It was boosted in the late 1970s by the defection of a prominent Protestant Larne Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) 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.
[2] The party first came to prominence by standing four candidates in the 1979 UK general election.
The IIP won 21 seats on councils in the local elections of 1981[3] 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.
[3] However, for a short period of time it came to be accepted by some as a voice of Irish republicanism (although a number of other groups had similar but smaller localised support, with both the People's Democracy and the Irish Republican Socialist Party securing two seats each in Belfast at the same election).
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%.