About Us....
The Irish Republican Socialist Party was formed in 1974 by republicans, socialists and trade unionists who believed the class struggle and the Irish national question are one in the same.
Since then the IRSP has campaigned and agitated around the core issues of ending the British occupation in the North of Ireland, building socialism and opposing all foreign interference in the affairs of the Irish people.
We campaign in solidarity with other oppressed peoples from around the globe struggling for national liberation and socialism.
The IRSP rejects two-nationism and believing that there is only one nation in Ireland will campaign to convince the working class as a whole that it is in their political, economic and democratic interests to have it re-established with the removal of the border.
Current IRSP campaigns
Environment, Judiciary & Policing
Equality, Globalisation & Unionism
BRITISH WITHDRAWAL
Having specified the date for its total withdrawal from Ireland, Britain must immediately withdraw all troops to barracks, release all republican political prisoners, grant a general amnesty for all offences arising from the military campaign against British forces or through involvement in the civil disobedience campaign, abolish all repressive legislation, grant a Bill of Rights which will allow complete freedom of political action and outlaw all discrimination whether it be on the basis of class, creed, political opinion or sex. Britain must also agree to compensate the Irish people for the exploitation which has already occurred through reparations.
TRADE UNION MOVEMENT
The IRSP provides critical support for any measures which seek to alleviate poverty, discrimination and exploitation. Republican socialists have to learn how to work with union leaders and bureaucracy when they move in the right direction and how to combat them when they vacillate or sell out.
THE COMMUNITY MOVEMENT
The IRSP recognises the limitations of the community movement as one which opens the prospect of the state exploiting opportunities for control. On the other hand, involvement in community-based activities does present an opportunity to provide leadership and build local alliances. The IRSP seeks to build alliances with all social movements and views the coming together of the trade unions and community sector as desirable in the long-term interests of the Irish working class. To this end, the IRSP supports any attempts to unionise community.
SOCIALIST ECONOMICS
Socialism means the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange collectively by the entire working class, with an end to wage labour, an end to production for profit and its replacement by a system of production based on human need.
EUROPEAN UNION
The IRSP supports the demand for the greater strengthening of our nation’s independence and neutrality and note the problems associated with EU membership as inconsistent with the need for a socialist society. Consequently, the IRSP supports moves towards greater co-operation between European socialist political organisations and we call for a referendum on Ireland leaving the European Union.
ALL- IRELAND RAIL NETWORK
As a matter of urgency, the IRSP calls for the establishment of a national commission of enquiry to establish the most effective means of re-establishing the national rail network. Recognising the urgency of the environmental crisis, the IRSP calls for the establishment of a fully resourced programme of public works with statutory planning powers to acquire land to enable the re-establishing of the rail network throughout the island of Ireland.
what we believe in
NATIONAL LIBERATION & socialism
- Only the creation of a thirty-two-county Irish socialist republic can provide the means by which Irish national liberation can be realised; subsequently, there can be no socialism without national liberation in Ireland, nor can there be national liberation without socialism.
INTERNATIONALISM
- Socialist internationalism was best expressed in the resolution presented to the Second International at Stuttgart, supported by James Connolly in 1907. This asserted: ‘Wars between capitalist states are, as a rule, the outcome of their competition on the world market, for each state seeks not only to secure its existing markets, but also to conquer new ones. In this, the subjugation of foreign peoples and countries plays a prominent role. These wars result furthermore from the incessant race for armaments by militarism, one of the chief instruments of ruling-class rule and of the economic and political subjugation of the working class.’ The IRSP campaign in solidarity with other oppressed peoples from around the globe struggling for national liberation and socialism.
ON THE ISSUE OF ARMED STRUGGLE
- The IRSP state that there is no parliamentary road to socialism, because socialism cannot be forged by seizing the bourgeois state apparatus; nor is there a militarist road to socialism, because a social revolution requires the active participation of the masses; and therefore a socialist republic can only be established through the mass revolutionary action of the working class in the political, economic and social spheres. We do not agree with armed actions in the current climate, holding that they are counterproductive and act to prop up the structures of the failed sectarian set up. However the IRSP recognises the right of the Irish people to engage in whatever form of struggle it deems appropriate.
JAMES CONNOLLY
- It should be recognised that the IRSP stands in the tradition of the Irish revolutionary James Connolly and that the IRSP therefore is a revolutionary socialist organisation which believes that class conflict is the motivating force in human history in which the IRSP stands unreservedly and exclusively for the interests of the working class.
ELECTIONS
- The IRSP is not an abstentionist party and will decide its attitude towards the contesting of any particular election on the basis of a thorough analysis of the conditions prevailing at the time.