The Irish National Liberation Army (Irish: Arm Saoirse Náisiúnta na hÉireann) or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland.
Sharing a common Marxist ideology with its political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), it enjoyed its peak of influence in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In its earliest days, the INLA was known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA). During the PLA period, the group's purpose was primarily to protect IRSP members from attacks.
After a twenty-four year armed campaign, the INLA declared a ceasefire on 22 August 1998. In August 1999, it stated that "There is no political or moral argument to justify a resumption of the campaign". In October 2009, the INLA formally vowed to pursue its aims through peaceful political means.
The organisation is classified as a proscribed terrorist group in the United Kingdom and as an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland.
Read more about Irish National Liberation Army: Deaths As A Result of Activity
Famous quotes containing the words irish, national, liberation and/or army:
“The Irish are a fair people; they never speak well of one another.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the “tough guy;” today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.”
—Philip Roth (b. 1933)