Saor Uladh

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Saor Uladh [ siːɾ ul̪ˠʊ ] ( Irish : the Free Ulsters , more rarely Saor Ulaidh [ siːɾ ul̪ˠə ]), was a paramilitary , Irish-republican splinter group that split off between 1951 and 1959 as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) mainly in the Northern Irish county Tyrone was active.

Founder of Saor Uladh was Liam Kelly , who had been expelled in October 1951 due to arbitrary actions by the IRA. Kelly had considerable backing in Tyrone, so the majority of the IRA members there joined him. Between 1953 and 1958, Kelly represented the Mid Tyrone constituency in the Lower House of the Northern Irish Parliament . Followers of Kelly founded the Fianna Uladh (Soldiers of Ulster) party as the political wing of Saor Uladh in late 1953 . In 1954 Kelly was elected to the Seanad Éireann , the upper house of the Republic of Ireland , to which he was a member until 1957. The election followed a proposal by Clann na Poblachta , a republican party led by Seán MacBride . In contrast to the policies advocated by the IRA and Sinn Féin in the 1950s, Kelly recognized the Irish constitution of 1937 and advocated extending the constitution to the entire island.

On November 26, 1955, the RUC police station in Rosslea , a town near the inner-Irish border in County Fermanagh , was the target of an attack by Saor Uladh . 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. On November 30, 1955, the Northern Irish Interior Minister banned Saor Uladh ; the Fianna Uladh party was also banned in late 1956. In November 1956, Saor Uladh was responsible for a series of attacks on unoccupied border posts on the inner-Irish border. In May 1957, members of Saor Uladh, along with a group of renegade IRA members led by Joe Christle, attacked a lock on the Newry Canal . In July 1957, a Saor Uladh member died in a shootout with RUC police officers on the inner-Irish border in County Fermanagh.

The IRA closely monitored the activities of the approximately 50 members of Saor Uladh . Given Kelly's popularity, the IRA avoided taking direct action against Saor Uladh and tried to restrict the underground organization's activities to Tyrone. The attacks in Saor Uladh are seen in part as one of the reasons for the decision by the IRA in the Border Campaign to carry out attacks in Northern Ireland again from December 1956. During the Border Campaign, the relationship between the two organizations was ambivalent: when the government of the Republic of Ireland introduced detention without trial, the members of Saor Uladh detained in Curragh were ostracized by the IRA members there. At the same time, both organizations worked closely together in Northern Ireland, particularly in Tyrone.

The last attack attributed to Saor Uladh occurred in March 1959 when a RUC Land Rover was destroyed in Clogher . In the same year Kelly emigrated to the United States , having been there before July 1957 to organize support among Irish emigrants .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barry Flynn: Soldiers of Folly. The IRA border campaign 1956–1962. Collins, Cork 2009, ISBN 978-1-8488-9016-9 , pp. 34f.
  2. ^ Flynn, Soldiers of Folly , p. 43.
  3. ^ Statutory Rules and Orders of Northern Ireland, 1955, No. 176. Printed in The Belfast Gazette. No. 1797 (December 2, 1955), p. 351  ( 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. and p. 352  ( 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. (pdf, accessed November 17, 2011).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thegazette.co.uk  @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thegazette.co.uk  
  4. ^ Flynn, Soldiers of Folly , p. 90.
  5. ^ Flynn, Soldiers of folly , p. 63.
  6. ^ J. Bowyer Bell: The secret army. The IRA. 3rd edition, Transaction, New Brunswick 1997, ISBN 1-560-00901-2 , p. 316.
  7. ↑ Flynn, Soldiers of Folly , pp. 160ff.
  8. ↑ Bell, Secret Army , pp. 255, 276.
  9. ↑ This assessment by Ed Moloney: A secret history of the IRA. Allen Lane, London 2002, ISBN 0-71399-665-X , p. 310.
  10. ↑ Bell, Secret Army , p. 318.
  11. ↑ Flynn, Soldiers of folly , pp. 162, 176. Bell, Secret army , p. 318.