseph Whitty from Wexford dies on September 2, 1923, and Denny Barry from Riverstick, County Cork, dies on November 20, 1923, in the Curragh Camp hospital. Whitty, Barry and O’Sullivan are three of the twenty-two Irish Republicans in the 20th century who die on hunger strike.
O’Sullivan is born in Denbawn, County Cavan, in 1882, the eldest of eight children. His father, Michael Sorohan, emigrates to the United States but returns to take over the family farm. O’Sullivan works on the family farm but wins a scholarship provided by the local newspaper, The Anglo-Celt, to Monaghan Agricultural College. From there he wins another scholarship to the Royal Albert College in Dublin and attends the college as a full-time student from 1907 to 1909. He graduates as one of the top students in his year and is also elected head of the student union, the highest elected position in the college. In addition, he is secretary of the college hurling team which is undefeated after fourteen games in 1909.
In 1909, O’Sullivan gets a job as an agricultural instructor in the Mallow area of County Cork. In addition to educating and advising local farmers on crops and new techniques, he also judges local agricultural shows.
O’Sullivan is a captain in the IRA in the intelligence unit during the Irish War of Independence. He begins his intelligence activities in 1917 using the code name W.N. – the last 2 letters of his first and last name.
During the Irish Civil War O’Sullivan is officer commanding (OC) Administration in the North Cork area and later in the IRA’s 1st Southern Cork Division, where he had been appointed by Liam Lynch. He dedicates his life to the establishment of an Irish Republic: “His ideal and his goal was a Republic, and he went straight ahead working to achieve it. Nothing else bothered him.” After the signing of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, he joins the anti-treaty side during the Irish Civil War.
During the Irish Civil War, O’Sullivan is arrested by Free State forces and interned in Mountjoy Prison. In 1923, after the end of the war, thousands of interned Irish republicans protest being held without trial, poor prison conditions and being treated as convicts rather than political prisoners. On October 13, 1923, Michael Kilroy, the OC of the IRA prisoners in Mountjoy Prison, announces that 300 men will go on hunger strike. This action starts the 1923 Irish hunger strikes. Within days, thousands of Irish republican prisoners are on hunger strike in multiple prisons and internment camps across Ireland. The mass hunger strike of 1923 starts at midnight on October 14, 1923. Previously, the Free State government had passed a motion outlawing the release of prisoners on hunger strike. However, because of the large numbers of Republicans on strike, at the end of October, the Government sends a delegation to speak with the IRA leadership. On November 23, 1923, the day after o’Sullivan’s death, the 41-day hunger strike is called off, setting in motion a release program for many of the prisoners. However, some are not released until as late as 1932.
O’Sullivan dies at the age of 41 on November 22, 1923, in St. Bricin’s Military Hospital, Dublin, after 40 days on hunger strike. He is buried in the republican plot in Saint Gobnait’s Cemetery, Goulds Hill, Mallow, County Cork, on November 27, 1923. His funeral cortège is reported to be a mile in length.
O’Sullivan’s name is commemorated on a statue that stands outside Cavan Courthouse in Farnham Street, Cavan, County Cavan.
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