The Newry Purge

1916 Societies is a self-described "Irish separatist movement" founded in 2009. In a Facebook post on 24 June 2025, it announced that it was aware that members of one of its member branches, the Patrick Rankin Society, attended a rally in Newry organised by the Newry Says No group on the previous night. 1916 Societies announced that the Patrick Rankin Society was “stood down” pending on inquiry and disciplinary process. The post explained that attending these events went against their republican ethos and values.

After the completion of the process, it announced in a Facebook post on 27 June that the Patrick Rankin Society was being disbanded completely with immediate effect. I don’t know any details of this story beyond this but there are a few things that this incident as described tells us.

Cracks

First and foremost, it shows that Red republican groups are starting to feel the effects of the undeniable surge in popular nationalism. What is this surge and where does it come from? Southern "normies" have long been politically dormant. This was due to feeling generally comfortable in their lives and a belief that the liberal model was delivering for them. However, they now feel that the system is failing them in a big way and they are returning to old ideas out of necessity. They have experienced recessions but never what they feel now - something approaching existential angst. The key driver of that is the mass migration crisis. Consequently, the normies are going back to Irish history. They seek to wield and weaponise Irish history like all political movements here do. Their understanding of history is largely impressionistic - their "go-to" figure is Michael Collins - but this is understandable for normies. They wave the tricolour at rallies and invoke the spirit of 1916.

In doing this, they are stepping on the toes of Red republicans. For a long time, nationalism and republicanism were close, if not indistinguishable, partners. The golden age of popular republicanism from 1916 to 1921 is characterised by an effective synthesis of the two traditions. Then nationalism waned for a variety of reasons. There was the founding of the new state in 1922 and the Civil War. Later on, the economic reforms of Lemass in the early 1960s and the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s had a further suppressive effect on nationalism. The outcome was that "republicanism" became more weighted towards the left and the north as the 20th century closed out.

A leftist and internationalist tinge made sense during the Troubles, to the point that most people involved in the movement happily embraced the rhetoric. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh regarded himself as both a socialist and an internationalist. At a time when the movement was marginalised north and south, and accused by its enemies of sectarianism, claiming to be part of a righteous international anti-colonial movement was a no-brainer. This is especially so as it helped forge crucial alliances.

After the Troubles, this generalised "third worldist" rhetoric lingered on but largely seemed harmless. Non-Reds in the wider republican movement went along with it. It was still a movement about getting the British out of Ireland after all. What we now know is that to an influential core of true believers, it wasn't just rhetorical. They were fervent Red ideologues all along. They didn't just invoke internationalism in a tactical and opportunistic way to aid the cause; they truly believed in the international socialist nature of the Irish freedom struggle. If you are alarmed by mass migration and turn to supposed patriotic comrades, only to find them cheering on the literal internationalisation of Ireland, that is quite the wake-up call!

Southern "normies" were checked out of history for a long time. They didn't need it, they likely thought. The rising tide was lifting their boats. In this environment, Reds became used to idea that the republican brand and all its associated iconography was their exclusive intellectual property. They thought they owned the copyright on the Tricolour, Pearse, Connolly etc. A good legal analogy would be squatters' rights. They have squatted in the building for so long they think they own it. It's hard to stomach when the real owner comes home after years of being away.

And real owners they are - the "normies", those splendid plain people of Ireland - are the owners of Irish history. The inadequate Reds will never own it. Their internationalist anti-racist anti-fascism is of no utility or relevance to the ordinary people for whom the tide has gone out. Sensible rank and file members within the republican movement must clearly perceive this shift. Hence the incident in Newry.

Cracking the whip

The response of 1916 Societies is no less than one would expect of old school authoritarian communists - a purge.

We said that the Reds are true believers and the treatment of their own rank and file clearly shows it. Rather than taking the opportunity to pause and reflect, they wasted no time in disciplining their transgressive members. This is because of a religious-like belief in the theory that anti-fascism inheres in republicanism. There is a saying that you cannot fit practice into theory - apparently 1916 Societies haven't heard of it. Rational people revise their theories when red flags (no pun intended) appear. Such a flag would be your own people - presumably ordinary, decent and patriotic volunteers who you know and have worked with - feeling the need to go against your doctrine to express themselves.

Again, we are not talking about people attending an Orange march, a Remembrance Day event or a PSNI PR event. We do not know the full circumstances of the case, but we know enough to know that a reasonable enough expression of conscience on the part of ordinary volunteers was enough to get them the proverbial chop. In different times it might not be so proverbial.

As the Reds opt to amputate their own limbs over giving an inch to their own kind, ordinary decent republicans should take note. These ideologues cannot be reasoned with. They suffer from total ideological mystification to the point that they cannot see what is in front of their eyes. Their true enemy is now a phantom, and they are as likely to go to war against their own people as they are any foreigner or invader, British or otherwise. As the numbers opposing mass migration rise, whether at national rallies or localised IPAS protests, they may well be resigned to going to war against the entirety of the Irish people in the name of their ethos.