In 1963 Irish president Éamon de Valera had been scheduled to unveil a memorial at Cork city's republican plot in St. Finbarr's Cemetery on St Patrick's Day.
The night before the planned ceremony two veterans of the IRA's Border Campaign, Desmond Swanton and Gerry Madden, were killed and seriously injured in a botched attempt to blow up the memorial.
The dismissed members distributed leaflets declaring they were forming a new group; senior IRA figure Seán Mac Stíofáin responded by raiding the new organisation's premises.
Ideologically the IRF espoused Marxist-Leninism of "the Chinese variety" but interpreted to the Irish situation and was opposed to entryists within the IRA and revisionism.
However, Saor Éire as popularly known were actually a separate organisation based in Dublin formed from other dissident Republicans who had discussed merging with the IRF previously and by now were gaining notoriety for involvement in bank robberies.