IRSP activists in West Belfast, who are H-Block ex-POW’s, removed sectarian grafitti that had appeared prominently on a gable wall in the Lower Springfield community. The acronym “KAH” (which stands for ‘Kill All Huns”) was spray-painted alongside ‘INLA’ – possibly in an attempt to smear the good name of that organisation and link it to sectarianism.
The Lower Springfield is a community where many IRSP members and supporters live and many were angry about this attempt to portray the RSM as sectarian. Whoever spray-painted “KAH” certainly had no connection to, or understanding of, the proudly secular, non-sectarian ideology of Irish Republican Socialism.
Earlier in the week, IRSP activists with the help of young people from the area cleaned up a back alley in the Lower Springfield that had become an unofficial & unwanted dumping area for bagged and un-bagged refuse. A significant source of the fly-tipping are private lanlords, especially those who let out HMO’s (Houses of Multiple Occupancy) in the area & dump their previous tenants rubbish & discarded belongings in the alley. Among the items dumped in the alley were food waste, cans, bottles and even nappies (used!)
The alley, which had been previously compared to an ‘open air skip’ by residents of the Lower Springfield, is now 100% cleaner. The same alley had been a weekend hotspot for under age drinking, drug taking and anti-social behaviour until last year when local IRSP activists at the request of local residents began chaining an vulnerable security gate from Fridays to Sundays on a weekly basis.
Although many outside Belfast may not realise it, primarily due to the lack of local media coverage afforded to the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the party’s largely unheralded community work and advocacy on behalf of working-class people on a variety of issues, is ongoing on a daily basis by IRSP activists. In accordance with the party’s co-founder, Seamus Costello’s words, they remain as true today for the IRSP as they did 37 years ago,
“We owe our allegiance to the working class!”
