The Irish Independence Party was a nationalistpolitical party in Northern Ireland, founded in October 1977 by Frank McManus and Fergus McAteer. The party was effectively a merger of Unity and the Nationalist Party, as the bulk of activists and councillors from the two movements joined IIP. However several independent councillors also joined the party. It was boosted in the late 1970s by the defection of a prominent Protestant Larne Social Democratic and Labour Party councillor, John Turnley, later the party chairman, who was killed in 1980 in Carnlough, County Antrim, by an attack claimed by the Ulster Defence Association. The party first came to prominence by standing four candidates in the 1979 UK general election. Its best result came in the Mid Ulster constituency where Patrick Fahy captured 12,055 votes, however the main effect was to split the Nationalist vote and prevent the SDLP from gaining the seat. The IIP continued to grow as it became involved in the campaign to support prisoners in the Maze prison who were "on the blanket" and later hunger strike. The IIP won 21 seats on councils in the local elections of 1981 as a result of its involvement with the campaign, although this support was fairly localised, with 17 of the 21 seats being won in just four councils: Fermanagh, Derry, Omagh and Newry & Mourne. However, for a short period of time it came to be accepted by some as a voice of Irish republicanism. The IIP boycotted the Assembly elections in October 1982, leavingthe field clear for Sinn Féin, who began standing candidates in elections in the early 1980s. As a result, the IIP lost republican support, for example in the first by-election in which Sinn Féin stood, in Omagh in 1983, the IIP were only able to poll 5% in a seat that they had held, while the Sinn Féin candidate took 60%. Meantime moderate nationalists had remained with the SDLP. The party remained active until at least 1985, when it had four councillors elected in local council elections, but appears to have been disbanded before the next local elections in 1989.
