SEAN SOUTH
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The Terrorist of Choice for the Cincinnati Chapter of INAC is a murderer called Sean South. The incidents surrounding the terrorism of the IRA activist Sean South illustrate fully the extent of involvement by extremist and subversive groups operating in the US while supporting Irish terrorism. |
On New years day in 1956, Sean South was part of an IRA team who attacked the small village of Brookeborough just a few miles north of the border with the Republic of Ireland. In 1956 Irish terrorist fanaticism was rife among extremist groups in America but it had little credibility in Ireland or Britain. Despite this, the small and ineffective virtually extinct IRA group of 1956 emerged into a killing machine. They did not have contacts with the international terrorist world as they do today. The single link the IRA had to money and guns during this period was directly from the US, where groups similar to Noraid formed the backbone of new terrorist attacks from the IRA at this time. With this support from US groups a small unit including Sean South and his IRA team chose to attack the police station in the small rural village of Brookeborough in Northern Ireland. They arrived in a cattle lorry and immediately started shooting, trapping the village Constables inside, while they attempted to plant a mine outside. The mine failed to explode so they made a second attempt to lay another, this also failed. In desperation the IRA members resorted to throwing grenades inside the station by which time the policemen inside had been able to access a few firearms from their armoury. In the skirmish that followed the IRA grenades were met by small arms gunfire from the besieged policemen, in the battle Sean South and his fellow IRA terrorist Fergal O'Hanlon were killed.
The idealism of this early terrorist fanaticism is evident at every level. Sean South grew up in Cork in the South of Ireland and had only ever visited Northern Ireland on a few occasions. His only real weapons were an ideological zeal and bravado of fighting an old war. The Irish people were largely disgusted by the attack and the IRA struggled to force mourners onto the streets for his funeral. Most businesses openly flouted the IRA attempts to force them to close for the day in his memory, as they tried to make him a martyr. The British government promised action against the IRA but they didn't regard the IRA as a serious threat at this time. It was the Irish government though that ended any IRA hopes of starting a renewed terrorist campaign. The Irish government urged the British and Northern Ireland governments to take 'responsible action' and openly voiced support for the policemen in Brookeborough. The Irish government feared a new IRA campaign that would threaten democracy in Ireland, at a time when Irelad was struggling to progress their young country. The Irish government rushed troops to the border of Northern Ireland and introduced internment i.e. imprisonment of suspected IRA members without trial. To support the Irish government the British and Northern Ireland government followed suit. The IRA campaign in the 1950's was very soon ended under this pressure.
Only among fanatics in America was this action regarded as anything over than a crime against the people of Ireland and Britain.
Fanatics in the US attempted to turn Sean South into a martyr. They still commemorate their role in his death and celebrate his terrorist actions today.
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An
insight to the thinking of Noraid is the terrorists they idolise
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