Springhill Avenue shooting 1987
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| Springhill Avenue shooting 1987 / Part of INLA/IPLO feud | |||||||
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| Part of the Troublesđ | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Irish People's Liberation Organisation |
 Irish National Liberation Army | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Gerard Steenson † |
Hugh Torney | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 2 IPLO volunteers | 3-4 INLA gunmen | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 2 killed | 0 | ||||||
The back story to the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) / Irish People's Liberation Organization (IPLO) feud is complicated and stems from the Supergrass Trials of the early 1980s in which high ranking INLA man Harry Kirkpatrick who sentenced dozens of people away to prison on Kirkpatrick's word alone. One of those sent to prison because of Kirkptarick was Gerard Steenson, the INLA Belfast Brigade's leader & potential for next in line to be the leader of the organization.[citation needed] Around this same time 1983 - 1984 the INLA started suffering on the military front, not able to put the plans & operations together from 1978 - 1983 period that hard turned them into a respectable & feared urban gurrilla/terrorist organization.[citation needed] People left the INLA like Gerard Steenson and Jimmy Brown and others were expelled for their views on how the group should be run. The IPLO's new manifestio was to destroy the INLA & IRSP leadership as they believed that group was no longer dedicated to revolutionary socialism and make the IPLO & their small political group the Republican Socialist Collective as the main Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM) in Ireland.[citation needed] On the 21 December 1987 the IPLO strcuk first blood, killing Tomas McCartan (31).[1] Although moderates on both sides wanted to resolve the problem incase it turned out like the mid 70's with Provo's and Sticks, or the mid - late 70's INLA vs Sticks. On the 20 January 1987 it looked like senior members were going to put a stop to the internal Republican feud. At the Rosnaree Hotel shooting there was a senior delegate from both the IPLO & INLA, but little went according to plan at least for the INLA, and the IPLO volunteers opened fire & INLA delegates which included Hugh Torney was badly injured aand other INLA Volunteers, Thomas "Ta" Power was killed outright along with INLA volunteer John O'Reilly.[citation needed]
Up until March the feud had been mostly one way traffic with most killings being carried out by IPLO men against INLA Volunteers, but on the 7 March the INLA killed IPLO man Thomas Maguire near the village Meigh in County Armagh.[2] A week later and a day before the shooting in Ballymurphy the INLA shot dead IPLO man Fergus Conlon near Forkhill in Armagh. It's believed Conlon had been interogatted by Dessie "the border fox" O'Hare before he was killed. [3]
Shootinng/Ambush[edit]
INLA & IPLO leaders had been talking and decided that a truce should be arraenged. IPLO leader Steenson and another IPLO volunteer droove to Springhill Avenue, an estate in Ballymurphy. But when they got to the point about were they were supposed to meet the INLA delegate, between 3 - 4 INLA volunteers with pistols riddled the car with bullets, hitting both IPLO volunteers numerous times. The Ambush was in revenge for the Steenson led ambush in 20 January 1987 at the Rosnaree Hotel shooting[4] The INLA said in a statement after the shootings "Mr. Steenson had been killed for his continuous and concerted efforts to undermine the authority of the republican socialist movement."[5]
In revenge for the Ballymurphy ambush, the IPLO killed two more INLA volunteers, on the 21 March INLA Vol. Emmanuel Gargan was shot dead in a bar in the Ormeau road. The day later on the 22 March Kevin Duffy's body was found in a children's playground in Armagh.[6] Four days later the feud ended on the 26 March 1987, 11 people lost their lives in the feud & about another dozen were injured.[7] The much larger Irish Republican group the Provisional IRA denounced the groups feuding as "psuedo patriots".[8]
See also[edit]
Sources[edit]
- Jack Holland, Henry McDonald, INLA – Deadly Divisions'
- CAIN project
- NY Times
- Ken Wharton - Another Bloody Chapter In An Endless Civil War. Volume 1: Northern Ireland 1984 - 1987
References[edit]
- ↑ https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch86.htm#211286
- ↑ https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1987.html
- ↑ Ken Wharton - Another Bloody Chapter In An Endless Civil War. Volume 1: Northern Ireland 1984 - 1987 p.303
- ↑ https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dyndeaths.pl?querytype=date&day=20&month=01&year=1987
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/16/world/irish-guerrilla-leader-slain-feud-death-toll-rises-to-10.html
- ↑ https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1987.html
- ↑ https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch87.htm#26387e
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/world/a-dozen-die-as-ulster-s-rebels-feud.html
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