r/IrishRebelArchive

78 AND STILL NOT BEAT

This was the last attack carried out by the Glenanne Gang in the Free State. Seamus Ludlow's body was found near his home in Thistlecross, Dundalk. The Red Hand Commando claimed responsibility for the killing as the Glenanne Gang usually did use the name for attacks carried out across the border, as they did with the Dundalk and Silverbridge pub attacks in December 1975, or "Red Hand Brigade " for Dublin and Monaghan. Seamus Ludlow was 49 when he was shot dead.

Two weeks later the gang killed 4 more civilians in the Charlemont pub attacks, and the same night two more were killed by the Belfast UVF when they bombed the Avenue Bar, the same Avenue Bar the UVF shot up in May 1988 killing 3 and injuring 6, which I believe was the first attack loyalists used the VZ.58 Assault rifles in.

Seems to be holding a Yugoslav M70 underfolder

Armed with what I think is a M14 Rifle, and they had a good few of them fresh from the Harrison Network around this time. Also a very interesting quote from James Connolly, sentiments I 100% agree. I think this is from AP/RN because it's not in any IRIS magazine from 1983.

From a recent Irish News article, apparently it’s been circulating elsewhere online. This is the “McDonnell faction” that split from RNU.

Just like the organization ex-OIRA Volunteer Paul Tinnelly had set-up in south Down around Spring 74 and the Officials crushed, the Officials, with their increasingly Stalinist outlook tried to do the same to the IRSM. In January 1975 two Official gunmen entered the Bunting home but he was not there at the time, according to Seamus Costello they fired two shots through a door just missing Buntings wife & infant daughter. A month later in February the Officials shot up a house where Bunting, Sean & Harry Flynn were staying at on the Antrim Road. A few days later the Officials killed the Chairman of the IRSP in the Whiterock area of Belfast. At this stage the INLA hadn't retaliated, Costello was trying to come to a truce but after this killing the INLA young guns took matters into their own hands shooting dead OIRA Vol Sean Fox in Divis Flats, a few days after that on the 1 March, two INLA Vols from Belfast, one of whom was Gerard Steenson, travelled to Dublin and shot Sean Garland several times badly injuring him, Garland was seen as the most hardline Bolshevik in the OIRA/WP movement. It was this attack that led to the third assassination attempt on Bunting, just four days after the attack on Garland. On the 5 March Bunting was hit in the neck by an OIRA sniper when he was driving out of Turf Lodge. The feud ended when two INLA gunmen shot dead OIRA Belfast Commander Billy McMillen.

Bunting went on to become the first full time Commander of the INLA in Belfast, a few months after Seamus Costello was assassinated by the OIRA he became the military leader of the INLA in Ulster while those in Dublin handled logistics & procuring weapons, a little like the Provos Southern & Northern Command structures. It was under his leadership they carried out the first mercury tilt switch bomb in December 1978, injuring a PO from the Maze. In March they used the bomb for the first time to kill a member of the British military, a UDR member in Portadown, then at the end of the month they carried out the most spectacular political assassination of the war, killing Tory hardliner Airey Neave with the bomb in Westminster Palace carpark, they killed several more soldiers & RUC as well as two POs throughout 1979, they also carried out their first attack in Europe at the end of the year when they bombed the British Consulate in Antwerp, Belgium.

Bunting was assassinated in October 1980 by collusion between Loyalists & undercover British agents. Along with Costello he was probably the biggest loss to the INLA, and the Republican struggle as a whole.

A collection of photographs of PIRA POWs in Long Kesh in c. 1974-76.

A former Dublin IRA man posted them publicly on Facebook in 2019.

This is somewhere in the Dublin mountains.

The handguns they're drawing I think they are a mixture of the Mauser C96, & a Smith and Wesson .45. The rifles being inspected look like Lee Enfield 303s. I'm pretty sure both machine guns are Lewis guns towards the end, but at the last few seconds there seems to be a gun water cooler which Maxim & Vickers guns used so it could a latter variation of either of those.

Researching the weapons in the video I found the IRA was developing a IRA mortar in 1920, but when tested the shell exploded inside the tube killing a Volunteer.