32 County Sovereignty Movement
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32 County Sovereignty Movement
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| Chairperson | Francie Mackey |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Split from | Sinn Féin |
| Ideology |
Physical force Irish republicanism Irish nationalism Revolutionary Socialism |
| Website | |
| www |
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The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, often abbreviated to 32CSM or 32csm, is an Irish republican group that was founded by Bernadette Sands McKevitt. It does not contest elections but acts as a pressure group, with branches or cumainn organised throughout the traditional counties of Ireland.
The 32CSM has been described as the "political wing" of the Real IRA, but this is denied by both organisations. The group originated in a split from Sinn Féin over the Mitchell Principles.
The organisation was founded as the 32 County Sovereignty Committee on 7 December 1997 at a meeting of like-minded Irish republicans in Finglas in Dublin. Those present were opposed to the direction taken by Sinn Féin and other mainstream republican groups in the Northern Ireland 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.
Most of its founders had been members of Sinn Féin; some had been expelled from the party for challenging the leadership's direction, while 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, wife of Michael McKevitt and a sister of hunger striker Bobby Sands, was a prominent member of the group until a split in the organisation.
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