The 32 County Sovereignty Movement (32CSM) is an Irish republican organisation founded in December 1997, initially as the 32 County Sovereignty Committee. It emerged from a split within the Provisional Republican Movement among those who opposed Sinn Féin’s endorsement of the Mitchell Principles and the broader direction of the peace process then leading toward the Good Friday Agreement. The movement takes its name from its core contention that sovereignty over the whole of Ireland, all thirty-two counties, resides with the Irish people as a national unit, and that no partitionist settlement can lawfully extinguish that claim. Founding figures included Bernadette Sands McKevitt and Michael McKevitt, among others drawn from the dissenting wing of the movement.
The 32CSM is best known for its sovereignty argument, which it submitted to the United Nations in an effort to challenge the legitimacy of British jurisdiction in the north on the grounds of international law. In public perception it became closely associated with the armed group commonly known as the Real IRA, which emerged from the same split, though the movement has consistently maintained that it is an independent political organisation and not the wing of any other body. That association, and in particular the fallout from the Omagh bombing of August 1998, heavily shaped its subsequent reception and standing.
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