Liam Kelly (politician)

William Kerry , called Liam Kelly , Irish : Liam Ó Ceallaigh (born September 29, 1922 in Dungannon , † June 7, 2011 in New York ), was an Irish politician.

Life

Kelly joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at age 16 . He was interned in Northern Ireland in the 1940s without trial . In October 1951, Kelly was expelled after a court martial by the IRA for unauthorized actions. Following the expulsion, Kelly founded Saor Uladh ( Free Ulster ), a paramilitary Irish Republican splinter group that was joined by the majority of IRA members in east County Tyrone and south Londonderry . At Easter 1952, gunmen cordoned off Kelly's hometown of Pomeroy for several hours; the sensational action ended with the reading of the proclamation on the Easter Rising of 1916.

In October 1953 Kelly was elected to the Lower House of the Northern Irish Parliament for the constituency of Mid Tyrone , of which he was a member until 1958. Kelly denied the legitimacy of the Northern Irish Parliament and never took his seat, in line with the Republican abstention policy. In December 1953, Kelly was sentenced to one year in prison for rioting. The subject of the proceedings was a campaign speech in Carrickmore , in which Kelly confessed to armed struggle and declared with regard to Queen Elizabeth II of England that he would not take an oath of allegiance to a foreign queen of a "bastard nation". During the trial, Kelly refused to accept a fine and sign a statement not to disturb public order for the next five years. In court, Kelly also announced that she would not wear a prison uniform while in custody and would instead wrap herself in blankets in accordance with the Blanket protest . While Kelly was in custody, his supporters formed the Fianna Uladh (Soldiers of Ulster) party as the political wing of Saor Uladh . The party ordered Kelly to cancel the Blanket protest .

Kelly was released early from prison in August 1954; on his return to Pomeroy, thousands of people gave him an enthusiastic welcome. Accompanied by a bagpipe band, 500 men armed with clubs marched through the town. When the flag of Ireland was shown, the Northern Irish Police ( RUC) stepped in , as the flagging in Northern Ireland had been banned by a recently passed law. Over 40 demonstrators and 12 police officers were injured in the subsequent riots , also known as the Pomeroy riots .

During the detention, Kelly was in 1954 for the field workers in the Seanad Éireann , the upper house of the Republic of Ireland were elected. The election followed a proposal by Clann na Poblachta , a republican party led by Seán MacBride . In his only speech at the Seanad in November 1954, Kelly declared that his party, Fianna Uladh, recognized the Irish Constitution of 1937 and advocated extending the constitution to the entire island. At the same time he refused a parliamentary representation, which, as in Northern Ireland, had an oath of allegiance to the British crown as a condition. Recognition of the 1937 Constitution was the main difference between Kelly's position and the policies of the IRA and Sinn Féin in the 1950s . Kelly was not re-elected in the 1957 new Seanad election.

In November 1955, Kelly was involved in an attack by Saor Uladh on the RUC police station in Rosslea , a town near the inner-Irish border in County Fermanagh . A RUC police officer was injured in the failed attack; one of the 14 attackers died of his injuries after fleeing across the inner-Irish border. This and other attacks by Saor Uladh are considered to be one of the reasons for the decision of the IRA to carry out attacks in Northern Ireland again from 1956 in the Border Campaign .

In 1957, Kelly was briefly arrested by the Republic of Ireland Police, Garda Síochána ; a Saor Uladh member had previously been shot on the inner-Irish border. In 1959, Kelly finally emigrated to the United States , after having been there before July 1957. In the 1970s he was the local chairman of the Republican Clubs , an organization affiliated with the Official IRA and the Workers' Party .

Kelly was married and had five children.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Liam (William) Kelly.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Newsday.com, June 9, 2011 (accessed November 16, 2011).  
2. ^ ^{A b} Ed Moloney: A secret history of the IRA. Allen Lane, London 2002, ISBN 0-71399-665-X , p. 310.
3. ↑ Barry Flyn: Soldiers of Folly. The IRA border campaign 1956–1962. Collins, Cork 2009, ISBN 978-1-8488-9016-9 , p. 34.
4. ↑ Flyn, Soldiers of folly , p. 35
5. ↑ He chose bondage . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 1954, p. 18-19 ( online ).
6. ↑ Flyn, Soldiers of Folly , pp. 36f. Tim Pat Coogan: The IRA. Palgrave, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-29416-6 , p. 283.
7. ↑ Flyn, Soldiers of folly , p. 35. Kelly's speech online ( Memento of the original of March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. available at www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie (accessed November 16, 2011). 
8. ↑ entry to Kelly at www.oireachtas.ie (Accessed on 16 November 2011).
9. ↑ Flyn, Soldiers of folly , S. 43rd
10. ↑ Flyn, Soldiers of folly , S. 162, 176th
11. ↑ Michael Farrell: Northern Ireland. The Orange state. Pluto Press, London 1976, ISBN 0-902818-87-2 , p. 343.