15/16 October: Fallen Comrades of the IRSM -- Stormont Watch

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Date Posted: Tue, Oct 14 2008, 21:54:20 PDT
Author: Danielle Ni Dhighe
Subject: 15/16 October: Fallen Comrades of the IRSM

Fallen Comrades of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement

*******

Ronnie Bunting
Ard Chomhairle Member - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Staff Officer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 15 October 1980

Ronnie Bunting was a staff officer in the INLA and the commander
of its Belfast Brigade, as well as a member of the IRSP's
Ard Chomhairle (national executive) and a member of the National
H-Block/Armagh Committee, formed to support the struggle of prisoners
of war within British prisons in the North of Ireland.

He grew up in a middle class Protestant family, and because of this
background, pro-British loyalists considered him to be a "renegade
Protestant."

His father was Major Ronald Bunting, a British Army officer who became
an aide to Ian Paisley and organized attacks on civil rights marchers
in 1969.

He began his political activism while an arts student at Queen's
University of Belfast. He was briefly a member of People's Democracy
before joining Official Sinn F�in and the Official Irish Republican
Army in 1970. He was interned without trial by the British government
in its Long Kesh prison camp from 1971 to 1973.

He was expelled from OSF and the OIRA in 1974 because of his support
for Seamus Costello, a senior member of OSF and the OIRA who was
fighting against reformist tendencies within the Officials. When
Costello formed the IRSP and the INLA on 8 December 1974, Bunting was
there with him.

Ronnie Bunting was only 32 when he was assassinated in his home in the
Turf Lodge area of West Belfast. Although a pro-British death squad
known as the Ulster Freedom Fighters took credit, a unit of the
British Army's Special Air Service was suspected of carrying out the
assassination. Three previous attempts on Bunting's life had been made
between 1975 and 1978.

Noel Little, a fellow member of the IRSP and the INLA, was also killed
in the attack. Ronnie's wife Suzanne survived being shot in the head.

A memorial to Bunting and Little was unveiled in the Gransha/Turf
Lodge area of West Belfast on 13 October 2002.

*******

Noel Little
Press Relations Officer - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Assassinated on 15 October 1980

Noel Little began his political activism in the 1960s as a member of
the Northern Ireland Labour Party before becoming involved in the
North's civil rights movement and helping to found People's Democracy.

Opposition within People's Democracy to the growing armed struggle
eventually led Little to leave and join the small Red Republican
Party. After discussions with members of the IRSP in Belfast, he
joined the IRSP and the INLA in 1980. He was also a member of the
National H-Block/Armagh Committee.

He was 44 when he was assassinated along with Ronnie Bunting by
what was suspected to be a unit of the British Army's Special Air
Service, although a pro-British death squad known as the Ulster
Freedom Fighters took credit.

A memorial to Little and Bunting was unveiled in the Gransha/Turf
Lodge area of West Belfast on 13 October 2002.

*******

Tony McClelland
Volunteer - Irish National Liberation Army
Killed in Action on 16 October 1979

Tony McClelland, age 25, was a member of the INLA's Armagh Brigade
killed on active duty when the car he was riding in was involved in an
accident in County Monaghan during a police chase.

*******

They died as they lived: as Republican Socialists. Remember them with
honour and pride.

http://www.irsm.org/fallen/bunting/
http://www.irsm.org/fallen/lyttle/
http://www.irsm.org/fallen/mcclelland/

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