History
The organisation was founded on 7 December 1997 at a meeting in Finglas in Dublin by republican activists who were opposed to the direction taken by Sinn Féin and other mainstream republican politicians in the peace process, which would lead to the Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement) the following year. The same division in the republican movement led to the paramilitary group now known as the Real IRA breaking away from the Provisional Irish Republican Army at around the same time. The 32 County Sovereignty Movement is often considered to be the ‘political wing’ of the Real IRA, although members reject the term. As of 2010 it has had no electoral success.
Most of its founders had been members of Sinn Féin; some had been expelled from the party and others felt they had not been properly able to air their concerns within Sinn Féin at the direction its leadership had taken. Bernadette Sands McKevitt, a sister of hunger striker Bobby Sands and wife of Michael McKevitt, was a prominent member of the group until a split in the organisation.
The name refers to the 32 counties of Ireland which were created by the Kingdom of Ireland and claimed by the Irish Republic declared in 1919. Due to the partition of Ireland in 1920-22, twenty-six of these counties formed the Irish Free State which became the Republic of Ireland, and the other six in what became Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom.
Before the referendums on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the 32CSM lodged a legal submission with the United Nations challenging British sovereignty in Ireland. The referendums were opposed by the 32CSM, but were supported by 71% of voters in Northern Ireland and by 94% in the Republic of Ireland.
In November 2005 the 32CSM launched a political initiative titled Irish Democracy, A Framework For Unity.
Read more about this topic: 32 County Sovereignty Movement
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