History
In 2018, AIA painted over three street signs on Victoria Road in Dublin because it was named after Queen Victoria and encouraged others to do the same to other street signs bearing the names of British officials. [4] The same year, Israeli politician Gilad Erdan sent a formal letter of protest to the Irish government demanding they stop Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine member and former airplane hijacker Leila Khaled from appearing over a video call to members of AIA and another Republican group called Lasair Dhearg [a] during a public talk held at the teacher's club in Dublin. The protest was unsuccessful and the call was not cancelled. [5]
Since 2019, the organization has conducted and encouraged "Poppy Watch Patrols" to forcibly prevent the Royal British Legion from collecting remembrance poppy donations. [6]
Throughout 2020, AIA ran a political campaign against the extradition of Real IRA member Liam Campbell to Lithuania on charges of weapon trafficking. [7] In 2009, Campbell had been found guilty in a civic court of participating in the 1998 Omagh bombing. [8]
In June 2020, unknown persons painted rainbow colours on a statue of former IRA leader Seán Russell. [9] AIA released a pamphlet defending Russell, and maintained that Irish republicanism and LGBT liberation were allied, not opposed, causes. [10] Seán Russell was IRA Chief of Staff during World War II, whose tenure was marked by the increasing influence of Irish fascist group Ailtirí na hAiséirghe over the organisation, [11] as well as Russell's direct collaboration with Nazi Germany. [12] [13]
In August 2022 the group was criticised by Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister for burning a Union Jack in a video which he dubbed a "hate crime". The flags of the Parachute Regiment and the Ulster Banner were also burned in the video. [14]
In September 2022, a gathering of AIA members in Dublin mocked the death of Queen Elizabeth II by throwing a coffin marked "RIP British Empire" into the River Liffey. [15] [16] [17]
In November 2022, AIA claimed responsibility for a paint attack on the headquarters of the Royal British Legion in Dublin. [6]
In August 2023, AIA alongside the Communist Party of Ireland took part in a protest in Dublin to denounce the Irish Defence Forces providing training to members of the Ukrainian Army, which they said went against Irish neutrality. [18]
In October 2023, AIA organised a march to Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, to commemorate hunger striker Thomas Ashe. It was led by masked men in berets and dark uniforms. [19]
In November 2023, pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas flyers, bearing the AIAI logo, were posted on lampposts near a synagogue in Bangor, Maine, United States. At least one bore the AIAI logo. [20]
The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later the National Guard, then Young Ireland and finally League of Youth, but best known by the nickname the Blueshirts, was a paramilitary organisation in the Irish Free State, founded as the Army Comrades Association in Dublin on 9 February 1932. The group provided physical protection for political groups such as Cumann na nGaedheal from intimidation and attacks by the IRA. Some former members went on to fight for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War after the group had been dissolved.
The Irish Citizen Army, or ICA, was a small paramilitary group of trained trade union volunteers from the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) established in Dublin for the defence of workers' demonstrations from the Dublin Metropolitan Police. It was formed by James Larkin, James Connolly and Jack White on 23 November 1913. Other prominent members included Seán O'Casey, Constance Markievicz, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, P. T. Daly and Kit Poole. In 1916, it took part in the Easter Rising, an armed insurrection aimed at ending British rule in Ireland.
Irish republicanism is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed various tactics and identities, simultaneously elective and militant and has been both widely supported and iconoclastic.
Events from the year 1942 in Ireland.
Daniel Breen was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. In later years he was a Fianna Fáil politician.
Seán Russell was an Irish republican who participated in the Easter Rising of 1916, held senior positions in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War, and was Chief of Staff of the IRA from c. 1938 to April 1939 upon the onset of World War II. It was under Russell's leadership that the IRA began the Sabotage Campaign, in which the group began bombing civil, economic and military infrastructure in the United Kingdom, primarily England, between 1939 and 1940. In the same period, Russell actively collaborated with Nazi Germany; in early 1940 he travelled to Germany, where he personally met with German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and spent three months training in the use of explosives. In August 1940 Russell was to return to Ireland as part of a joint IRA/German plan entitled Operation Dove, however, Russell died aboard a Kriegsmarine U-boat transporting him home following a sudden stomach illness and he was subsequently buried at sea.
Saor Éire was a far-left political organisation in the Irish Free State established in September 1931 by communist-leaning members of the Irish Republican Army, with the backing of the IRA leadership. Notable among its founders was Peadar O'Donnell, former editor of An Phoblacht and a leading far-left figure in the IRA. Saor Éire described itself as "an organisation of workers and working farmers".
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) of 1922–1969 was a sub-group of the original pre-1922 Irish Republican Army, characterised by its opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It existed in various forms until 1969, when the IRA split again into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA.
Córas na Poblachta was a minor Irish republican political party founded in 1940.
Seán South was a member of an IRA military column led by Seán Garland on a raid against a Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, on New Year's Day 1957. South, along with Fergal O'Hanlon from County Monaghan, died of wounds sustained during the raid. South has subsequently been commemorated as a martyr by Republicans.
The Republican Congress was an Irish republican political organisation founded in 1934, when pro-communist republicans left the Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army. The Congress was led by such anti-Treaty veterans as Peadar O'Donnell, Frank Ryan and George Gilmore. In their later phase they were involved with the Communist International and International Brigades paramilitary; the Connolly Column.
Seán Ó Cionnaith was an Irish socialist republican politician, and a prominent member of the Workers' Party.
Dissident republicans are Irish republicans who do not support the Northern Ireland peace process. The peace agreements followed a 30-year conflict known as the Troubles, in which over 3,500 people were killed and 47,500 injured, and in which republican paramilitary groups such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army waged a campaign to bring about a united Ireland. Negotiations in the 1990s led to an IRA ceasefire in 1994 and to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Mainstream republicans, represented by Sinn Féin, supported the Agreement as a means of achieving Irish unity peacefully. Dissidents saw this as an abandonment of the goal of an independent Irish republic and acceptance of partition. They hold that the Northern Ireland Assembly and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are illegitimate and see the PSNI as a British paramilitary police force.
Ailtirí na hAiséirghe was a minor fascist political party in Ireland, founded by Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin in March 1942. The party sought to form a totalitarian Irish Christian corporatist state and its sympathies were with the Axis powers in World War II. It was one of a wave of minor far-right parties in 1940s Ireland, like the Irish Monetary Reform Association, that failed to achieve mainstream success.
Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin was an Irish language activist, nationalist and far-right politician born in Belfast, Ireland. He was the founder and leader of Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, a fascist party which sought to create a Christian corporatist state and revive the Irish language through the establishment of an authoritarian dictatorship in Ireland.
Saoradh is a far-left political party and pressure group formed by dissident Irish republicans in 2016. It is active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland and independent commentators describe the party as being close with the New IRA, although Saoradh themselves deny this.
The Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI) was a small political party in Ireland associated with James Connolly.
Proinsias Mac an Bheatha was an Irish language activist and writer.
Tarlach Ó hUid was an English-born Irish language activist, journalist and writer who became a member of the Irish Republican Army during World War II.
William James Brennan-Whitmore was an Irish revolutionary, journalist and soldier. Joining the Irish Volunteers during the Home Rule Crisis, Brennan-Whitmore took part in the Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War, before becoming in later years an advocate of corporatism and fascism.
