Ronnie Bunting was a living example of the non-sectarian and universal appeal of Irish Republican Socialism. Ronnie was a Protestant and his father, Major Ronald Bunting, although at one time Gerry Fitt’s election agent, later became closely and publicly associated with Ian Paisley and the Far right-wing politics of Ulster Unionism. In spite of his father’s association with reactionary Loyalism, Ronnie Bunting became involved with the revolutionary socialist, Peoples Democracy group, while studying for a BA honours degree at Queens University Belfast. He eventually joined the Official IRA in 1970, who at that time were a leftist alternative to the narrow nationalism of the Provisionals. It must be remembered, that within the Official IRA, at that juncture, were the genus of what would later become the Irish Republican Socialist Movement. By this stage Ronnie Bunting’s revolutionary activism had come to the attentions of the RUC’s Special Branch and he was interned without trial in Long Kesh concentration camp from 1971 until 1973. At one stage he was the only Protestant internee in Long Kesh but for Ronnie Bunting and like minded comrades, denominational differences were irrelevant.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 03:07:17 +0000
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