The Irish Republican Liberation Army (IRLA) is an Irish

paramilitary A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

"self-styled vigilante group".

Origins

The IRLA is centred on

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

in the

Ardoyne Ardoyne () is a working class and mainly Catholic and Irish republican district in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. It gained notoriety due to the large number of incidents during The Troubles. Foundation The village of Ardoyne was founded in ...

area.

The Irish News ''The Irish News'' is a Compact (newspaper), compact daily newspaper based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is Northern Ireland's largest selling morning newspaper and is available throughout Ireland. It is broadly Irish nationalist in its view ...

suggested that its membership were from a

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...

family with links to the

Loyalist Volunteer Force The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) is a small Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed by Billy Wright in 1996 when he and his unit split from the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) after breaking its ceasefire. Most of ...

, while others have suggested they splintered from the

Continuity IRA The Continuity Irish Republican Army (Continuity IRA or CIRA), styling itself as the Irish Republican Army (), is an Irish republican paramilitary group that aims to bring about a united Ireland. It claims to be a direct continuation of the ori ...

(CIRA).

Threats

Following the deaths of two of its members in squabbles over firearms in November 2007, Ed Burns and Joe Jones, the former who was shot near the GAA St Galls' club in West Belfast and the latter who was beaten to death with a shovel in Ardoyne, the group threatened retribution against

Republican Sinn Féin Republican Sinn Féin or RSF ( ga, Sinn Féin Poblachtach) is an Irish republican political party in Ireland. RSF claims to be heirs of the Sinn Féin party founded in 1905 and took its present form in 1986 following a split in Sinn Féin. RS ...

, the alleged political wing of the CIRA, believed responsible for the deaths. Veteran west Belfast activist, Geraldine Taylor, a

candidate in the Assembly elections, and a north Belfast Republican Sinn Féin member, were told by police that their lives were in danger. The threat was said to have come from the apparently "self-styled vigilante group", the IRLA. Further to this, two other republicans were also warned of the danger to their lives. In November 2007, the group also claimed responsibility for the

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...

attack that wounded a police officer driving away from his son's school in

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

. The

Independent Monitoring Commission The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) was an organisation founded on 7 January 2004, by an agreement between the British and Irish governments, signed in Dublin on 25 November 2003. The IMC concluded its operations on 31 March 2011. Remit ...

said the IRLA has a small arms collection, though its threat is not "terrorist in nature". In the twentieth IMC report, the IRLA was set to be a "essentially a group of criminals taking a republican banner in order to give supposed status to their activities". Although the group committed at least one other shooting it was not recognised as immediately threatening.

Government response

On 5 March 2008, East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson asked the Minister of State for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing

Tony McNulty Anthony James "Tony" McNulty (born 3 November 1958) is a British politician who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Harrow East from 1997 to 2010. During his ministerial career, which began in 2003, he was Minister for London and late ...

if he would consider prohibiting the Irish Republican Liberation Army under the Terrorism Act 2000. McNulty replied that "As a matter of normal policy and practice we do not comment on organisations not on the proscribed list."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irish Republican Liberation Army 2006 establishments in Northern Ireland Continuity Irish Republican Army Dissident Irish republican campaign False flag operations Irish republican militant groups Organizations established in 2006 Paramilitary organisations based in Northern Ireland