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The IRA

Finn, Daniel. One Man’s Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA. Verso, 2021. (introduction, page 2) 


The Green Book: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/organ/docs/coogan/coogan93.htm 
“Commitment to the Republican Movement is the firm belief that its struggle both military and political is morally justified, that war is morally justified and that the Army is the direct representative of the 1918 Dail Eireann Parliament, and that as such they are the legal and lawful government of the Irish Republic, which has the moral right to pass laws for, and to claim jurisdiction over the territory, air space, mineral resources, means of production, distribution and exchange and all of its people regardless of creed or loyalty.” 
-by Tim Pat Coogan, chapter 1, The Green Book of the IRA








THE IRISH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 

 

 
-The IRA in Kerry 1916-1921 [Sinead Joy]

Summary:
The Irish War of Independence began after the 1916 Easter Rising. The Easter Rising was carried out by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and members of the Irish Citizens Army. It was done to protest against British rule in Ireland.
At first, the Irish had planned to have a larger number of men attack the city. But a man called Sir Roger Casement was captured on the way back from Germany with guns and the Irish were outgunned by British forces. As a result, only about 1,250 men took part in the Rising. Out of these about 300 went into the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin led by Pádraig Pearse and James Connolly. Other groups took over different parts of the city, for example St. Stephen's Green, Shelbourne Hotel, Boland's Mills and Jacobs Factory. At first, the British put up no resistance because of the Easter public holiday, but soon more of them came into Dublin to fight the Irish.
The biggest fighting happened at Bolands Mills where Éamon de Valera had his men open fire on British soldiers called Sherwood Foresters while they landed in the city. The shootings here killed about 200 people and wounded several more. Sixteen of the Irish leaders were shot by firing squad after the Rising.
The British admitted that they lost 155 men to Irish gunfire and 200 were wounded. The Irish rebels lost at least 70 men and over 1,000 of them were wounded. At least 100 Irish citizens were killed in the crossfire as well. After the rising, Dublin was in very bad shape and several hundred people had been killed.

Over the duration of the war, 82 IRB members were killed including 16 who were executed.** These executions angered the Irish people and caused many people to become Republicans. Republicans lived mostly in the south of Ireland. Ulster was considered to be the most unionist part of Ireland. This was caused by the Ulster Plantations. The Unionists wanted to stay under control of the British Government.
In 1917 the IRB was renamed the IRA and in 1919, the fighting started. By 1921, the IRA had beaten the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Ireland had no police forces. In London, the British government began to debate about Ireland's rule. The war went on until 1922 when Irish Sinn Féin leaders and British MPs made a peace treaty (called the Anglo-Irish Treaty). This treaty created the Irish Free State this meant that Ireland was made its own independent country. The treaty gave all the same rights to the Irish government as that of the Canadian government
It handed power of 26 of the 32 counties to the Irish Government. The 6 counties that were kept by the British Government were all in Ulster (mostly Unionist) and now form Northern Ireland.
**: Note: the 16 who were killed are colloquially referred to as "The Leaders of 16". This slogan is referenced in the popular Irish Rebel song, "Come Out Ye Black and Tans" by The Wolfe Tones, with the lyric being "When the Leaders of 16 were executed"
THE ‘SPLIT’ 
The first split came after the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, with supporters of the Treaty forming the nucleus of the National Army of the newly created Irish Free State, while the anti-treaty forces continued to use the name Irish Republican Army. After the end of the Irish Civil War (1922–23), the IRA was around in one form or another for forty years, when it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA in 1969. The latter then had its own breakaways, namely the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, each claiming to be the true successor of the Army of the Irish Republic. 
The branches of the IRA (From Wikipedia):
●	The Irish Republican Army (1919–1922) (known as the "Old IRA") in later years, was recognized by the First Dáil as the legitimate army of the Irish Republic in April 1921 due to the fact that it had fought in the Irish War of Independence. On ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty by the Dáil, it split into pro-Treaty forces (the National Army, also known as the Government forces or the Regulars) and anti-Treaty forces (the Republicans, Irregulars or Executive forces) after the Treaty. These two forces went on to fight the Irish Civil War.
●	The Irish Republican Army (1922–1969), the anti-treaty IRA which fought and lost the civil war and thereafter refused to recognize either the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland, deeming both of them to be the creations of British imperialism. It existed in one form or another for over 40 years before it split in 1969.
●	The Official IRA (OIRA), the remainder of the IRA after the 1969 split from the Provisionals, was primarily Marxist in its political orientation. It is now inactive in a military sense, while its political wing, Official Sinn Féin, became the Workers' Party of Ireland.
●	The Provisional IRA (PIRA) broke from the OIRA in 1969 due to abstentionism and differing views on how to deal with the increasing violence in Northern Ireland. Although it opposed the OIRA's Marxism, it came to develop a left-wing orientation and it also increased its political activity.
●	The Continuity IRA (CIRA) broke from the PIRA in 1986, because the latter ended its policy on abstentionism (thus recognising the authority of the Republic of Ireland).
●	The Real IRA (RIRA), a 1997 breakaway from the PIRA consisting of members opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process.
●	In April 2011, former members of the Provisional IRA announced a resumption of hostilities, and that "they had now taken on the mantle of the mainstream IRA." They further claimed "We continue to do so under the name of the Irish Republican Army. We are the IRA." and insisted that they "were entirely separate from the Real IRA, Óglaigh na hÉireann (ONH), and the Continuity IRA." They claimed responsibility for the April assassination of PSNI constable Ronan Kerr as well as responsibility for other attacks that had previously been claimed by the Real IRA and ONH. 
●	The New IRA, which was formed as a merger between the Real IRA and other republican groups in 2012. (see Real IRA)

THE TROUBLES - PRESENT
In the 1930s, the leftist group achieved some success in overcoming the division between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. The refusal of IRA-Leadership, to cooperate with this course, led to a further division. Frank Ryan led a part of the Congress-group after Spain, where they were in the Spanish Civil War against General Francisco Franco.
The brutal police action against the Northern Ireland civil rights movement and the raids by loyalist paramilitaries in 1967 brought the IRA back on the map. At that time and until the end of the 80s, the Northern Irish Catholics were in a legal vacuum, and were vulnerable to the whims of the official British- supported nordir-Protestant police forces and paramilitary groups. Open violence, such as murder, torture, open prosecution, defamation and exclusion of qualified training and public offices, were the norm for years for the Northern Irish Catholics. The IRA obtained the support of large parts of the Catholic population, and were regarded as a "protecting power". A small percentage of Irish-Americans also supported the violence. 
In the 60s, there were differences between the military, the Provisional- oriented, and Marxist-theory oriented Officials. In 1969 the IRA further split into the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the "official" IRA (OIRA), the marxist-oriented group. The "official" wing of the IRA never formally dissolved, but since 1980 had become no longer relevant. Over the course of 80 years the leadership of the Provisional IRA changed. Key positions were shifted from the veterans of the south to younger activists from Northern Ireland.  Gerry Adams was the leader of Sinn Féin, the left-leaning party. In 1993 he, along  with the Social Democrats and John Hume, started talks to begin the peace process. 
In August 1994, the IRA ordered their first unilateral ceasefire, Despite the ceasefire, the IRA remained active without fighting.

(from wikipedia):
On 9 February 1996, less than two years after the declaration of the ceasefire, the IRA revoked it with the Docklands bombing in the Canary Wharf area of London, killing two people, injuring 39 others, and causing £85 million in damage to the city's financial centre. Sinn Féin blamed the failure of the ceasefire on the British Government's refusal to begin all-party negotiations until the IRA decommissioned its weapons.
The IRA reinstated their ceasefire in July 1997, as negotiations for the document that became known as the Good Friday Agreement began without Sinn Féin. In September of the same year Sinn Féin signed the Mitchell Principles and were admitted to the talks. The UVF was the first paramilitary grouping to split as a result of their ceasefire, spawning the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) in 1996. In December 1997, the INLA assassinated LVF leader Billy Wright, leading to a series of revenge killings by loyalist groups. A group split from the Provisional IRA and formed the Real IRA (RIRA). [179]
In August 1998, a Real IRA bomb in Omagh killed 29 civilians, the most by a single bomb during the Troubles. [119] This bombing discredited "dissident republicans" and their campaigns in the eyes of many who had previously supported the Provisionals' campaign. They became small groups with little influence, but still capable of violence. [180]
After the ceasefires, talks began between the main political parties in Northern Ireland to establish political agreement. These talks led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. This Agreement restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of "power-sharing". In 1999, an executive was formed consisting of the four main parties, including Sinn Féin. Other important changes included the reform of the RUC, renamed as the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which was required to recruit at least a 50% quota of Catholics for ten years, and the removal of Diplock courts under the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. [182]

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