Springhill Avenue shooting 1987
 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (February 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
| Springhill Avenue shooting 1987 / Part of INLA/IPLO feud | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Troubles | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Irish People's Liberation Organisation |
 Irish National Liberation Army | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Gerard Steenson † |
Hugh Torney | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 2 IPLO volunteers | 3-4 INLA gunmen | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 2 killed | 0 | ||||||
The backstory 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 sentenced dozens of people to prison on Kirkpatrick's word alone. One of those sent to prison because of Kirkpatrick was Gerard Steenson, the INLA Belfast Brigade's leader & potential 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, unable to put the plans & operations together from the 1978 - 1983 period that had turned them into a respectable & feared urban guerrilla/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 manifesto 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, the main Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM) in Ireland.[citation needed] On 21 December 1987, the IPLO struck first blood, killing Tomas McCartan (31).[1] Although moderates on both sides wanted to resolve the problem in case it turned out like the mid-70s with Provo's and Sticks, or the mid- to late-70s INLA vs Sticks. On 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, including Hugh Torney, were badly injured, and 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 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 interrogated by Dessie "the border fox" O'Hare before he was killed. [3]
Shooting/Ambush
INLA & IPLO leaders had been talking and decided that a truce should be arranged. IPLO leader Steenson and another IPLO volunteer drove to Springhill Avenue, an estate in Ballymurphy. But when they got to the point where 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 on 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 21 March INLA Vol. Emmanuel Gargan was shot dead in a bar in the Ormeau road. The day later, on 22 March, Kevin Duffy's body was found in a children's playground in Armagh.[6] Four days later the feud ended on 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 "pseudo patriots".[8]
See also
Sources
- 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
- ↑ 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
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
This article "Springhill Avenue shooting 1987" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Springhill Avenue shooting 1987. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
