Henry Kirkpatrick (born c. 1958) is a former Irish National Liberation Army member turned informer against other members of the INLA.
In February 1983 Kirkpatrick was arrested on multiple charges including the murder of two policemen, two Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers, and Hugh McGinn, a Catholic member of the Territorial Army. [1]
Following his segregation from other Republican prisoners the INLA kidnapped his wife Elizabeth, in order to expose a deal they believed he was making with the Special Branch. [2] They would later kidnap his sister and his stepfather too. All were released unharmed. INLA Chief of Staff Dominic McGlinchey is supposed to have carried out the execution of Kirkpatrick's lifelong friend Gerard 'Sparky' Barkley because it was believed that he may have revealed the whereabouts of the Kirkpatrick family members to the police. [3]
Despite the kidnap, in May 1983 ten men were charged with various offences based on evidence from Kirkpatrick. Those charged included Irish Republican Socialist Party vice-chairman Kevin McQuillan and former councillor Sean Flynn. IRSP chairman James Brown was charged with the murder of a police officer. [4] Others escaped; Jim Barr, an IRSP member named by Kirkpatrick as part of the INLA, fled to the USA where, having spent 17 months in jail, he won political asylum in 1993. [5]
27 people were convicted based on Kirkpatrick's statements in December 1985. 24 of these would have their convictions overturned by December 1986. [6] Gerard Steenson was given five life sentences for the deaths of the same five individuals for which Kirkpatrick himself had been convicted. These included UDR soldier Colin Quinn, shot in Belfast in December 1980.
The distrust and division that they sowed were the final act in splitting former comrades into warring factions and leading to the formation of the Irish People's Liberation Organisation and leading to that organization's murderous feud with the INLA in which 16 people were killed.
Kirkpatrick was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. [7] It was recommended that he serve ten years, as compared to the then normal tariff of twenty years plus, and now lives under a secret name.
The Irish National Liberation Army is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group formed on 8 December 1974, during the 30-year period of conflict known as "the Troubles". The group seeks to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist republic encompassing all of Ireland. With membership estimated at 80–100 at their peak, it is the paramilitary wing of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP).
Seamus Costello was an Irish politician. He was a leader of Official Sinn Féin and the Official Irish Republican Army and latterly of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).
The Irish Republican Socialist Party or IRSP is a minor communist, Marxist–Leninist and Irish republican party in Ireland. It is often referred to as the "political wing" of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) paramilitary group. The party's youth wing is the Republican Socialist Youth Movement (RSYM). It was founded by former members of 'Official' Sinn Féin in 1974 during the Troubles, but claims the legacy of the Irish Socialist Republican Party of 1896–1904. The party opposes the Good Friday Agreement and the European Union.
The Irish People's Liberation Organisation was a small Irish socialist republican paramilitary organisation formed in 1986 by disaffected and expelled members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), whose factions coalesced in the aftermath of the supergrass trials. It developed a reputation for intra-republican and sectarian violence as well as criminality, before being forcibly disbanded by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1992.
Dominic McGlinchey was an Irish republican paramilitary leader who moved from the Provisional IRA to become head of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) paramilitary group in the early 1980s.
Jimmy Brown was a militant Irish republican and drug dealer who was a member of Fianna Eireann, the Official IRA, then Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP)/ Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), and latterly of the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO).
Gerard Steenson was an Irish republican paramilitary and a leader of the Irish People's Liberation Organization during The Troubles.
Thomas Power was an Irish republican socialist, also known as Ta Power, who was a leading member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). According to the Irish Republican Socialist Movement (IRSM) biography page on Power, he was from Friendly Street in the Markets area of south Belfast, where he had become an activist. He had originally joined the Official IRA but transferred allegiance to the INLA in 1975 while a prisoner in Long Kesh, along with 20 other men.
Hugh Torney was an Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) paramilitary leader best known for his activities on behalf of the INLA and Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) in a feud with the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO), a grouping composed of disgruntled former INLA members, in the mid-1980s; and later an internal feud following his expulsion from the organisation and eventual death.
The Droppin Well bombing or Ballykelly bombing occurred on 6 December 1982, when the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) detonated a time bomb at a disco in Ballykelly, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The disco, known as the Droppin Well, was targeted because it was frequented by British Army soldiers from nearby Shackleton Barracks. The bomb killed 17 people: eleven soldiers and six civilians, while dozens more were wounded. It was the deadliest attack during the INLA's paramilitary campaign and one of the deadliest bombings of The Troubles.
Dessie O'Hare, also known as "The Border Fox", is an Irish republican paramilitary who was once the most wanted man in Ireland.
Ronnie Bunting was a Protestant Irish republican and socialist activist in Ireland. He became a member of the Official IRA in the early 1970s and was a founder-member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1974. He became leader of the INLA in 1978 and was assassinated in 1980 aged 32.
Desmond "Dessie" Grew was a volunteer in the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Grew was killed by undercover Special Air Service soldiers in County Armagh in 1990 along with fellow IRA volunteer, Martin McCaughey who was also a Sinn Féin councillor.
Christopher McWilliams was an Irish Republican paramilitary who was a member of both the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He was convicted of the murder of Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright, who was shot by an INLA unit led by McWilliams inside the Maze Prison.
Miriam Daly was an Irish republican and communist activist as well as a university lecturer who was assassinated by the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in 1980.
Henry Byrne and John Morley, two officers of the Garda Síochána, the police force of the Republic of Ireland, were murdered on 7 July 1980 by alleged members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The officers' deaths provoked national outrage. Three men were apprehended, convicted, and sentenced to death for capital murder. Two of the sentences were later reduced to 40 years' imprisonment while the third was overturned.
This is the Timeline of Irish National Liberation Army actions, an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group. Most of these actions took place as part of its 1975–1998 campaign during "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The INLA did not start claiming responsibility for its actions under the INLA name until January 1976 at which point they had already killed 12 people, before then they used the names People's Liberation Army (PLA) and People's Republican Army (PRA) to claim its attacks.
Michael Barr was a 35-year-old Irishman who was shot dead in a pub in Dublin as part of the Hutch–Kinahan feud. Four people have been convicted of his murder.
The Central Bar bombing was a bomb attack on a pub in the town of Gilford near Portadown in County Down in Northern Ireland on 31 December 1975. The attack was carried out by members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) using the covername "People's Republican Army" although contemporary reports also said the "Armagh unit" of the "People's Republican Army" had claimed responsibility. Three Protestant civilians were killed in the bombing.
The Irish National Liberation Army Belfast Brigade was the main brigade area of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The other Brigade areas were in Derry which was split between two battalions, the first in Derry City, and the second battalion in south County Londonderry and County Armagh which was also split into two battalions, a south Armagh and a north Armagh battalion, with smaller units in Newry, east and west County Tyrone and south County Fermanagh.