IRSP
Socialist Republic1980Republicanism and the IRAThe Southern state and its partiesInternment, repression and the courtsRepublicanism and the IRAThe Southern state and its partiesInternment, repression and the courts
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Last month the trial of three IRSP charged with the great train robbery, ended, After the longest trial in Irish legal history the three Oseur Breathnach, Brian McNally and Nicky Kelly were found guilty and sentenced to thirty three years penal servitude, all told, The only evidence against the three defendants was their own confessions, beaten out of them by the gardai.
The case, which lasted a total of 105 days, in Dublin's juryless Special Criminal Court was a crucial one for the gardi It was as long ago as April 1976 members of the IRSP were swooped on in one of he biggest police operations ever carried out in the South, It was from this time that there were widespread allegations of garda brutality. Despite the public reaction to the allegations and the promises by Fianna Fail that the matter would be fully investigated, the garda have survived, unscathed, The brutality allegations in the IRSP case were firmly backed-up by independent medical evidence, Nearly a dozen doctors, including prison medical officers, listed the injuries inflicted on the three defendants, Osgur Breathnach was so badly injured that the High Court ordered