Left Archive: United Irishman, September 1975, Official Sinn Féin

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This edition of the United Irishman from Official Sinn Féin is one of a series of United Irishman and Starry Ploughs that date from the feud between the INLA and the OIRA in Spring/Summer 1975 which have been posted in the Archive this year.

It contains a broad range of articles. The focus is notably, given the events of the Summer of 1975 and the conflict between the OIRA and INLA/PLA, focused on the economy. And while the front page headline is ‘United Against Sectarian Murder’ – and an accompanying centre spread on that topic argues strenuously for working class unity in the face of such violence, the rest of the front page incorporates an article entitled ‘Expand the economy – resist then jobs cut-back’.

Inside there are some mentions of the OIRA, including a report on how Belfast Command Staff I.R.A. ‘reported two successful defensive actions against sectarian bombers and gunmen in the Banwmore Estate, Shore Road and at Divis Flats, Falls Road last month’. It reports that in relation to these incidents ‘an IRA patrol returned fire and prevented what was clearly a determined assault on the Flats complex’.

Elsewhere the focus is explicitly on the political, including editorials that examine the death of Eamonn De Valera and one on a workers protest against threatened job losses in Belfast. There is a long article on ‘Tourist rip-off for Irish hotels’ and a piece entitled ‘An Ghaeilge Marbh’ (notable is the continuing focus on the Irish language in the UI’s of this period).

The ‘Women of Their Time’ column discusses Louie Bennett of the IWWU. International events are covered by pieces on Angola, Vietnam and Kissinger. There is a report on the Dublin Port Redevelopment plans of the period which supports wholesale industrialisation of that area.