Thomas "Ta" Power

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Black and white cropped photograph of ta power
Thomas "Ta" Power

Thomas Power was an

Official IRA but transferred allegiance to the INLA in 1975 while a prisoner in Long Kesh,[3] along with 20 other men.[2]

Power was arrested on the word of the supergrass Harry Kirkpatrick.[4]

Power spent the longest period on

remand—nearly four and a half years—of any republican prisoner.[4] During this time he developed his political analysis of the IRSP/INLA situation, which he believed needed "fresh blood".[5]

Power, the ex-INLA

IPLO.[3]

Power had been out of prison a month when,[6] aged 33, he was shot and killed on 20 January 1987 while drinking tea[7] Rosnaree Hotel on the Dublin Road, outside Drogheda[8] in County Louth, Ireland, along with INLA leader John "Jap" O'Reilly.[9] They were there to negotiate a truce with the IPLO. Also with them was Peter Stuart and Hugh Torney, who was injured. The Irish People's Liberation Organisation, which was largely composed of former INLA members, claimed responsibility.[10] It is possible that Steenson was one of the killers—who both wore false beards[9]— although Torney believes otherwise.[11] O'Reilly died at the scene, Power in the ambulance later.[9]

Power was a

macho culture" within his movement. He wrote:[5]

We get no analysis, we get no strategy outside the basic [military] confrontation—it eventually becomes an end in itself simply due to the fact that they don’t know any other strategy.[14]

These ideas were adopted by the INLA just before Power's death and were finally implemented within the movement as a whole under the direction of Gino Gallagher.[13] Power, says the writer Andrew Sanders, was a "revered" figure in the INLA.[15]

Jack Holland and Henry McDonald posited that "[S]ubordinating military struggle to carefully thought-out political strategy had been Ta Power's dream for a long time. In the 1980s Sinn Féin and the IRA made that a reality with their ballot box and armalite policy. The provos learnt well from the lessons and mistakes of the IRSP/INLA".[16]

References

  1. ISBN 9781840185041
    .
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-14-102845-3
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-1-84223-438-9
    .
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-1-84631-743-9
    .
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-1-78663-691-1
    .
  6. ISBN 978-0-7493-0285-6
    .
  7. ISBN 9780717132980
    .
  8. ^ Profile, cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-1-912174-27-0
    .
  10. ^ INLA – Deadly Divisions by Jack Holland and Henry McDonald, Torc Publishing (1994)[ISBN missing]
  11. ^ McDonald, Henry; Holland, Jack (29 June 2016). I.N.L.A - Deadly Divisions. Poolbeg Press Ltd.
  12. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 17 April 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. ^ a b The Starry Plough, Jan/Feb 2006, "Gino Gallagher: Examining His Impact on the IRSP Ten Years On" by Gerry Ruddy, Belfast IRSP.
  14. ^ Finn 2019, p. 175.
  15. ISBN 978-0-7486-8812-8
    .
  16. ISBN 978-1-89814-2058
    .
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_%22Ta%22_Power&oldid=1097377829"