During the 1981 hunger strike, Seamus Ruddy gave The Irish Times a couple of great leads for stories during that long, seemingly endless protest, contributing in a small way to a bountiful summer of exclusives for the Times‘ Belfast office (myself, Andy Pollak and Fionnuala O’Connor).
Seamus Ruddy, shot dead and ‘disappeared’ by the INLA. His remains were found at the weekend in a forest near Rouen, northern France
I was grateful for the stories but always found him to be a decent enough fellow to boot and for that reason alone I am glad that at long last his remains have been found.
He also struck me as one of the more politically astute characters in the IRSP/INLA and I wondered whether or for how long he would have stayed in that group. I was surprised to discover that he was still associated when he was ‘disappeared’ in 1985.
Looking at the matter from a distance, it seems that those who knew where he had been buried could have revealed the necessary details long before this, but for reasons that defy understanding kept silent, adding immeasurably to his family’s torment.
There was no doubt in my mind that in talking to The Irish Times in the summer of 1981, Ruddy was at least partly motivated by frustration at the behaviour of the Provos, with whom the INLA prisoners were sharing the protest, ostensibly as equals.
In practice Sinn Fein called the shots, excluding the IRSP/INLA at key moments from both information and decisions – and ultimately much of the subsequent narrative of the hunger strike, which is often portrayed as an exclusively IRA affair.
The bad feelings between them over the hunger strikes have persisted and most recently found expression in anger over Richard O’Rawe’s revelations that the Provos sabotaged an effort from the British side to end the protest in the run up to the death of Joe McDonnell. It seems all this happened behind the IRSP/INLA’s backs.
The discovery of Seamus Ruddy’s remains means that the number of ‘disappeared’ still to be found has dwindled to four: IRA intelligence officer, Joe Lynskey, the first to be hidden in a secret grave; Columba McVeigh and Capt Robert Nairac, both ‘disappeared by the IRA; and Lisa Dorrian, a Catholic girl ‘disappeared’ by Loyalists.
The full story of how and why Seamus Ruddy met his death has yet to be told but there’s no doubt that he was a victim of the collective madness, feuding and general barbarity that engulfed the INLA in the 1980’s (not that these were exactly refined individuals in the 1970’s either).
One day people will look back and wonder how on earth such things came to happen.
The Broken Elbow 
Thanks for your comments about Seamus Ruddy and I, like you, am so pleased for his family that his body has been found. I had met Seamus in the mid-1980’s and was present for the incident I wrote about on p. 159 of “Daughter of Derry: The Story of Brigid Sheils Makowski” http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/…/SKU…/Daughter-of-Derry.aspx
As Brigid related:
“I was one of 22 candidates running for the nine seats on the Shannon Town Commission. The day of the vote count, two members of the Special Branch came into the hall and attempted to arrest Seamus Ruddy, my official observer at the count. I was on the other side of the room when they propelled Seamus out of the building but I managed to reach them before he was put into their car. As we were told later by those watching out the window, it was a comical sight as I attempted to stop his arrest – I had hold of one of Seamus’s arms and the Special Branch person had the other and we both tried to pull Seamus in opposite directions. The Special Branch relented when I threatened to have the count called off because of their interference, but they let us know they would be waiting to arrest him when the count was finished.
“I took the fourth seat on the Commission; the other eight were taken by five Finna Fail candidates, two Fine Gael, and one Labour Party member. My first public act as a Shannon Town Commissioner was to help a wanted person escape the clutches of the law. Just before the count ended, I arranged for someone to be waiting with an automobile at a side entrance to the hall and we got Seamus out and away before the Special Branch knew what was happening.”
On p. 166 “Seamus Ruddy, who had been living and teaching English is Paris for about a year, disappeared in mysterious circumstances in April 1985 and is presumed to be dead.”