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Hugh Torney ( Northern Ireland Republican Activist)

II. Political Career

In 1975, Torney became a paramilitary member of the newly formed Irish National Liberation Army and planned many attacks against their rivals. Torney preferred to be ruthless and even had ties to the killings of fellow INLA members who had slight differences in ideology. In 1987, Torney became the leader of the INLA until he was arrested and ousted in 1995 by Gino Gallagher.

III. Feud

The internal dynamics of the INLA that brought about a lot of structural conflict. The INLA during the the late 1970s through the mid-1980s can be characterized as an inter-organizational war in which there were several conflicting opinions regarding what the central ideology of the organization should be. In effect, this caused numerous attempts for power by members and furthermore, fractionalization within the INLA. When the OIRA murdered the founding leader of the INLA, Seamus Costello, in 1977 the fight for power began. In 1982 Dominic McGlinchey claimed authority by military rule, but by 1984 he had been arrested and John O'Reilly attempted to gain control by capturing the group's weapons arsenal(Worker's Liberty). In 1987, O'Reilly was murdered in a negotiation attempt with Steenson, opening the door for Hugh Torney. Before Torney took command of the INLA he was attacked by an opposition faction of the organization where two of his cronies were killed. This prompted him to retaliate and murder Gerard Steenson, a former INLA member and a founding leader of the IPLO. Due to erratic leadership the INLA was never able to implement a functioning system of operationalization. https://fas.org/irp/world/para/inla.htm, http://www.irishtimes.com/news/torney-s-death-ends-present-inla-feud-1.82792

The Irish Republican Socialist Party was formed under the beliefs that national liberation and class structure cannot be separated (cite). The INLA was the military force for the IRSP (fas citation). When Torney became the leader of the INLA his biggest opposers splintered off and formed the opposing Republican group, the Irish People Liberation Organization (IPLO) who backed the Republican Socialist Collective political party. The feuding between the two groups derived mainly over a power struggle as the IPLO tried to make the Republican Socialist Collective party the major republican-socialist organization in Northern Ireland. Following a truce between the INLA and IPLO, the IRA launched a mounting attack against the Irish People Liberation Organization and the group was put down in the fall of 1992. https://fiannaiochta.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/irish-peoples-liberation-organisation-iplo-founded-1986/

IV. Chief of Staff

a. Nicknamed Cueball Torney for notoriously beating up people in prison with a pool ball inside of a sock, Hugh Torney took control of the INLA in 1987 following the death of Gerard Steenson as one of the few respected among the INLA's weakening leadership.

b. As the leader, Torney did not coordinate policy well or set out ambitious political motives causing an instability within the group. During his stint as Chief of Staff multiple members of the INLA and IRSP wanted to pursue political and military objectives together, but Torney stood with a faction of the group that held a strategy of violent action against opposition. To achieve his means Hugh expelled anyone that stood against him and hired young militants who were willing to follow any order given to them (Deadly Divisions 368). Torney was ultimately unable to garner much success of the political advancement of the republican movement in Northern Ireland because he relied too heavily on military action.

V. Violent Acts 

Common operational tactics deployed by previous INLA leaders included extortion, kidnapping, and racketeering (Worker's Liberty). Under Torney rule, the INLA performed attacks against people loyal to the British government and Protestant civilians. In 1982, Hugh was held responsible for a bombing that targeted British soldiers that resulted in the death of two children and one soldier. During the 1987 internal dispute within the INLA Hugh was involved in an attack on an opposition faction that killed twelve people (cite) before the death of Gerard Steenson brought the feud to an end. In June of 1994 Torney ordained the killings of three Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary organization, which led to retaliation killings of six Catholic civilians. Attacks often included bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and robberies providing a description of the INLA as an anarchist terrorist organization. Once Torney had been disbanded from the main INLA and created his own faction of the group and when his number two, Denise McCleery, was murdered by the Gallagher faction of the INLA and on June 9, 1996 Torney and his supporters retaliated by shooting down Frank Shannon, a member of their rival INLA (Deadly Divisions). This was the last known violent act carried out under Torney's authority.

As the Official IRA began to incorporate a more political-based agenda rather than a military campaign in the early 1990s(DD 417), Torney's 'Belfast Brigade' was essentially hired out by the Provisional IRA to commit murders against loyalists.

VI.Downfall

a.   The beginning of the end of Hugh's tenure as the chief of staff for the INLA occurred on April 4, 1995. Hugh Torney, along with three other Belfast INLA members were transporting a mass amount weapons and ammunitions near Dublin. However, the arms dealer they had purchased the weapons from informed the police of the whereabouts allowing authorities to raid the operation and arrest the four INLA members.

b. Due to the arrest of the organization's head many INLA members criticized the judgement of the leadership (cite) and during the four months that he was in jail, Hugh Torney was denounced as a legitimate leader, expelled from the INLA, and Gino Gallagher ascended as the new chief of staff. Angered upon release, Hugh formulated a new faction of the INLA known as the INLA-General Headquarters(cite) (INLA_GHQ) comprised mainly of his most loyal supporters. Within the nine month feud between the INLA_GHQ and the main Belfast faction led by Gallagher six deaths due to violence occurred including the ordered killing of Gino Gallagher by Hugh Torney. On September 3, 1996 the feud between the two factions ended when Torney was murdered in retaliation by Gallagher's supporters (cite).

PEER REVIEW (MARRELL JONES):

Very good article Ryan, there are not many mistakes in it but there are some things you can improve on. For instance in section III (Feaud) part a, you lead the paragraph by saying that ”it is important to state…”. I do not think it is necessary to say that it is important, you should just list the information and cite it, since its essentially an encyclopedia piece and not a persuasive article. The second thing I noticed was in section VI  (Downfall) part b, you claimed that the arrest of the group’s leader displayed a lack of judgment. In order to differentiate this from simply stating information from your own personal opinion you should consider rephrasing the sentence along these lines: Due to the arrest of the organizations head, some have criticized the leaderships judgment (then citation). Outside of that everything in your article looks well written. I did notice that your sandbox does not have a lead section though, I am not sure if you were planning on using the one that was already there or if you wanted to make your own, but you should add it to the sandbox. I would move the sentence in section IV (Chief of Staff) part a. about Torney’s nickname either to the lead section or into the section about violent acts considering violence is what gained him the pseudonym. Overall everything looks great, and you do possess very strong writing. I am looking forward to seeing your final article.

References

http://www.angelfire.com/space/derryirsp/inla.htm

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/11/21/left-wing-urban-guerrillas-ireland-irish-national-liberation-armys-bloody-feud-and-

http://www.irsp.ie/Background/whoweare.html

https://fas.org/irp/world/para/inla.htm

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/imported/murder-sparks-new-inla-fears-28376011.html