A history of the Irish Republican Army

History Of the Irish Republican Army

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of why the Irish Republican Army came into existence and how it has influenced Ireland's current political environment. This report will also attempt to determine if there will be a need for this organization in the future.

The acronym IRA first appeared during the battle of Lime Ridge on June 2, 1866. The Fenians were then organized in "IRA regiments." The Irish Republican Army (IRA) has its roots in Ireland's struggle for independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the early twentieth century. "At various times over the next 800 years Irish men and women resisted British rule and attempted to assert Irish independence. Between the years 1916 and 1921 Irish nationalists waged a combined political and military campaign against British occupation." It is important to differentiate between what is termed the "Old IRA" and the "Official IRA" from the Provisional IRA (PIRA), a splinter group which formed in the late 1960s in the wake of institutionalized anti-Catholic discrimination, riots and murders, mainly in Belfast and Derry.

There are several paramilitary groups which claim or have claimed the title Irish Republican Army (IRA) and advocate a unitary Irish state with no constitutional ties to the United Kingdom. But what is the Irish Republican Army? "The IRA is an organization dedicated to ending British rule in Northern Ireland and unifying the province with the neighboring Republic of Ireland." All claims descend from the original Irish Republican Army, the army of the Irish Republic declared by Dail eireann in 1919. Most Irish people dispute the claims of more recently created organizations that insist that they are the only legitimate descendants of the original IRA, often referred to as the "Old IRA." The Provisional IRA (PIRA), founded in 1969, is best known for paramilitary campaigns during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The term IRA is almost always now used to denote this particular group. "By the early 1970s, the emergence of a more formidable and politically aware republican movement, led by Joe Cahill, Seamus Twomey, Ruair' Bradaigh, and Daith' Connell on the political front, and up and coming young militarists like Cathal Goulding, Joe McCann, and Sean MacStiofain, created a split within the republican movement as to which direction they should go politically."

The Official IRA, the remainder of the IRA after the Provisional IRA seceded in 1969, now apparently inactive in the military sense. The reasons behind the split were the ending of violence for the IRA, and the ending of abstentionism for Sinn Fein. This issue, which also split the Provisionals in later years, is a highly emotive one in republican circles.

During the 1960s the republican movement, under the leadership of Cathal Goulding, was heavily influenced by the idea of the popular front and was close to Communist thinking. A key intermediary body was the Communist Party of Great Britain's organization for Irish exiles, the Connolly Society.

The sense that the IRA seemed to be drifting away from its republican roots into Marxism angered and distressed many republicans. Many in the Official IRA later called the Provisional IRA the "rosary brigade" because of their Catholic and romantic nationalist ideology. The Officials were known as the "Stickies" because they used stick-on orange lilies at parades to commemorate the Easter Rising. The Provisionals were known as "Pinheads" because they used pinned on lilies. The term Stickies stuck, though Pinheads disappeared. When the Provisionals, often called the "Provos," split from the Official IRA they took away a lot of experienced volunteers, which deprived the OIRA of some of the operational expertise and all but finished the OIRA as an effective paramilitary group. They bombed Aldershot, the headquarters of the Parachute Regiment, in revenge for Bloody Sunday, killing seven. After the unpopular killing of William Best, a Derry man home on leave from the British army, the OIRA issued a ceasefire. The group is now considered defunct. In December 1971, the Official IRA killed Ulster Unionist Party Senator John Barnhill at his home in Strabane. This was the first murder of a politician in Ireland since the 1920s.

The Real Irish Republican Army is a terrorist group founded before the signing of the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement by former members of the Provisional IRA opposed to the Provisional IRA's 1997 cease-fire and acquiescence in the accord. It originally attracted disaffected IRA members from the Republican stronghold of South Armagh and some members from Derry. Its first leader was Michael McKevitt, a former "quartermaster general" of the Provisional IRA, but he has since been imprisoned on charges of directing terrorism. Shortly after its formation, the Real IRA began attacks similar in nature to those conducted by the Provisional IRA prior to its ceasefire. However, it lacked a significant base, and was heavily infiltrated by informers, leading to a series of high profile arrests and seizures by British and Irish police in the first half of 1998. Despite this, the Real IRA succeeded in bombing Omagh town center on August 15, 1998, killing 29 people. This caused a major outcry in Ireland. Many of its members abandoned the organization, and British and Irish police co-operated on an unprecedented scale in an attempt to destroy the movement.

The Real IRA called a ceasefire in the winter of 1998, but this was broken after less than two years when the organization conducted a number of attacks on the island of Great Britain, including a taxi-bomb attack on the BBC Television Center in West London, and a rocket propelled grenade attack on the headquarters of MI6. Since then, it has become weaker and weaker. Infiltration has continued, and the movement has been unable to conduct a significant bomb attack. In the autumn of 2003, its imprisoned leaders called for an unconditional ceasefire, citing alleged misuse of funds and the futile nature of their resistance to the British presence in Ireland.

In recent times, the Real IRA has continued to be a thorn in the side of both the British and Irish authorities. December 2004 saw 15 firebomb attacks against premises in Belfast attributed to the breakaway faction. Many see this as a sign of growing support for the group, in light of failed attempts to rescue the Belfast peace accord. In 2005, Irish Minister for Justice Michael McDowell told the Dail that the organization had a maximum of about 150 members. The Real IRA is distinct from the Continuity IRA, another Provisional IRA splinter group founded in 1986. The 32 County Sovereignty Movement is perceived to be the political wing of the Real IRA. "The Real IRA was formed in 1997 by hard-liners who opposed the negotiations being pursued by the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, which culminated in the April 1998 Good Friday accord, a peace pact that renounced violence. By continuing terror activities, the Real IRA hoped to disrupt Northern Ireland's fragile peace process."

The Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA) is an Irish Republican military organization (the National Army of the 32-County Irish Republic) from which the Provisional IRA split in 1986. The Provos supported a motion to allow Volunteers support those who wished to take seats in the partition parliament of Leinster House, although a majority in the Executive had opposed it.

The majority on the Army Executive filled the vacancies as per the IRA Constitution, and reconstituted themselves as the Continuity Executive. In line with the Constitution of glaigh na heireann they then appointed the Continuity Army Council. The CIRA styles itself simply as the "Irish Republican Army" or glaigh na heireann.

Following the Provo ceasefire in 1994, the IRA became more active. The CIRA announced its intention to continue the struggle against British rule, well before the formation of the so-called "Real" IRA. The CIRA continues to oppose the Stormont Agreement and, unlike the Provisional IRA, as of 2005 the CIRA has not announced a ceasefire or agreed to participate in weapons decommissioning. On July 13, 2004, the U.S. government designated the CIRA as an Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), thereby making it illegal for Americans to provide material support to it, requiring U.S. financial institutions to block the group's assets, and denying alleged CIRA members visas into the U.S., although it no longer considers the IRA to be a terrorist group.

The CIRA claim to be the true inheritors of an Irish Republican tradition that includes the "Old" Irish Republican Army that fought the 1919-1921 War of Independence, and claims to have attained legitimacy as such in being recognized by Tom Maguire, the last surviving member of the Second Dail, as the modern incarnation of the old IRA, in what CIRA supporters perceive to be a kind of "apostolic" succession. However, these claims are no longer accepted by former Republicans. Suspected CIRA activities have included numerous bombings, assassinations and kidnappings, as well as extortion and robbery. Targets of the CIRA have included British military and locally recruited Crown Forces, as well as Loyalist death squads. It has also set off bombs in towns in the North of Ireland. The group is said to be the only military group in Ireland never to have yet killed or targeted a civilian. As of 2004, the CIRA is not believed to have an established presence or capability of launching attacks on the island of Great Britain. In 2004 the U.S. government believed the CIRA to consist of fewer than fifty fully active members. The U.S. government suspected the CIRA of receiving funds and arms from supporters in the United States. It is also believed that, in cooperation with the "Real" IRA, the CIRA may have acquired arms and material from the Balkans.

The Irish Republican Army first emerged as the army of the Irish Republic that had been declared at the Easter Rising of 1916 and affirmed by the First Dail in January 1919. It was an amalgamation of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army, which were formed before World War I and which had played a part in the Easter Rising. The Irish Defense Forces, the Official and Provisional IRA and the "Continuity" and "Real IRA" all lay claim to the title glaigh na heireann (in the Irish language, Irish Volunteers).

Michael Collins took an active role in reorganizing the IRA. Its formation and its subsequent development were inextricably intertwined and interrelated with the subsequent political history of the Irish Free State (which became the Republic of Ireland in 1937) and Northern Ireland and any consideration of the IRA therefore needs to be set firmly in context.

Michael Collins studied the tactics of the Russian Peoples' Will and the writings of earlier anarchists and terrorists. He used these items as an inspiration for strategy and launched a guerrilla war against the British. After obtaining a list of British and loyalist Irish police and intelligence officers, Collins sent IRA terrorists to their homes and killed them. He attacked police stations and symbols of British authority. A master of terrorist strategy, Collins continued a campaign of terror against unionists and the RJC.