Ronnie Bunting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ronnie Bunting was an Irish republican and socialist activist in Northern Ireland. He became a member of the Official IRA in the early 1970s and was a founder member of the Irish National Liberation Army group from 1974. He was assassinated in 1980.

Bunting's father Ronald Bunting, had been a major in the British Army and Ronnie Bunting grew up in various military barracks around the world. He returned to Northern Ireland in his teens. Having completed his education, Bunting briefly became a teacher of history in Belfast, but from around 1971, he became a full time political and paramilitary activist. Unlike most Protestants in Northern Ireland, Bunting became a militant Irish republican. His father by contrast, was a committed loyalist, who organised armed stewards for demonstrations called by Ian Paisley - most famously at Burntollet, when his followers broke up a march of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association on January 1, 1969.

Bunting joined the Official IRA in around 1970 - being attracted to their left wing and secular interpretation of Irish republicanism and believing in the necessity of armed revolution to overthrow Northern Ireland. The other wing of the IRA - the Provisional IRA was more Catholic and nationalist in its outlook. At this time, the communal conflict known as the Troubles was beginning and the Official IRA were involved in shootings and bombings. Bunting was interned in 1971 and held in Long Kesh. He was one of only two Protestants interned out of 350 initial detainees. Bunting was released in 1973.

In 1974, Bunting followed Seamus Costello and other militants, who disagreed with the OIRA's ceasfire of 1972 into a new grouping, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Immediately, a violent feud broke out between the OIRA and the INLA that simmered until 1977. Seamus Costello was killed in this year by an OIRA gunman in Dublin. Bunting was hit in the neck by a rifle bullet while driving in Belfast. It is not clear whether the bullet was fired by the British Army, loyalists or rival republicans. In any case, Bunting and his family hid in Wales until 1978, when he returned to Belfast.

For the remaining two years of his life, Bunting was the military leader of the INLA. The grouping regularly attacked the British Army and RUC in Belfast. Bunting called in claims of responsibility to the media by the code name "Captain Green". The most notorious activity of Bunting's organisation at this time was the assassination of British politician Airey Neave in London in 1979.

In 1980 several gunmen entered Bunting's home in the Lower Falls area of Belfast and shot him, his wife Suzanne and another INLA man, Noel Lyttle. Suzanne Bunting survived, but the two men were killed. The attack was claimed by the Ulster Defence Association but the INLA claimed that the SAS were involved.

Bunting's father refused to let his son be buried with other dead INLA men and instead buried him in a family plot.