November 26th, 1955
Saor Uladh ( Irish for “Free Ulster”) was a short-lived Irish republican paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland in the 1950s
Seen as a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army, it was formed in County Tyrone by Liam Kelly and Phil O’Donnell in 1953. Kelly had been expelled from the IRA in October 1951 for carrying out an unauthorised raid in Derry, and took some of his colleagues with him into the new organisation. The new group carried out armed robberies.
Saor Uladh was involved in three high-profile attacks from 1955 to 1957. In 1955, they launched an attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Rosslea, County Fermanagh in which Volunteer Connie Green was fatally injured.
On 11 November 1956, Saor Uladh and members of a Dublin IRA splinter group destroyed six customs posts along the border in bomb attacks. In May 1957, the group blew up the Newry Canal lock with gelignite that they had stolen.
