Patrick Campbell (INLA member)

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For other persons named Patrick Campbell, see Patrick Campbell (disambiguation).

Patrick Campbell (1977–1999) was a member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) who was murdered on 10 October 1999 by drug-dealers in Dublin, Ireland.

Campbell was born in New Barnsley in west Belfast in Northern Ireland but had moved to Dublin to work in the building industry. At some point, he joined the INLA, an Irish Republican paramilitary group. After his death, his parents said they were unaware that he had been involved in politics.

In the summer of 1999, the INLA became involved in a violent dispute with some criminals in west Dublin. The INLA claims that it was trying to halt the sale of anti-social drugs in the local working class community, although some media and police sources contended that the INLA was trying to either extort money from criminals or move into the drugs trade itself. Some reports claim that the businesses in an industrial estate appealed to the INLA for protection against a group of criminals.

On 6 October 1999, Campbell and two other INLA men imprisoned several criminals in a warehouse in Ballymount industrial estate Walkinstown with a shotgun and knives and tortured them. They were bundling the men into a van when several more criminals arrived and a scuffle ensued. Campbell was stabbed in the leg, severing an artery and died from loss of blood on 10 October. He was buried with full paramilitary ceremony in Milltown Cemetery in Belfast by the INLA who staged a show of force including a uniformed colour party. Over 1000 people attended his funeral. Campbell's funeral was one of the last high profile republican paramilitary funerals in Ireland to date. A man was charged with Campbell's murder but the charges were later dropped. Two INLA men were convicted for false imprisonment. In 2000 the INLA shot dead a man in Inchicore in Dublin, in retaliation, it is believed, for the death of Patrick Campbell. Several more shootings have since been attributed to the feud.