INLA Split, Death of McMillen
By 1974, many of the most militant OIRA members were unhappy with the ceasefire. In December 1974, they broke away from the Official movement, forming the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the Irish National Liberation Army. Many OIRA members under McMillen's command, including the entire Divis flats unit, defected to the new grouping. This provoked another intra-republican feud in Belfast. The feud began with arms raids on OIRA dumps and beatings of their members by the INLA. McMillen, in response was accused of drawing up a "death list" of IRSP/INLA members and even of handing information on them over to the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force.
The first killing came on 20 February 1975, when the OIRA shot dead an INLA member named Hugh Ferguson in west Belfast. A spate of shootings followed on both sides.
On April 28, 1975, Billy McMillen was shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson, as he was shopping in a hardware shop on Spinner Street, with his wife Mary. McMillen was hit in the neck and died on the scene. His murder was unauthorised and was condemned by the INLA/IRSP leader Seamus Costello. Despite this, the OIRA tried to kill Costello on May 9, 1975 and eventually killed him two years later.
Billy McMillen' death was a major blow to the OIRA in Belfast. His leadership had retained a substantial presence for the Officials in the city and their organisation there never really recovered from his loss.
The writer and lyricist Dominic Behan who shared McMillen's socialist republican politics paid tribute to him in a poem, Bás, Fás, Blás, delivered after his death.
Read more about this topic: Billy Mc Millen
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