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Ruadhrai O'Bradaigh was a former president of Provisional Sinn Fein in the Seventies.
At the 1987 Ard Fheis the party passed a motion allowing future candidates elected to Dail Eireann to take
their seats.O'Bradaigh led a walkout and at the same time conveyed out a volume he called a minute book
which was supposed to keep legitimate record of Republican leadership decisions which did not break the
basic principles and rules of the Republican party or undermine their their loyalty to the second Dail(1921-22)
Though obscure to many this is the central tennant of Republican Sinn Fein. When Republican fronts are
suggested they always see this as the first and last issue and that others are subject to a test on this issue
and should afterwards accept the leadership advice of R.S.F. In the years after 1987 it emerged that a
parallel proccess had taken part among some members of the I.R.A council such that a chain of command
abiding with the understood norms and reponsibilities would remain in continuity or in other words set
themselves i.e the purists up as the legitimate Army council from then on.
The I.R.S.P emerged out of a bitter fued with the Official I.R.A and the creation of the I.N.L.A
During the period several more I.N.L.A/RSP were killed than vice versa. Later the I.N.L.A suffered a number
of fatal internal fueds thus reducing the potential and cohesion of RSP that would otherwise have been thought of as a fairly straight forward hard left militant group.
The brains behind the 32 Sov Committee were thrown out of Sinn Fein in the early ninties much as Militant
out of the Labour party. In due course some of their sympathisers began to organise themselves for possible armed struggle in what would become known as the Real I.R.A . The operatives in the later saw
themselves as filling a gap because of the apparent relative inactivity of the Continuity I.R.A and the fact that some of the leadership of C.I.R.A at the time were seen as a collection of grand dads.
In terms of anecdoyte I have found that one can have a more sensible conversation with the 32's than with
the R.S.F which seem to suffer from a lot of inbreeding and delusions of grandeour. Some of the 32's are
quite thoughtfull and have the modicum of a global view. The problem with the I.R.S.P is you never know what faction you are addressing from the competent to the scarry(one faction got involved with drug pushing). I believe the late Seamus Costelloe founder of I.R.S.P was a very decent man.
All the above groups would appear to be very issolated. Though there are a lot of dis affected youth in the
North their actions are very sporadic and are unlikely to accept the ready made leadership of any of the above any time soon. It is hard for the progressive individuals in any of the above to make an impact of the
broad left in Ireland because many of the champions of the left in Ireland prefer to indulge in the politics of
condemnation than to encourage evolution or serious debate on ways ahead and working out worthwhile
mapping out of common ground.
Originally Posted by st333ve
