of the decade, there was a growing popular, peaceful campaign for civil rights for Catholics. The Northern Ireland government accused the campaign of being a front for republicanism and communism, and indeed the IRA had infiltrated it from its foundation. Within a few years, the tension this created between the two sides had descended into violence, and the IRA attempted to position itself as the defenders of the Catholics. However, in 1969, the IRA split into two separate factions. These were the 'Provisional' and 'Official' groups. In 1972, the latter had called a ceasefire and embraced non-violent civil agitation, while the new Provisional IRA had intensified its armed campaign against British forces. Two years later, the Officials expelled Seamus Costello, its Operations Officer for what it termed "factional activity". Costello, dissatisfied with the leadership's group's rejection of armed struggle, proceeded to found a new organisation. This group, he intended, would fight the British as the Provisionals did, yet promote the Marxist politics of the Officials. The INLA, and its political wing, the IRSP, was founded on 8 December 1974 in the Spa Hotel in Lucan, Dublin. The Officials, comments the journalist Liam Clarke, made a "determined effort to strangle the breakaway INLA at birth". A bloody feud soon broke out between the groups in Belfast which killed six men. Costello had fought in the Border campaign in south County Londonderry "and his reputation still carried weight in the area; his new organisation had no difficulty in winning recruits from the Officials", suggest Holland and McDonald. By 1977, the area's almost entire Official IRA membership had joined them. Founder members included Jimmy Brown, Tom McCartan, Gino Gallagher, Dessie O'Hare, John "Jap" O'Reilly, Gerard "Sparky" Barkley and Gerard "Dr Death" Steenson, most of whom McGlinchey would fight with over the next decade. Early life Dominic McGlinchey was born in 1954, in the family home in Ballyscullion Road, Bellaghy, in rural south Londonderry. He was the third of eleven children in a staunchly republican family. His father owned a garage; some of his father's police customers would later die at McGlinchey's hands. His mother Monica was a devout Catholic. McGlinchey had seven brothers and four sisters. Educated at the local school, he was a bright child, although not outstandingly so, classmates later said. When he was 16 he began an apprenticeship in his father's garage. About this time he was joining the numerous