Night of the Long Knives (1992)

Night of the Long Knives
Part of the Troubles
Date 31 October – 1 November 1992 Location Belfast Result Successful IRA operation. Surrender of all IPLO forces from both factions.
Belligerents
Provisional IRA	Irish People's Liberation Organization
Strength
Up to 100 Volunteers	IPLO Belfast Brigade & IPLO GHQ
Casualties and losses
None	2 killed, about a dozen injured

Night of the Long Knives is the name given to the night of 31 October 1992, when the Provisional IRA launched a large operation to wipe out the Irish People's Liberation Organization, who most republicans felt were becoming an embarrassment to Irish republicanism due to their involvement in drug dealing, criminality and internal feuds.

Background

In 1986, expelled volunteers of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and unhappy volunteers in the organization upset with the direction the INLA was going decided to form the Irish People's Liberation Organization (IPLO), along with a small political wing called the Republican Socialist Collective. When the IPLO was formed, its main goals was to wipe out the INLA and establish itself as the main Irish republican socialist movement. The feud lasted a year until a truce was called after several people on either side were killed. Important paramilitaries on both sides were killed, like Jimmy Brown, Gerard Steenson, and Tom McAllister. It has been speculated that the IPLO killed Mary McGlinchey, a female INLA Volunteer and wife of the notorious Dominic McGlinchey, during the feud, although nothing has ever been proven and Mary McGlinchey's killers never claimed responsibility for the killing.

Throughout the IPLO's campaign it killed 22 people; 6 INLA, 2 British Army, 2 loyalist paramilitaries, and 12 civlians, mainly Protestants.

The IPLO attack on the Orange Cross Social Club, a Protestant bar, killed 1 loyalist paramilitary and injured others.

The IPLO was more sectarian than any other republican paramilitary groups, often engaging in attacks on Protestant civilians. In 1987 an IPLO unit assassinated outspoken loyalist politician George Seawright, who had called for the genocide of Catholics. In 1989 the Orange Cross Social Club shooting killed a Red Hand Commando member and injuried several civilians. In another attack on a loyalist bar, they killed Ulster Defence Association member Harrdy Ward in the Diamond Jubilee bar in on the Shankill Road, and on 31 December 1992 killed two Protestant civilians in a gun attack on a public house in the Village area of Belfast.^[1] On 5 May 1992, they killed 66-year-old Protestant civilian William Sergeant.^[2]

IPLO internal feud

The IPLO was accused of becoming involved in the illegal drug trade, especially in ecstasy. Some of its Belfast members were also accused of the prolonged gang rape of a North Down woman in Divis Flats in 1990.^[3] Many of its recruits had fallen out of favour with the IRA and the portents for its future were not good. Sammy Ward, a low-level IPLO member, broke away from the main body of the organisation with a few supporters when the IPLO were severely depleted and weak in Belfast. His faction attacked the rest of the IPLO, culminating in the killing of Jimmy Brown. A full-scale feud followed between two factions terming themselves "Army Council" (led by Jimmy Brown) and "Belfast Brigade" (led by Ward), which led to the 3000th killing of the Troubles, Hugh McKibbon, a 21-year-old "Army Council" man. Brown had been the previous victim when he was shot dead in West Belfast on 18 August 1992. This feud was described by the IPLO's critics as a lethal squabble over money and drugs.

Operation

The Provisional IRA – by far the largest armed paramilitary group in Ireland – decided enough was enough and this was an opportunity to attack and remove the IPLO for good given the IPLO's involvement in the drug trade criminality which the Provisionals hated especially drug dealing. They mounted a huge operation to wipe out the IPLO. In what Republicans dubbed the Belfast because the IRA purged the IPLO just like the SS purged the SA The PIRA launched their well planned operation on the 31 October 1992 to rid Northern Ireland of the IPLO. The IRA assassinated prominent IPLO man Sammy Ward, (the IPLO Belfast brigade leader), they also shot Hugh McKibben a Volunteer in the IPLOBB.^[4] There were also raids on pubs and clubs where IPLO members were kneecapped. On 2 November 1992 the second-in-command of the IPLO Belfast Brigade formally surrendered to the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade adjutant, which brought an end to the group in Belfast.^[5]

Outside Belfast the IRA did not attack any IPLO units and issued statements absolving the IPLO units in Derry, Newry and Armagh from any involvement in the drugs trade that was alleged against those in Belfast. In Dublin the IRA reprieved the IPLO Chief of Staff in return for surrendering a small cache of arms held in Ballybough. The operation is reputed to have involved 100 IRA members.

Aftermath

The Operation was aimed only at the IPLOBB while IPLOGHQ units were issued a warning or face the would face the same feat as the IPLOBB had. Both factions of the Irish People's Liberation Organization formally surrendered to the IRA's Belfast Brigade leader within a few weeks of the operation in November 1992.

References

1. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dyndeaths.pl?querytype=date&day=21&month=12&year=1991
2. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1992.html
3. Ballymurphy and the Irish War by De Baroid p. 331
4. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/chron/1992.html,
5. INLA Deadly Divisions Jack Holland p. 343