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Like all other organisations calling themselves the IRA (see List Of IRAs ), the Provisionals refer to themselves in public announcements and internal discussions as Óglaigh Na HÉireann (literally "Volunteers of Ireland"), the official Irish Language title of the Irish Defence Forces (the Irish army). depicting the Hunger Strikes Of 1981 .]] ORIGINS The Provisional IRA has its ideological and organisational roots in the pre-1969 Irish Republican Army . This organisation was the descendant of the defeated faction in the Irish Civil War of 1922-23 when the original Irish Republican Army had split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty . The subsequent IRA was dedicated to the armed overthrow of both Northern Ireland and the Republic Of Ireland by force of arms and their replacement with an all-Ireland republic. The IRA split into two groups at its Special Army Convention in December 1969, over the issue of Abstentionism (whether to sit in, or "abstain" from the Dail or parliament of the Republic of Ireland) and over the question of how to respond to the escalating violence in Northern Ireland (see The Troubles ). In 1969, serious rioting had broken out in Northern Ireland and hundreds of Catholic homes were destroyed in Belfast by Loyalists . The IRA had not been armed or organised to defend the Catholic community, as it had done since the 1920s. The two groups that emerged from the split became known as the Official IRA (which espoused a Marxist analysis of Irish Partition ) and the Provisional IRA. The Official IRA did not want to get involved in what it considered to be divisive Sectarian violence, nor did it want to launch an armed campaign against Northern Ireland, citing the failure of the IRA's Border Campaign in the 1950s. They favoured building up a political base among the Working Class (Catholic and Protestant) north and south which would eventually undermine partition. This involved recognising and sitting in elected bodies and north and south of the border. The Provisionals, on the other hand, advocated a robust armed defence of Catholics in the north and an offensive campaign against Northern Ireland to end British rule there. They also denounced the " Communist " tendencies of the "Official" faction in favour of traditional Irish Republicanism and they refused to recognise the legitimacy of either Northern or southern Irish states. There are allegations that the early Provisional IRA got off the ground due to arms and funding from the Fianna Fail led Irish Government in 1969, however this was not found to be the case when investigated in the Arms Trial . The main figures in the early Provisional IRA were Seán Mac Stiofáin (who served as the organisation's first Chief Of Staff ), Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (the first president of Provisional Sinn Féin ), Dáithí Ó Conaill , and Joe Cahill . All served on the first Provisional IRA Army Council. The Provisional appellation deliberately echoed the "Provisional Government" Proclaimed during the 1916 Easter Rising . The Provisionals maintained a number of the principles of the pre-1969 IRA. It considered British rule in Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland to be illegitimate. Like the pre-1969 IRA, it believed that the IRA Army Council was the legitimate government of the all-island Irish Republic . This belief was based on a complicated series of perceived political inheritances which constructed a legal continuity from the Second Dáil . Most of these abstentionist principles were abandoned in 1986 , although Sinn Féin still refuses to take its seats in the British Parliament . As the violence in Northern Ireland steadily escalated, both the Official IRA and Provisional IRA espoused military means to pursue their goals. Unlike the Officials, however, who characterised their violence as purely "defensive" the Provisionals called for a more aggressive campaign against the Northern Ireland State . While the Officials were initially, for a short period, the larger organisation and enjoyed more support from the republican constituency, the Provisionals came to dominate, especially after the Official IRA declared an indefinite ceasefire in 1972 . The Provisionals inherited most of the existing IRA organisation in the north by 1971 and the more militant IRA members in the rest of Ireland. In addition they recruited many young nationalists from the north, who had not been involved in the IRA before. These people were known in republican parlance as "sixty niners" (having joined in 1969). Although the Provisional IRA had a political wing ( Provisional Sinn Féin , which split with Official Sinn Féin at the same time as the split in the IRA), the early Provisional IRA was extremely suspicious of political activity, arguing rather for the primacy of armed struggle. ORGANISATION The IRA is organised hierarchically. It refers to its ordinary members as volunteers (or ''óglaigh'' in Irish ). Up until the late 1970s, IRA volunteers were organised according to where they lived. Volunteers living in one area formed a Company , which in turn was part of a Battalion , which likewise made up Brigades . In the late 1970s, the geographical organisational principle was abandoned by the IRA in many areas in Northern Ireland owing to its inherent security vulnerability. In its place came smaller, tight-knit cells called Active Service Units, whose weapons were controlled by a Quartermaster under the direct control of the IRA leadership. The old "company" structures were used for tasks such as "policing" nationalist areas, intelligence gathering and hiding weapons. The exception to this reorganisation was the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade which retained its traditional hierarchy and brigade status and used relatively large numbers of volunteers in its actions. All levels of the IRA are entitled to send delegates to IRA General Army Conventions (GACs). The GAC is the IRA's supreme decision-making authority. Before 1969, GACs met regularly. Since 1970 they have become less frequent, owing to the difficulty in organising such a large gathering of what is an illegal organisation. The GAC in turn elects a 12-member IRA Executive , which in turn selects seven of its members to form the IRA Army Council. The seats vacated on the Executive are immediately refilled. For day-to-day purposes authority is vested in the Provisional Army Council (PAC) which, as well as directing policy and taking major tactical decisions, appoints a chief of staff from one of its number or, less commonly, from outside its ranks. The chief of staff then appoints an Adjutant General as well as a General Headquarters (GHQ) , which consists of a number of individual departments. These departments are:
At a regional level, the IRA is divided into a Northern Command , which operates in the area of Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic, and a Southern Command , which operates in the rest of Ireland. There are also organisational units in Britain and the United States. STRATEGY 1969-1998 "Escalation, escalation and escalation" In the early years of the Troubles , the Provisional IRA's strategy was to use as much force as possible to cause the collapse of the Northern Ireland administration and to inflict enough casualties on the British forces that the British government would be forced by public opinion to withdraw from Ireland. A policy described by Sean MacStiofain as, "escalation, escalation and escalation". This was modelled on the success of the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War Of Independence 1919-1922 and was articulated in slogans such "Victory 1972". However, this policy failed to take into account the strong Unionist commitment to remain within the United Kingdom. Previous IRA campaigns from the 1920s to the 1950s had avoided actions in urban centres of Northern Ireland to avoid provoking retaliatory attacks on the Catholic/Nationalist community there. The Provisional IRA determination to do this was one of the principle areas of disagreement between the Provisional and Official IRAs. The British government held secret talks with the PIRA leadership in 1972 to try and secure a ceasefire based on a compromise settlement within Northern Ireland. The PIRA agreed to a temporary ceasefire from June 26 to the July 9. In July 1972, Provisional leaders Seán Mac Stíofáin , Dáithí Ó Conaill , Ivor Bell , Seamus Twomey , Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness met a British delegation led by William Whitelaw . The IRA leaders refused to consider a peace settlement that did not include a commitment to British withdrawal, a retreat of the British Army to barracks and a release of republican prisoners. The British refused and the talks broke up (Taylor p139). Éire Nua The Provisional's ultimate goal in this period was the abolition of both the Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland states and their replacement with a new all-Ireland Federal Republic, with decentralised governments and parliaments for each of the four Irish historic provinces. This programme was known as Éire Nua - "New Ireland". The Éire Nua programme was discarded by the Provisionals in the early 1980s in favour of new Unitary all-Ireland Republic. By the mid 1970s, it was clear that the hopes of the PIRA leadership for a quick military victory were receding. In addition, the British military was equally unsure of when it would begin to see any substantial success against the IRA. Secret meetings between IRA leaders Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Billy McKee with British Secretary Of State For Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees secured an IRA ceasefire from February 1975 until January of the next year. The republicans believed that this was the start of a long term process of British withdrawal, however, it seems that Rees was trying to bring the Provisionals into peaceful politics without giving them any guarantees. Critics of the IRA leadership, most notably Gerry Adams , felt that the ceasefire was disastrous for the IRA, leading to infiltration by British informers, the arrest of many activists and a breakdown in IRA discipline - leading to sectarian killings (see Here ) and a feud with fellow republicans in the Official IRA . The ceasefire broke down in January 1976 (Taylor p156). The "Long War" Thereafter, the IRA, under the leadership of Adams and his supporters, evolved a new strategy termed the "Long War", which underpinned IRA strategy for the rest of the Troubles. It involved a re-organisation of the IRA into small cells, an acceptance that their campaign would last many years before being successful and an increased emphasis on political activity through the Sinn Féin party. A republican document of the early 1980s states, "Both Sinn Féin and the IRA play different but converging roles in the war of national liberation. The Irish Republican Army wages an armed campaign...Sinn Féin maintains the propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement" (O'Brien p128) The Green Book , The IRA's training manual, describes the methods of the "Long War" in these terms:
PIRA prisoners had political status removed from them after 1977. In response, over 500 prisoners refused to wash or wear prison clothes (see Dirty Protest and Blanket Protest . This activity culminated in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike , when 7 IRA (and 3 INLA ) members starved themselves to death in pursuit of political status. One hunger striker ( Bobby Sands ) and Anti H-Block activist Owen Carron were elected to the British Parliament and two other hunger strikers to the Irish Dáil . In addition, there were work stoppages and large demonstrations all over Ireland in sympathy with the hunger strikers. Over 100,000 people attended the funeral of Bobby Sands , the first hunger striker to die. After the success of IRA hunger strikers in mobilising support and winning elections on an Anti H-Block platform in 1981, republicans increasingly devoted time and resources to electoral politics, through the Sinn Féin party. Danny Morrison summed up this policy in a 1982 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (annual meeting) as the "Ballot Box in one hand and the Armalite in the other". (O'Brien p127) (See Armalite And Ballot Box Strategy ) "TUAS" - peace strategy In the 1980s, the PIRA made an attempt to escalate the conflict with the so called "Tet Offensive" (see Here ). When this did not prove successful, republican leaders increasingly looked for a political compromise to end the conflict. Gerry Adams entered talks with John Hume the SDLP (moderate nationalist) leader and secret talks were also conducted with British civil servants. Thereafter, Adams increasingly tried to disassociate Sinn Féin from the IRA, claiming they were separate organisations and refusing to comment on IRA actions. Within the Republican movement (the IRA and Sinn Féin), the new strategy was described by the acronym ''' TUAS ''' (meaning either "Tactical Use of Armed Struggle" or "Totally Unarmed Strategy") (Moloney p432). The PIRA ultimately called an indefinite ceasefire in 1994 on the understanding that Sinn Féin would be included in political talks for a settlement. When this did not happen, the IRA called off its ceasefire from November 1996 until July 1997, carrying out several bombing and shooting attacks. After its ceasefire was reinstated, Sinn Féin was admitted into the "Peace Process", which produced the Belfast Agreement of 1998. WEAPONRY AND OPERATIONS In the early days of The Troubles from around 1969-71, the Provisional IRA was very poorly armed, but starting in the early 1970s it procured large ammounts of modern weaponry from such sources as supporters in the USA , Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Al-Qaddafi (Taylor p156), arms dealers in Europe, America, the Middle East and elsewhere. In the first years of the conflict, the Provisionals' main activity was providing firepower to support nationalist rioters, and, defend nationalist areas against attack. The PIRA gained much of its support from these activities, as they were widely perceived within the nationalist community as being defenders of Irish Nationalist and Catholic people against aggression. However, from 1971-1994, the Provisionals launched a sustained offensive armed campaign that targeted the British Army, the RUC, UDR, and economic targets in Northern Ireland. The first half of the 1970s was the most intense period of the PIRA campaign. -obtained by the PIRA from the US in the early 1970s and an emotive symbol of its armed campaign.]] In addition, the IRA carried out many Sectarian killings such as the Kingsmill Massacre of 1976. Other instances of alleged sectarian attacks included killing RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment servicemen when they were off duty and the killing of people who worked in a civilian capacity with the RUC and British Army. Because these people were almost exclusively Protestant and unionist, these killings were also widely seen as a campaign of Sectarian assassination. The IRA was chiefly active in Northern Ireland, although it took its campaign to the Republic Of Ireland and England , and also carried out several attacks in the Netherlands and West Germany . The IRA also targeted certain British government officials, politicians, judges, senior Military and police officers and civilians in Great Britain , and in other areas such as West Germany , Canada , the Netherlands and Australia . A considerable number of British civlians were killed by IRA bombs during the conflict. It has been argued that this bombing campaign helped convince the British government (who had hoped to contain the conflict to Northern Ireland with its Ulsterisation policy) to negotiate with Sinn Fein after the IRA ceasefires of August 1994 and July 1997. Ceasefires and decommissioning of arms In August 1994, the Provisional IRA declared an indefinite ceasefire. Although this ceasefire temporarily broke down in 1995-96, it essentially marked the end of the full scale IRA campaign. From December 1995 until July 1997, the Provisional IRA called off its 1994 ceasefire because of its dissatisfaction with the state of negotiations. They re-instated the ceasefire in July 1997, it has been in operation since then (Moloney p472). The Provisional IRA decommissioned its arms in July-September 2005. Among the weaponry destroyed were: 1,000 rifles 3 tonnes of Semtex 20-30 heavy machine guns 7 Surface-to-air missiles (unused) 7 flame throwers 1,200 detonators 20 rocket-propelled grenade launchers 100 hand guns 100+ grenades | ||
| However According To Recent Reports, The British Intelligence Services Believe That Not All PIRA Arms Were Destroyed | "http://wwwbelfasttelegraphcouk/news/storyjspstory=678260" class="copylinks" target="_blank"> Belfast Telegraph 6th February 2006 |
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