On May 8, 1987, the Active Service Unit of the East Tyrone Brigade made its way to the village of Loughgall County Armagh, to demolish the British Crown Force Barracks as part of the Revolutionary War for National Liberation and Socialist Revolution.
The ASU were implementing a strategy to drive the forces of occupation in rural communities along the border out of the area and into the big towns and cities. The strategy was an attempt to implement Chairman Mao’s Universal Military Line of Protracted People’s War to the concrete conditions in Ireland, while drawing on the wealth of Guerrilla Warfare Experience In Ireland over the last 800 years. The ASU had had a number of spectacular successes in previous operations, and the strategy was working.
The IRA Cadres behind the Loughgall Martyrs, which included some of the movement’s most experienced Guerrilla Leaders, were opposed to the running down of the struggle for National Liberation and Socialist Revolution and has decided that either a new revolutionary leadership or a new revolutionary movement would be needed to continue the struggle.
This made these Cadre a significant threat to British Imperialism in Ireland and to those that would compromise with it, and sealed there faith.
33 years ago today, as the ASU headed towards Loughgall with a Digger Bomb and a heavily armed fire team, they were unaware that Britain’s SAS had taken over the area, and being aware of the Revolutionaries plans, had established a Kill Zone at Loughgall.
As the ASU reached the target, the SAS launched its shoot to kill operation, that had been ordered at the highest levels of the British Government, and Britain’s terrorists assassinated 8 IRA Volunteers at Loughgall.
That there were to be no prisoners taken is evident from the account of a local priest who administered the last rights, and stated a number of the Volunteers had been shot, point blank in the head, by Britain’s Terrorists.
Britain intended to use the Loughgall ambush to kill the Revolutionary opposition to its illegal rule in Ireland and end the Revolutionary War. While it successfully removed some of the most capable and committed Republican Guerrillas who were determined to continue the fight until victory, it did not kill the Resistance or the Revolution.
8 Volunteers gave their lives for the All Ireland Republic at Loughgall. Volunteer Paddy Kelly, Volunteer Jim Lynagh, Volunteer Pádraig McKearney, Volunteer Tony Gormley, Volunteer Gerard O’Callaghan, Volunteer Simon Donnelly, Volunteer Eugene Kelly And Volunteer Declan Arthurs. Hero’s All.
The Loughgall Martyrs have become the immortal symbol of the Socialist Republican Resistance against the injustice of partition and the illegal British Occupation of Ireland and the ongoing usurpation of the People’s Republic.
The critisisms leveled by Lynagh, McKearney and Kelly that the slide to reformism and talks with Imperialism would lead to the running down of the Revolutionary Struggle for National Liberation and Socialism have come true.
But their actions at Loughgall and in the fight against British Imperialism in Ireland continue to inspire new generations of Irish Socialist Republicans to continue the struggle for National Liberation and Socialist Revolution and reestablish the All Ireland Republic that they selflessly gave their lives for.
33 years after their death, let our rallying cry be, Long Live the Loughgall Martyrs- Tiocfaidh Ár Lá!