Anti-immigrant candidate Malachy Steenson slammed for tribute to left-wing republican

Steenson, who is running as an Independent in the local and European elections, laid a wreath at the spot where Jim Flynn was gunned down by an INLA gunman in Dublin’s North Strand in 1982.

The Crossmaglen native, who was director of operations of the Official IRA, was shot in the head, chest and abdomen as he left Cusack’s Pub in Dublin on June 4, 1982.

The INLA later claimed responsibility for the killing, saying it was a revenge attack for the murder of INLA man Seamus Costello in North Strand five years earlier.

“After careful investigation over a number of years, the INLA has established beyond doubt that Jim Flynn murdered Seamus Costello,” they said.

Steenson, who has been linked to various republican groups over the years and has a conviction from the Special Criminal Court, paid tribute to Flynn this week by laying a wreath at the spot where he was killed.

He laid the wreath on Friday, even though the anniversary of Jim Flynn’s death is actually on Tuesday.

“We’re here today on the June bank holiday Friday on the 42nd anniversary of the assassination of Jim Flynn, director of operations of the IRA who was assassinated at this spot,” he said.

“Jim, like many others before and after him, laid down their lives for the people of Ireland. We are not being asked to lay down our lives, we are simply being asked to lend our vote to nationalist and independent candidates on June 7th.”

Steenson was a member of the Workers’ Party, which had links to Official IRA, but he was kicked out a number of years ago.

A Workers’ Party spokesperson said yesterday that Steenson had previously been told not to visit Flynn’s grave in Crossmaglen.

“It is disgusting that Steenson would attempt to associate himself with the memory of Jim Flynn who died in conflict against the sectarian nationalism which he is spouting.

“Jim Flynn was a Marxist-Leninist and proud communist who had no time for narrow minded ethno-nationalism,” said the source.

“His surviving comrades in the Official IRA have been sickened by Steenson’s attempts to associate with his memory, including visits to his grave in Crossmaglen. These visits have ceased as Steenson has been informed he is not welcome.”

The spokesperson said Steenson stands against the radical views of Jim Flynn.

“For this reason, Steenson was expelled with dishonour from the Workers’ Party nearly 10 years ago by Jim Flynn’s closest comrade Sean Garland.

“The Workers’ Party will be contacting Steenson again to ask him to stop misusing the memory of a man who died for the cause of socialist-republicanism, not the views espoused by the political gadfly and Walter Mitty character that is Malachy Steenson.

“The voters of inner city Dublin beware, Steenson will espouse any cause to further himself in the limelight and financially.”

Flynn was director of operations of the Official IRA at the time of his death and one of his close associates in the organisation was Steenson’s father Leo, who was originally from Belfast and was with Flynn when he was shot outside Cusack’s pub but was uninjured.

Flynn had been based in Bristol in England in the mid-70s but was deported under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and was returned to Ireland where he was actively involved in Official IRA operations, including armed robberies.

He was a suspect in the murder of Irish INLA chief-of-staff Seamus Costello in North Strand in 1977.

Costello, from Wicklow, had been an IRA man dating back to the 1950s and stayed with the Official IRA after the split that established the Provisional IRA.

He was the Official IRA’s director of operations but was later expelled from the organisation and went on to found the INLA and its political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, in 1974.

Flynn was arrested and questioned by gardai twice over Costello’s murder but was never charged in relation to it.