Irish Left Archive

The Socialist Party is a name that has been used at different times by unrelated groups in Ireland, from the early 20th Century to the present, and from a number of strands of the left.

Here's a thread on the various Socialist Parties in Ireland

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The first Socialist Party of Ireland formed in the 1900s to continue James Connolly's Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP) after it collapsed. It briefly became the first Communist Party of Ireland in the 1920s, until the Comintern ordered its dissolution in favour of James Larkin's Irish Worker League.

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The next Socialist Party of Ireland was formed in Belfast and Dublin on 28th May 1949. It was associated with the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) and the World Socialist Movement, a Classical Marxist left movement. (Sometimes associated with impossibilism, though the SPGB reject the term).

The 1949 SPI later became the World Socialist Party.

Here's their manifesto: https://www.leftarchive.ie/document/419/

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In 1971 another Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI) was set up, with a number of former Official Sinn Féin members among the founders.

It identified strongly with the USSR, and was opposed to nationalism (forming part of the "Socialists Against Nationalism" campaign).

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In 1982 the SPI merged with Jim Kemmy's Limerick Socialist Organisation to form the Democratic Socialist Party.

Here are some documents from them in our collection: https://www.leftarchive.ie/organisation/251/

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