186-722: Manchester Regional Arena is a multipurpose stadium in Manchester , England , primarily used for athletics , football and rugby league . It was originally developed as the warm-up track for the 2002 Commonwealth Games held at the adjacent City of Manchester Stadium . It has hosted the AAA Championships and Paralympic World Cup , and was the reserve home ground of the Manchester City reserve team prior to moving to Ewen Fields in June 2010. It also served as
372-691: A Diplock court consisting of a single judge and no jury. The IRA rejected the authority of the courts in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and its standing orders did not allow volunteers on trial in a criminal court to enter a plea or recognise the authority of the court, doing so could lead to expulsion from the IRA. These orders were relaxed in 1976 due to sentences in the Republic of Ireland for IRA membership being increased from two years to seven years imprisonment. IRA prisoners in
558-528: A company as part of a battalion , which could be part of a brigade , such as the Belfast Brigade , Derry Brigade , South Armagh Brigade , and East Tyrone Brigade . In late 1973 the Belfast Brigade restructured, introducing clandestine cells named active service units , consisting of between four and ten members. Similar changes were made elsewhere in the IRA by 1977, moving away from
744-694: A fort named Mamucium in the year 79 to ensure that Roman interests in Deva Victrix ( Chester ) and Eboracum ( York ) were protected from the Brigantes. Central Manchester has been permanently settled since this time. A stabilised fragment of foundations of the final version of the Roman fort is visible in Castlefield . The Roman habitation of Manchester probably ended around the 3rd century; its civilian settlement appears to have been abandoned by
930-469: A front for the IRA and being involved in IRA gunrunning. The key IRA transatlantic gunrunning network was run by Irish immigrant and IRA veteran George Harrison , who estimated to have smuggled 2,000–2,500 weapons and approximately 1 million rounds of ammunition to Ireland. However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Harrison for IRA arms smuggling in June 1981, thereby blocking
1116-617: A local river goddess ). Both usages are preserved in Insular Celtic languages , such as mam meaning "breast" in Irish and "mother" in Welsh . The suffix -chester is from Old English ceaster ("Roman fortification", itself a loanword from Latin castra , "fort; fortified town"). The city is widely known as "the capital of the North". The Brigantes were
1302-590: A paramilitary group which killed three people in May 1966, two of them Catholic men. In January 1967 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was formed by a diverse group of people, including IRA members and liberal unionists . Civil rights marches by NICRA and a similar organisation, People's Democracy , protesting against discrimination were met by counter-protests and violent clashes with loyalists , including
1488-468: A seaport at Liverpool , the availability of waterpower from its rivers, and its nearby coal reserves. The name Manchester, though officially applied only to the metropolitan district within Greater Manchester, has been applied to other, wider divisions of land, particularly across much of the Greater Manchester county and urban area. The "Manchester City Zone", " Manchester post town " and
1674-593: A " private army ". The IRA saw the Irish War of Independence as a guerrilla war which accomplished some of its aims, with some remaining "unfinished business". An internal British Army document written by General Sir Mike Jackson and two other senior officers was released in 2007 under the Freedom of Information Act . It examined the British Army's 37 years of deployment in Northern Ireland, and described
1860-643: A " stalling tactic " by the British government. On 9 February 1996 a statement from the Army Council was delivered to the Irish national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann announcing the end of the ceasefire, and just over 90 minutes later the Docklands bombing killed two people and caused an estimated £100–150 million damage to some of London's more expensive commercial property . Three weeks later
2046-453: A "National Liberation Front" with radical left-wing groups, and a resolution to end abstentionism , which would allow participation in the British , Irish , and Northern Ireland parliaments. Traditional republicans refused to vote on the "National Liberation Front", and it was passed by twenty-nine votes to seven. The traditionalists argued strongly against the ending of abstentionism, and
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#17327730388452232-586: A 12-member Executive, which selected seven members, usually from within the Executive, to form the Army Council. Any vacancies on the Executive would then be filled by substitutes previously elected by the convention. For day-to-day purposes, authority was vested in the Army Council which, as well as directing policy and taking major tactical decisions, appointed a chief-of-staff from one of its number or, less often, from outside its ranks. The chief-of-staff would be assisted by an adjutant general as well as
2418-593: A British Army base in Germany. The IRA's first attack in Northern Ireland since the end of the ceasefire was not until October 1996, when the Thiepval barracks bombing killed a British soldier. In February 1997 an IRA sniper team killed Lance Bombadier Stephen Restorick, the last British soldier to be killed by the IRA. Following the May 1997 UK general election Major was replaced as prime minister by Tony Blair of
2604-405: A British delegation led by William Whitelaw . Mac Stíofáin made demands including British withdrawal, removal of the British Army from sensitive areas, and a release of republican prisoners and an amnesty for fugitives. The British refused and the talks broke up, and the IRA's ceasefire ended on 9 July. In late 1972 and early 1973 the IRA's leadership was being depleted by arrests on both sides of
2790-489: A General Headquarters (GHQ) staff, which consisted of a quartermaster general , and directors of finance, engineering, training, intelligence, publicity, operations, and security. GHQ's largest department, the quartermaster general's, accounted for approximately 20% of the IRA's personnel, and was responsible for acquiring weapons and smuggling them to Ireland where they would be hidden in arms dumps, and distributed them to IRA units as needed. The next most important department
2976-598: A bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena ; the bomb killed 23, including the attacker, and injured over 800. It was the deadliest terrorist attack and first suicide bombing in Britain since the 7 July 2005 London bombings . It caused worldwide condemnation and changed the UK's threat level to "critical" for the first time since 2007. Birmingham has historically been considered to be England or
3162-619: A change to the IRA's constitution in 1986. Before 1969 conventions met regularly, but owing to the difficulty in organising such a large gathering of an illegal organisation in secret, while the IRA's armed campaign was ongoing they were only held in September 1970, October 1986, and October or November 1996. After the 1997 ceasefire they were held more frequently, and are known to have been held in October 1997, May 1998, December 1998 or early 1999, and June 2002. The convention elected
3348-573: A large transport and distribution infrastructure: the canal system was extended, and Manchester became one end of the world's first intercity passenger railway—the Liverpool and Manchester Railway . Competition between the various forms of transport kept costs down. In 1878 the GPO (the forerunner of British Telecom ) provided its first telephones to a firm in Manchester. The Manchester Ship Canal
3534-404: A lasting peace without a public declaration by the British government of their intent to withdraw from Ireland. In August there was a gradual return to the armed campaign, and the truce effectively ended on 22 September when the IRA set off 22 bombs across Northern Ireland. The old guard leadership of Ó Brádaigh, Ó Conaill, and McKee were criticised by a younger generation of activists following
3720-575: A major escalation of the campaign in the late 1980s were cancelled after a ship carrying 150 tonnes of weapons donated by Libya was seized off the coast of France. The plans, modelled on the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War , relied on the element of surprise which was lost when the ship's captain informed French authorities of four earlier shipments of weapons, which allowed the British Army to deploy appropriate countermeasures . In 1987
3906-650: A member of the English Core Cities Group since its inception in 1995. The town of Manchester was granted a charter by Thomas Grelley in 1301 but lost its borough status in a court case of 1359. Until the 19th century local government was largely in the hands of manorial courts , the last of which was dissolved in 1846. From a very early time , the township of Manchester lay within the historic or ceremonial county boundaries of Lancashire . Pevsner wrote "That [neighbouring] Stretford and Salford are not administratively one with Manchester
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#17327730388454092-587: A notable place in the history of Marxism and left-wing politics; being the subject of Friedrich Engels ' work The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 ; Engels spent much of his life in and around Manchester, and when Karl Marx visited Manchester, they met at Chetham's Library. The economics books Marx was reading at the time can be seen in the library, as can the window seat where Marx and Engels would meet. The first Trades Union Congress
4278-587: A one-mile radius of Belfast city centre. Premature explosions were another cause of civilian deaths, such as the Remembrance Day bombing which killed eleven people including ten civilians, and the Shankill Road bombing which killed ten people including eight civilians. The IRA was responsible for more deaths than any other organisation during the Troubles. Two detailed studies of deaths in
4464-438: A part-time element of the British Army, in order to try to contain the conflict inside Northern Ireland and reduce the number of British soldiers recruited from outside of Northern Ireland being killed. Normalisation involved the ending of internment without trial and Special Category Status , the latter had been introduced in 1972 following a hunger strike led by McKee. Criminalisation was designed to alter public perception of
4650-494: A peaceful political path and is not engaged in criminal activity nor directing violence. He pointed out, however, that some of its members have engaged in criminal activity or violence for their own, individual ends. The statement was made in response to the killings of former Belfast IRA commanders Kevin McGuigan and Gerard Davison . McGuigan was shot dead in what was believed to be a revenge killing by former IRA members over
4836-442: A peak of 108 in 1853. Thereafter the number began to decline and Manchester was surpassed as the largest centre of cotton spinning by Bolton in the 1850s and Oldham in the 1860s. However, this period of decline coincided with the rise of the city as the financial centre of the region. Manchester continued to process cotton, and in 1913, 65% of the world's cotton was processed in the area. The First World War interrupted access to
5022-652: A population of 2,539,100 in 2004. In addition to Manchester itself, the LUZ includes the remainder of the county of Greater Manchester . The Manchester LUZ is the second largest within the United Kingdom, behind that of London. Religious beliefs, according to the 2021 census Since the 2001 census, the proportion of Christians in Manchester has fallen by 22 per cent from 62.4 per cent to 48.7 per cent in 2011. The proportion of those with no religious affiliation rose by 58.1 per cent from 16 per cent to 25.3 per cent, whilst
5208-587: A press conference was held at London's Downing Street by British prime minister John Major and the Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds . They delivered the Downing Street Declaration which conceded the right of Irish people to self-determination , but with separate referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In January 1994 The Army Council voted to reject the declaration, while Sinn Féin asked
5394-410: A professor at Queen's University Belfast , writes that while the IRA's adherence to socialist goals has varied according to time and place, radical ideas, specifically socialist ones, were a key part of IRA thinking. Former IRA volunteer Tommy McKearney states that while the IRA's goal was a socialist republic, there was no coherent analysis or understanding of socialism itself, other than an idea that
5580-461: A route from Manchester to the sea docks on the Mersey. The Bridgewater Canal , Britain's first wholly artificial waterway, was opened in 1761, bringing coal from mines at Worsley to central Manchester. The canal was extended to the Mersey at Runcorn by 1776. The combination of competition and improved efficiency halved the cost of coal and halved the transport cost of raw cotton. Manchester became
5766-524: A two-thirds majority vote of delegates required to change the policy. The delegates that walked out reconvened at another venue where Mac Stíofáin, Ó Brádaigh and Mulcahy from the "Provisional" Army Council were elected to the Caretaker Executive of "Provisional" Sinn Féin. Despite the declared support of that faction of Sinn Féin, the early Provisional IRA avoided political activity, instead relying on physical force republicanism . £100,000
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5952-541: A variety of handguns . As a result of black market arms deals and donations from sympathisers, the IRA obtained a large array of weapons such as surface-to-air missiles ; M60 machine guns ; ArmaLite AR-18 , FN FAL , AKM and M16 rifles ; DShK heavy machine guns; LPO-50 flamethrowers; and Barrett M90 sniper rifles. The IRA also used a variety of bombs during its armed campaign, such as car and truck bombs , time bombs , and booby traps , using explosives including ANFO and gelignite donated by IRA supporters in
6138-426: A variety of different firing mechanisms including delay timers, this combined with the disposable nature of the weapons allowed IRA volunteers to reduce the risk of being arrested at the scene. The IRA was mainly active in Northern Ireland, although it also attacked targets in England and mainland Europe, and limited activity also took place in the Republic of Ireland. The IRA's offensive campaign mainly targeted
6324-805: A week later the IRA struck again in London with an assassination attempt on Lieutenant General Steuart Pringle , the Commandant General Royal Marines . Attacks on military targets in England continued with the Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings in July 1982, which killed eleven soldiers and injured over fifty people including civilians. In October 1984 they carried out the Brighton hotel bombing , an assassination attempt on British prime minister Margaret Thatcher , whom they blamed for
6510-535: Is 35.0 miles (56.3 km) north-east of Liverpool and 35.0 miles (56.3 km) north-west of Sheffield , making the city the halfway point between the two. The city centre is on the east bank of the River Irwell , near its confluences with the Rivers Medlock and Irk , and is relatively low-lying, being between 35 and 42 metres (115 and 138 feet) above sea level. The River Mersey flows through
6696-450: Is 806.6 millimetres (31.76 in) compared to a UK average of 1,125.0 millimetres (44.29 in), and its mean rain days are 140.4 per annum, compared to the UK average of 154.4. Manchester has a relatively high humidity level, and this, along with abundant soft water, was one factor that led to advancement of the textile industry in the area. Snowfalls are not common in the city because of
6882-521: Is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester , England, which had an estimated population of 568,996 in 2022. It contributes to the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom as a part of Greater Manchester, which has a population of approximately 2.92 million. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and
7068-502: Is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building. Due to being already highly urban, the city contains limited portions of protected green-belt area within greenfield throughout the borough, with minimal development opportunities, at Clayton Vale , Heaton Park , Chorlton Water Park along with the Chorlton Ees & Ivy Green nature reserve and
7254-812: Is also contiguous with Salford and its borough but is separated from it by the River Irwell . This urban area is cut off by the M60 , also known as the Manchester Outer Ring Road , which runs in a circular around the city and these areas. It joins the M62 to the north-east and the M602 to the west, as well as the East Lancashire Road and A6 . The name Manchester originates from the Latin name Mamucium or its variant Mancunio and
7440-452: Is contiguous on all sides with several large settlements, except for a small section along its southern boundary with Cheshire . The M60 and M56 motorways pass through Northenden and Wythenshawe respectively in the south of Manchester. Heavy rail lines enter the city from all directions, the principal destination being Manchester Piccadilly station . Manchester experiences a temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ), like much of
7626-530: Is one of the most curious anomalies of England". A stroke of a baron's pen is said to have divorced Manchester and Salford, though it was not Salford that became separated from Manchester, it was Manchester, with its humbler line of lords, that was separated from Salford. It was this separation that resulted in Salford becoming the judicial seat of Salfordshire , which included the ancient parish of Manchester . Manchester later formed its own Poor Law Union using
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7812-402: Is recorded as within the hundred of Salford and held as tenant in chief by a Norman named Roger of Poitou , later being held by the family of Grelley, lord of the manor and residents of Manchester Castle until 1215 before a Manor House was built. By 1421 Thomas de la Warre founded and constructed a collegiate church for the parish , now Manchester Cathedral ; the domestic premises of
7998-424: Is the UK's largest city-centre shopping centre. Large city sections from the 1960s have been demolished, re-developed or modernised with the use of glass and steel. Old mills have been converted into apartments. Hulme has undergone extensive regeneration, with million-pound loft-house apartments being developed. The 47-storey, 554-foot (169 m) Beetham Tower was the tallest UK building outside of London and
8184-582: Is to help, enable and encourage ... Partition is an acknowledgement of reality, not an assertion of national self-interest. The IRA responded to Brooke's speech by declaring a three-day ceasefire over Christmas, the first in fifteen years. Afterwards the IRA intensified the bombing campaign in England, planting 36 bombs in 1991 and 57 in 1992, up from 15 in 1990. The Baltic Exchange bombing in April 1992 killed three people and caused an estimated £800 million worth of damage, £200 million more than
8370-578: The Birmingham pub bombings . Following an IRA ceasefire over the Christmas period in 1974 and a further one in January 1975, on 8 February the IRA issued a statement suspending "offensive military action" from six o'clock the following day. A series of meetings took place between the IRA's leadership and British government representatives throughout the year, with the IRA being led to believe this
8556-699: The Bridgewater Concert Hall , the Manchester Arena , and (in Salford) the rebranding of the port as Salford Quays . Two bids to host the Olympic Games were part of a process to raise the international profile of the city. Manchester has a history of attacks attributed to Irish Republicans, including the Manchester Martyrs of 1867, arson in 1920, a series of explosions in 1939, and two bombs in 1992. On Saturday 15 June 1996,
8742-487: The Christmas Blitz on the nights of 22/23 and 24 December 1940, when an estimated 474 tonnes (467 long tons) of high explosives plus over 37,000 incendiary bombs were dropped. A large part of the historic city centre was destroyed, including 165 warehouses, 200 business premises, and 150 offices. 376 were killed and 30,000 houses were damaged. Manchester Cathedral , Royal Exchange and Free Trade Hall were among
8928-676: The Civil War . Subsequently, while denying the legitimacy of the Free State, the surviving elements of the anti-Treaty IRA focused on overthrowing the Northern Ireland state and the achievement of a united Ireland , carrying out a bombing campaign in England in 1939 and 1940 , a campaign in Northern Ireland in the 1940s , and the Border campaign of 1956–1962 . Following the failure of the Border campaign, internal debate took place regarding
9114-672: The Government of Ireland Act 1920 , and following the implementation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922 Southern Ireland, renamed the Irish Free State , became a self-governing dominion while Northern Ireland chose to remain under home rule as part of the United Kingdom. The Treaty caused a split in the IRA, the pro-Treaty IRA were absorbed into the National Army , which defeated the anti-Treaty IRA in
9300-565: The Labour Party . The new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam , had announced prior to the election she would be willing to include Sinn Féin in multi-party talks without prior decommissioning of weapons within two months of an IRA ceasefire. After the IRA declared a new ceasefire in July 1997, Sinn Féin was admitted into multi-party talks, which produced the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998. One aim of
9486-646: The Middle Ages , Manchester remained a manorial township but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. Historically part of Lancashire , areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in
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#17327730388459672-512: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out the 1996 Manchester bombing , the detonation of a large bomb next to a department store in the city centre. The largest to be detonated on British soil, the bomb injured over 200 people, heavily damaged nearby buildings, and broke windows 1 ⁄ 2 mile (800 m) away. The cost of the immediate damage was initially estimated at £50 million, but this
9858-520: The Provos , was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland , facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland . It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles . It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army,
10044-924: The Ulster Protestant Volunteers , a paramilitary group led by Ian Paisley . Marches marking the Ulster Protestant celebration The Twelfth in July 1969 led to riots and violent clashes in Belfast , Derry and elsewhere. The following month a three-day riot began in the Catholic Bogside area of Derry, following a march by the Protestant Apprentice Boys of Derry . The Battle of the Bogside caused Catholics in Belfast to riot in solidarity with
10230-514: The Ulster Volunteer Force , the Red Hand Commando , the Ulster Defence Association , the Provisional IRA, and Irish National Liberation Army ." But, it added, "the leaderships of the main paramilitary groups [including the IRA's] are committed to peaceful means to achieve their political objectives." In the early days of the Troubles the IRA was poorly armed: in Derry in early 1972 the IRA's weaponry consisted of six M1 carbines , two Thompson submachine guns , one or two M1 Garand rifles, and
10416-401: The University of Manchester and Royal Northern College of Music in the 2011/2012 academic year. Of all households in Manchester, 0.23 per cent were Same-Sex Civil Partnership households, compared with an English national average of 0.16 per cent in 2011. The Manchester Larger Urban Zone , a Eurostat measure of the functional city-region approximated to local government districts, had
10602-508: The official minutes report the resolution passed by twenty-seven votes to twelve. Following the convention the traditionalists canvassed support throughout Ireland, with IRA director of intelligence Mac Stíofáin meeting the disaffected members of the IRA in Belfast. Shortly after, the traditionalists held a convention which elected a "Provisional" Army Council , composed of Mac Stíofáin, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh , Paddy Mulcahy, Sean Tracey, Leo Martin , Ó Conaill, and Cahill. The term provisional
10788-399: The urban warming effect but the West Pennine Moors to the north-west, South Pennines to the north-east and Peak District to the east receive more snow, which can close roads leading out of the city. They include the A62 via Oldham and Standedge , the A57 , Snake Pass , towards Sheffield , and the Pennine section of the M62 . The lowest temperature ever recorded in Manchester
10974-420: The " Manchester Congestion Charge " are all examples of this. For purposes of the Office for National Statistics , Manchester forms the most populous settlement within the Greater Manchester Urban Area , the United Kingdom's second-largest conurbation. There is a mix of high-density urban and suburban locations. The largest open space in the city, at around 260 hectares (642 acres), is Heaton Park . Manchester
11160-403: The "Police Commissioners". In 1853, Manchester was granted city status . In 1885, Bradford , Harpurhey , Rusholme and parts of Moss Side and Withington townships became part of the City of Manchester. In 1889, the city became a county borough , as did many larger Lancashire towns, and therefore not governed by Lancashire County Council . Between 1890 and 1933, more areas were added to
11346-514: The 1981 Irish hunger strike, when seven IRA and three Irish National Liberation Army members starved themselves to death in pursuit of political status. The hunger strike leader Bobby Sands and Anti H-Block activist Owen Carron were successively elected to the British House of Commons , and two other protesting prisoners were elected to Dáil Éireann. The electoral successes led to the IRA's armed campaign being pursued in parallel with increased electoral participation by Sinn Féin. This strategy
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#173277303884511532-429: The 1998 Good Friday Agreement , and in 2005 the IRA formally ended its armed campaign and decommissioned its weapons under the supervision of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning . Several splinter groups have been formed as a result of splits within the IRA, including the Continuity IRA , which is still active in the dissident Irish republican campaign , and the Real IRA . The original IRA
11718-625: The 2011 census. The city experienced the greatest percentage population growth outside London, with an increase of 19 per cent to over 500,000. Manchester's population is projected to reach 532,200 by 2021, an increase of 5.8 per cent from 2011. This represents a slower rate of growth than the previous decade. The Greater Manchester Built-up Area in 2011 had an estimated population of 2,553,400. In 2012 an estimated 2,702,200 people lived in Greater Manchester . An 6,547,000 people were estimated in 2012 to live within 30 miles (50 km) of Manchester and 11,694,000 within 50 miles (80 km). Between
11904-463: The 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating the Port of Manchester and linking the city to the Irish Sea , 36 miles (58 km) to the west. The city's fortune declined after the Second World War , owing to deindustrialisation, and the IRA bombing in 1996 led to extensive investment and regeneration. Following considerable redevelopment, Manchester
12090-404: The 32 county Irish republic, proclaimed at Easter 1916, established by the first Dáil Éireann in 1919, overthrown by force of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed six-county and twenty-six-county partition states ... We call on the Irish people at home and in exile for increased support towards defending our people in the North and the eventual achievement of
12276-444: The Army Council decided to adopt a three-stage strategy; defence of nationalist areas, followed by a combination of defence and retaliation, and finally launching a guerrilla campaign against the British Army. The Official IRA was opposed to such a campaign because they felt it would lead to sectarian conflict, which would defeat their strategy of uniting the workers from both sides of the sectarian divide. The Provisional IRA's strategy
12462-496: The Bogsiders and to try to prevent RUC reinforcements being sent to Derry, sparking retaliation by Protestant mobs. The subsequent arson attacks , damage to property and intimidation forced 1,505 Catholic families and 315 Protestant families to leave their homes in Belfast in the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 The riots resulted in 275 buildings being destroyed or requiring major repairs, 83.5% of them occupied by Catholics. A number of people were killed on both sides, some by
12648-574: The British Army (including the UDR) and the RUC, with British soldiers being the IRA's preferred target. Other targets included British government officials, politicians, establishment and judicial figures, and senior British Army and police officers. The bombing campaign principally targeted political, economic and military targets, and was described by counter-terrorism expert Andy Oppenheimer as "the biggest terrorist bombing campaign in history". Economic targets included shops, restaurants, hotels, railway stations and other public buildings. The IRA
12834-413: The British Army killed fourteen unarmed civilians during an anti-internment march. Due to the deteriorating security situation in Northern Ireland the British government suspended the Northern Ireland parliament and imposed direct rule in March 1972. The suspension of the Northern Ireland parliament was a key objective of the IRA, in order to directly involve the British government in Northern Ireland, as
13020-411: The British Isles, with warm summers and cold winters compared to other parts of the UK. Summer daytime temperatures regularly top 20 °C, quite often reaching 25 °C on sunny days during July and August in particular. In more recent years, temperatures have occasionally reached over 30 °C. There is regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year. The city's average annual rainfall
13206-424: The British and Irish governments issued a joint statement announcing multi-party talks would begin on 10 June, with Sinn Féin excluded unless the IRA called a new ceasefire. The IRA's campaign continued with the Manchester bombing on 15 June, which injured over 200 people and caused an estimated £400 million of damage to the city centre. Attacks were mostly in England apart from the Osnabrück mortar attack on
13392-421: The British government to clarify certain aspects of the declaration. The British government replied saying the declaration spoke for itself, and refused to meet with Sinn Féin unless the IRA called a ceasefire. On 31 August 1994 the IRA announced a "complete cessation of military operations" on the understanding that Sinn Féin would be included in political talks for a settlement. A new strategy known as "TUAS"
13578-438: The British security forces. The IRA's armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, killed over 1,700 people, including roughly 1,000 members of the British security forces and 500–644 civilians. The Provisional IRA declared a final ceasefire in July 1997, after which its political wing Sinn Féin was admitted into multi-party peace talks on the future of Northern Ireland. These resulted in
13764-541: The City of Manchester became a metropolitan district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester . That year, Ringway , the village where the Manchester Airport is located, was added to the city. In November 2014, it was announced that Greater Manchester would receive a new directly elected mayor. The mayor would have fiscal control over health, transport, housing and police in the area. Andy Burnham
13950-528: The IRA and British government began in October 1990, with Sinn Féin being given an advance copy of a planned speech by Brooke. The speech was given in London the following month, with Brooke stating that the British government would not give in to violence but offering significant political change if violence stopped, ending his statement by saying: The British government has no selfish, strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland: Our role
14136-404: The IRA as "a professional, dedicated, highly skilled and resilient force", while loyalist paramilitaries and other republican groups were described as "little more than a collection of gangsters". It is unclear how many people joined the IRA during the Troubles, as it did not keep detailed records of personnel. Journalists Eamonn Mallie and Patrick Bishop state roughly 8,000 people passed through
14322-478: The IRA before, but had been radicalised by the violence that broke out in 1969. These people became known as "sixty niners", having joined after 1969. The IRA adopted the phoenix as the symbol of the Irish republican rebirth in 1969, one of its slogans was "out of the ashes rose the Provisionals", representing the IRA's resurrection from the ashes of burnt-out Catholic areas of Belfast. In January 1970,
14508-554: The IRA began attacking British military targets in mainland Europe, beginning with the Rheindahlen bombing , which was followed by approximately twenty other gun and bomb attacks aimed at British Armed Forces personnel and bases between 1988 and 1990. By the late 1980s the Troubles were at a military and political stalemate, with the IRA able to prevent the British government imposing a settlement but unable to force their objective of Irish reunification. Sinn Féin president Adams
14694-521: The IRA to become involved in sectarian killings, as well a feud with the Official IRA in October and November 1975 that left eleven people dead. Following the end of the ceasefire, the British government introduced a new three-part strategy to deal with the Troubles; the parts became known as Ulsterisation , normalisation, and criminalisation. Ulsterisation involved increasing the role of the locally recruited RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR),
14880-619: The IRA via intermediaries continued, with the British government arguing the IRA would be more likely to achieve its objective through politics than continued violence. The talks progressed slowly due to continued IRA violence, including the Warrington bombing in March 1993 which killed two children and the Bishopsgate bombing a month later which killed one person and caused an estimated £1 billion worth of damage. In December 1993
15066-469: The IRA wanted the conflict to be seen as one between Ireland and Britain. In May 1972 the Official IRA called a ceasefire, leaving the Provisional IRA as the sole active republican paramilitary organisation. New recruits saw the Official IRA as existing for the purpose of defence in contrast to the Provisional IRA as existing for the purpose of attack, increased recruitment and defections from
15252-413: The IRA was responsible for 1,781 deaths, about 47% of the total conflict deaths. Of these, 944 (about 53%) were members of the British security forces, while 644 (about 36%) were civilians (including 61 former members of the security forces). The civilian figure also includes civilians employed by British security forces, politicians, members of the judiciary, and alleged criminals and informers . Most of
15438-633: The IRA's arms supply from America. This forced the IRA to focus on importing weaponry from its already-established networks in Europe and the Middle East. In addition, Irish American support for the Republican cause began to weaken in the mid-1970s and gradually diminished in the 1980s due to bad publicity surrounding IRA atrocities and NORAID. By 1998, only $ 3.6 million were raised in America for
15624-503: The IRA, as they provided the British with propaganda coups and affected recruitment and funding. Despite this IRA bombs continued to kill civilians, generally due to IRA mistakes and incompetence or errors in communication. These included the Donegall Street bombing which killed seven people including four civilians, and Bloody Friday , when nine people, five of them civilians, were killed when twenty-two bombs were planted in
15810-548: The IRA. Irish Americans (both Irish immigrants and natives of Irish descent) also donated weapons and money. The financial backbone of IRA support in the United States was the Irish Northern Aid Committee ( NORAID ), founded by Irish immigrant and IRA veteran Michael Flannery . NORAID officially raised money for the families of IRA prisoners but was strongly accused by opponents of being
15996-457: The IRA. As a result of escalating violence, internment without trial was introduced by the Northern Ireland government on 9 August 1971, with 342 suspects arrested in the first twenty-four hours. Despite loyalist violence also increasing, all of those arrested were republicans, including political activists not associated with the IRA and student civil rights leaders. The one-sided nature of internment united all Catholics in opposition to
16182-548: The Industrial Revolution brought wealth to the city, it also brought poverty and squalor to a large part of the population. Historian Simon Schama noted that "Manchester was the very best and the very worst taken to terrifying extremes, a new kind of city in the world; the chimneys of industrial suburbs greeting you with columns of smoke". An American visitor taken to Manchester's blackspots saw "wretched, defrauded, oppressed, crushed human nature, lying and bleeding fragments". The number of cotton mills in Manchester itself reached
16368-623: The Irish Republican cause, in which many historians and scholars agreed such an amount was too small to make an actual difference in the conflict. Irish Canadians , Irish Australians , and Irish New Zealanders were also active in supporting the Republican cause. More than A$ 20,000 were sent per year to the Provisionals from supporters in Australia by the 1990s. Canadian supporters did not just fundraise and import weapons, but also smuggled IRA and Sinn Féin members into
16554-418: The Irish border, with Mac Stíofáin, Ó Brádaigh and McGuinness all imprisoned for IRA membership. Due to the crisis the IRA bombed London in March 1973, as the Army Council believed bombs in England would have a greater impact on British public opinion. This was followed by an intense period of IRA activity in England that left forty-five people dead by the end of 1974, including twenty-one civilians killed in
16740-520: The Official IRA to the Provisional IRA led to the latter becoming the dominant organisation. On 22 June the IRA announced that a ceasefire would begin at midnight on 26 June, in anticipation of talks with the British government. Two days later Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill held a press conference in Dublin to announce the Éire Nua (New Ireland) policy, which advocated an all-Ireland federal republic, with devolved governments and parliaments for each of
16926-573: The Republic of Ireland and the plastic explosive Semtex donated by the Libyan government. The IRA's engineering department also manufactured a series of improvised mortars in the Republic of Ireland, which by the 1990s were built to a standard comparable to military models. The IRA's development of mortar tactics was a response to the heavy fortifications on RUC and British Army bases; as IRA mortars generally fired indirectly they were able to bypass some perimeter security measures. The mortars used
17112-501: The Republic of Ireland's police service, the Gardaí , have no evidence that the IRA's military structure remains operational or that the IRA is engaged in criminal activity. In August 2015, George Hamilton , the PSNI chief constable , stated that the IRA no longer exists as a paramilitary organisation. He added that some of its structure remains, but that the group is committed to following
17298-486: The South Armagh Brigade, which retained its traditional hierarchy and battalion structure. Only a handful of volunteers from the South Armagh Brigade were convicted of serious offences, and it had fewer arrests than any other area, meaning that the security forces struggled to recruit informers. Inactive Defunct The IRA's goal was an all-Ireland democratic socialist republic. Richard English ,
17484-601: The Tet Offensive could possibly be the key to victory against the British, pending on the arrival of weapons secured from Libya. However, this never came to pass, and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 brought a dogmatic commitment to socialism back into question, as possible socialist allies in Eastern Europe wilted away. In the years that followed, IRA prisoners began to look towards South African politics and
17670-514: The Troubles, with the IRA's biggest loss of life in a single incident being the Loughgall ambush in 1987, when eight volunteers attempting to bomb a police station were killed by the British Army's Special Air Service . All levels of the organisation were entitled to send delegates to General Army Conventions. The convention was the IRA's supreme decision-making authority, and was supposed to meet every two years, or every four years following
17856-511: The Troubles, from an insurgency requiring a military solution to a criminal problem requiring a law enforcement solution. As result of the withdrawal of Special Category Status, in September 1976 IRA prisoner Kieran Nugent began the blanket protest in the Maze Prison , when hundreds of prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms. In 1977 the IRA evolved a new strategy which they called the "Long War", which would remain their strategy for
18042-561: The Troubles, the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), and the book Lost Lives , differ slightly on the numbers killed by the IRA and the total number of conflict deaths. According to CAIN, the IRA was responsible for 1,705 deaths, about 48% of the total conflict deaths. Of these, 1,009 (about 59%) were members or former members of the British security forces, while 508 (about 29%) were civilians. According to Lost Lives ,
18228-558: The UK and the Republic of Ireland were granted conditional early release as part of the Good Friday Agreement. IRA members were often refused travel visas to enter the United States, due to previous criminal convictions or because the Immigration and Nationality Act bars the entry of people who are members of an organisation which advocates the overthrow of a government by force. American TV news broadcasts used
18414-477: The UK's second city, but in the 21st century claims to this unofficial title have also been made for Manchester. The City of Manchester is governed by the Manchester City Council . The Greater Manchester Combined Authority , with a directly elected mayor , has responsibilities for economic strategy and transport, amongst other areas, on a Greater Manchester-wide basis. Manchester has been
18600-707: The United States, which, unlike Canada, enacted a visa ban on such members on the basis of advocating violence since the early 1970s. Gearóid Ó Faoleán wrote that "[i]n 1972, inclement weather forced a light aeroplane to reroute to Shannon Airport from Farranfore in County Kerry , where IRA volunteers had been awaiting its arrival. The plane, piloted by a Canadian [IRA supporter], had flown from Libya with at least one cargo of arms that included RPG-7 rocket launchers" where IRA smuggled these weapons into safe houses for its armed campaign. In 1974, seven Canadian residents (six who were originally from Belfast) were arrested by
18786-529: The aftermath of the December 2004 Northern Bank robbery , the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell stated there could be no place in government in either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland for a party that supported or threatened the use of violence, possessed explosives or firearms, and was involved in criminality. At the beginning of February 2005, the IRA declared that it
18972-612: The age-old Irish republican struggle". The IRA is a proscribed organisation in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000 , and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland under the Offences Against the State Acts, where IRA volunteers are tried in the non-jury Special Criminal Court . A similar system was introduced in Northern Ireland by the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 , with
19158-496: The agreement was that all paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland fully disarm by May 2000. The IRA began decommissioning in a process that was monitored by Canadian General John de Chastelain 's Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), with some weapons being decommissioned on 23 October 2001 and 8 April 2002. The October 2001 decommissioning was the first time an Irish republican paramilitary organisation had voluntarily disposed of its arms. In October 2002
19344-525: The atom in 1917; Frederic C. Williams , Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill developed the world's first stored-program computer in 1948; and Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov first isolated graphene in 2004. Manchester has a large urban sprawl , which forms from the city centre into the other neighbouring authorities; these include The Four Heatons , Failsworth , Prestwich , Stretford , Sale , Droylsden , Old Trafford and Reddish . The city
19530-474: The beginning of July 2011 and end of June 2012 (mid-year estimate date), births exceeded deaths by 4,800. Migration (internal and international) and other changes accounted for a net increase of 3,100 people between July 2011 and June 2012. Compared with Greater Manchester and with England, Manchester has a younger population, with a particularly large 20–35 age group. There were 76,095 undergraduate and postgraduate students at Manchester Metropolitan University ,
19716-503: The bombing campaign would tie down British soldiers in static positions guarding potential targets, preventing their deployment in counter-insurgency operations. Loyalist paramilitaries, including the UVF, carried out campaigns aimed at thwarting the IRA's aspirations and maintaining the political union with Britain. Loyalist paramilitaries tended to target Catholics with no connection to the republican movement, seeking to undermine support for
19902-497: The buildings seriously damaged; restoration of the cathedral took 20 years. In total, 589 civilians were recorded to have died as result of enemy action within the Manchester County Borough. Cotton processing and trading continued to decline in peacetime, and the exchange closed in 1968. By 1963 the port of Manchester was the UK's third largest, and employed over 3,000 men, but the canal was unable to handle
20088-477: The ceasefire being declared. In March 1995 Mayhew set out three conditions for Sinn Féin being admitted to multi-party talks. Firstly the IRA had to be willing to agree to "disarm progressively", secondly a scheme for decommissioning had to be agreed, and finally some weapons had to be decommissioned prior to the talks beginning as a confidence building measure . The IRA responded with public statements in September calling decommissioning an "unreasonable demand" and
20274-407: The ceasefire if negotiations failed. The British government refused to admit Sinn Féin to multi-party talks before the IRA decommissioned its weapons , and a standoff began as the IRA refused to disarm before a final peace settlement had been agreed. The IRA regarded themselves as being undefeated and decommissioning as an act of surrender, and stated decommissioning had never been mentioned prior to
20460-404: The ceasefire, and their influence in the IRA slowly declined. The younger generation viewed the ceasefire as being disastrous for the IRA, causing the organisation irreparable damage and taking it close to being defeated. The Army Council was accused of falling into a trap that allowed the British breathing space and time to build up intelligence on the IRA, and McKee was criticised for allowing
20646-439: The citizens are still referred to as Mancunians ( / m æ n ˈ k juː n i ə n / ). These names are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name . The generally accepted etymology of this name is that it comes from Brittonic * mamm - (" breast ", in reference to a " breast-like hill "). However, more recent work suggests that it could come from * mamma ("mother", in reference to
20832-526: The city, which had been administered by Lancashire County Council, including former villages such as Burnage , Chorlton-cum-Hardy , Didsbury , Fallowfield , Levenshulme , Longsight , and Withington . In 1931, the Cheshire civil parishes of Baguley , Northenden and Northen Etchells from the south of the River Mersey were added. In 1974, by way of the Local Government Act 1972 ,
21018-455: The college house Chetham's School of Music and Chetham's Library . The library, which opened in 1653 and is still open to the public, is the oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom. Manchester is mentioned as having a market in 1282. Around the 14th century, Manchester received an influx of Flemish weavers, sometimes credited as the foundation of the region's textile industry. Manchester became an important centre for
21204-585: The deaths of the ten hunger strikers. The bombing killed five members of the Conservative Party attending a party conference including MP Anthony Berry , with Thatcher narrowly escaping death. A planned escalation of the England bombing campaign in 1985 was prevented when six IRA volunteers, including Martina Anderson and the Brighton bomber Patrick Magee , were arrested in Glasgow. Plans for
21390-755: The details would be worked out following an IRA victory. This was in contrast to the Official IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army, both of which adopted clearly defined Marxist positions. Similarly, the Northern Ireland left-wing politician Eamonn McCann has remarked that the Provisional IRA was considered a non-socialist IRA compared to the Official IRA. During the 1980s, the IRA's commitment to socialism became more solidified as IRA prisoners began to engage with works of political and Marxist theory by authors such as Frantz Fanon , Che Guevara , Antonio Gramsci , Ho-Chi Minh , and General Giap . Members felt that an Irish version of
21576-594: The devolved Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended by the British government and direct rule returned, in order to prevent a unionist walkout. This was partly triggered by Stormontgate —allegations that republican spies were operating within the Parliament Buildings and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) —and the IRA temporarily broke off contact with de Chastelain. However, further decommissioning took place on 21 October 2003. In
21762-475: The dominant marketplace for textiles produced in the surrounding towns. A commodities exchange , opened in 1729, and numerous large warehouses, aided commerce. In 1780, Richard Arkwright began construction of Manchester's first cotton mill. In the early 1800s, John Dalton formulated his atomic theory in Manchester. Manchester was one of the centres of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution . The great majority of cotton spinning took place in
21948-446: The end of the year there had been 153 explosions. The following year it was responsible for the vast majority of the 1,000 explosions that occurred in Northern Ireland. The strategic aim behind the bombings was to target businesses and commercial premises to deter investment and force the British government to pay compensation, increasing the financial cost of keeping Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. The IRA also believed that
22134-654: The example being set by the African National Congress . Many of the imprisoned IRA members saw parallels between their own struggle and that of Nelson Mandela and were encouraged by Mandela's use of compromise following his ascent to power in South Africa to consider compromise themselves. The Provisionals considered their campaign to be a continuation of events such as the Irish revolutionary period of 1916-1923, with IRA leader Ruairí Ó Brádaigh describing their campaign as "the current phase of
22320-679: The export markets. Cotton processing in other parts of the world increased, often on machines produced in Manchester. Manchester suffered greatly from the Great Depression and the underlying structural changes that began to supplant the old industries, including textile manufacture. Like most of the UK, the Manchester area was mobilised extensively during the Second World War . For example, casting and machining expertise at Beyer, Peacock & Company 's locomotive works in Gorton
22506-478: The failure to adequately defend Catholic areas. A compromise was agreed where McMillen stayed in command, but he was not to have any communication with the IRA's Dublin based leadership. The IRA split into "Provisional" and "Official" factions in December 1969, after an IRA convention was held in Boyle, County Roscommon , Republic of Ireland. The two main issues at the convention were a resolution to enter into
22692-542: The floodplain surrounding the River Mersey, as well as the southern area around Manchester Airport. The green belt was first drawn up in 1961. Historically the population of Manchester began to increase rapidly during the Victorian era , estimated at 354,930 for Manchester and 110,833 for Salford in 1865, and peaking at 766,311 in 1931. From then the population began to decrease rapidly, due to slum clearance and
22878-494: The four historic provinces of Ireland . This was designed to deal with the fears of unionists over a united Ireland, an Ulster parliament with a narrow Protestant majority would provide them with protection for their interests. The British government held secret talks with the republican leadership on 7 July, with Mac Stíofáin, Ó Conaill, Ivor Bell , Twomey, Gerry Adams , and Martin McGuinness flying to England to meet
23064-400: The full political, social, economic and cultural freedom of Ireland. The Irish republican political party Sinn Féin split along the same lines on 11 January 1970 in Dublin, when a third of the delegates walked out of the party's highest deliberative body, the ard fheis , in protest at the party leadership's attempt to force through the ending of abstentionism, despite its failure to achieve
23250-747: The future of the IRA. Chief-of-staff Cathal Goulding wanted the IRA to adopt a socialist agenda and become involved in politics, while traditional republicans such as Seán Mac Stíofáin wanted to increase recruitment and rebuild the IRA. Following partition, Northern Ireland became a de facto one-party state governed by the Ulster Unionist Party in the Parliament of Northern Ireland , in which Catholics were viewed as second-class citizens . Protestants were given preference in jobs and housing, and local government constituencies were gerrymandered in places such as Derry . Policing
23436-469: The government, and riots broke out in protest across Northern Ireland. Twenty-two people were killed in the next three days, including six civilians killed by the British Army as part of the Ballymurphy massacre on 9 August, and in Belfast 7,000 Catholics and 2,000 Protestants were forced from their homes by the rioting. The introduction of internment dramatically increased the level of violence. In
23622-527: The highest residential accommodation in Europe when completed in 2006. It was surpassed in 2018 by the 659-foot (201 m) South Tower of the Deansgate Square project, also in Manchester. In January 2007, the independent Casino Advisory Panel licensed Manchester to build the UK's only supercasino , but plans were abandoned in February 2008. On 22 May 2017, an Islamist terrorist carried out
23808-689: The home of the Manchester City Ladies' side until their move to the adjacent Academy Stadium in the Etihad Campus in 2014. With both Manchester City teams moving out of the ground by the beginning of 2015, their tenure was replaced by amateur rugby league side Manchester Rangers. Italics denote building under construction This article about an English sports venue is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Manchester Manchester ( / ˈ m æ n tʃ ɪ s t ər , - tʃ ɛ s -/ )
23994-486: The increased building of social housing overspill estates by Manchester City Council after the Second World War such as Hattersley and Langley . The 2012 mid-year estimate for the population of Manchester was 510,700. This was an increase of 7,900, or 1.6 per cent, since the 2011 estimate. Since 2001, the population has grown by 87,900, or 20.8 per cent, making Manchester the third fastest-growing area in
24180-456: The increasingly large container ships. Traffic declined, and the port closed in 1982. Heavy industry suffered a downturn from the 1960s and was greatly reduced under the economic policies followed by Margaret Thatcher 's government after 1979. Manchester lost 150,000 jobs in manufacturing between 1961 and 1983. Regeneration began in the late 1980s, with initiatives such as the Metrolink ,
24366-400: The larger conventional military organisational principle owing to its security vulnerability. The old structures were used for support activities such as policing nationalist areas, intelligence-gathering , and hiding weapons, while the bulk of attacks were carried out by active service units, using weapons controlled by the brigade's quartermaster . The exception to this reorganisation was
24552-429: The late 1980s the IRA had roughly 300 active volunteers and 450 more in support roles, while historian Richard English states in 1988 the IRA was believed to have no more than thirty experienced gunmen and bombers, with a further twenty volunteers with less experience and 500 more in support roles. Moloney estimates in October 1996 the IRA had between 600 and 700 active volunteers. Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi
24738-685: The local level, command of the "war-zone" was given to the Northern Command, which facilitated coordinated attacks across Northern Ireland and rapid alterations in tactics. Southern Command consisted of the Dublin Brigade and a number of smaller units in rural areas. Its main responsibilities were support activities for Northern Command, such as importation and storage of arms, providing safe houses , raising funds through robberies, and organising training camps . Another department attached to GHQ but separate from all other IRA structures
24924-469: The major Celtic tribe in what is now known as Northern England ; they had a stronghold in the locality at a sandstone outcrop on which Manchester Cathedral now stands, opposite the bank of the River Irwell . Their territory extended across the fertile lowland of what is now Salford and Stretford . Following the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century, General Agricola ordered the construction of
25110-644: The manufacture and trade of woollens and linen , and by about 1540, had expanded to become, in John Leland 's words, "The fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town of all Lancashire". The cathedral and Chetham's buildings are the only significant survivors of Leland's Manchester. During the English Civil War Manchester strongly favoured the Parliamentary interest. Although not long-lasting, Cromwell granted it
25296-512: The media that the IRA had not decommissioned all of its weaponry. In response to such claims, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) stated in its 10th report that the IRA had decommissioned all weaponry under its control. The report stated that if any weapons had been kept they would have been kept by individuals and against IRA orders. In February 2015, Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan stated that
25482-597: The mid-3rd century, although the fort may have supported a small garrison until the late 3rd or early 4th century. After the Roman withdrawal and Saxon conquest , the focus of settlement shifted to the confluence of the Irwell and Irk sometime before the arrival of the Normans after 1066. Much of the wider area was laid waste in the subsequent Harrying of the North . In the Domesday Book of 1086, Manchester
25668-474: The name "Manchester". In 1792, Commissioners – usually known as "Police Commissioners" – were established for the social improvement of Manchester. Manchester regained its borough status in 1838 and comprised the townships of Beswick , Cheetham Hill , Chorlton upon Medlock and Hulme . By 1846, with increasing population and greater industrialisation, the Borough Council had taken over the powers of
25854-427: The neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The city borders the boroughs of Trafford , Stockport , Tameside , Oldham , Rochdale , Bury and Salford . The history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort ( castra ) of Mamucium or Mancunium , established c. AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell . Throughout
26040-399: The police, and the British Army were deployed to Northern Ireland . The IRA had been poorly armed and failed to properly defend Catholic areas from Protestant attacks, which had been considered one of its roles since the 1920s. Veteran republicans were critical of Goulding and the IRA's Dublin leadership which, for political reasons, had refused to prepare for aggressive action in advance of
26226-583: The pre-1969 IRA, considering both British rule in Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland to be illegitimate, and the Army Council to be the provisional government of the all-island Irish Republic . This belief was based on a series of perceived political inheritances which constructed a legal continuity from the Second Dáil of 1921–1922. The IRA recruited many young nationalists from Northern Ireland who had not been involved in
26412-495: The process of disarmament as quickly as possible. The IRA invited two independent witnesses to view the secret disarmament work, Catholic priest Father Alec Reid and Protestant minister Reverend Harold Good . On 26 September 2005, the IICD announced that "the totality of the IRA's arsenal" had been decommissioned. Jane's Information Group estimated that the IRA weaponry decommissioned in September 2005 included: Having compared
26598-528: The propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement". The 1977 edition of the Green Book , an induction and training manual used by the IRA, describes the strategy of the "Long War" in these terms: The "Long War" saw the IRA's tactics move away from the large bombing campaigns of the early 1970s, in favour of more attacks on members of the security forces. The IRA's new multi-faceted strategy saw them begin to use armed propaganda , using
26784-552: The proportion of Muslims increased by 73.6 per cent from 9.1 per cent to 15.8 per cent. The size of the Jewish population in Greater Manchester is the largest in Britain outside London. Provisional IRA Ulster loyalist paramilitaries The Provisional Irish Republican Army ( Provisional IRA ), officially known as the Irish Republican Army ( IRA ; Irish : Óglaigh na hÉireann ) and informally known as
26970-474: The publicity gained from attacks such as the assassination of Lord Mountbatten and the Warrenpoint ambush to focus attention on the nationalist community's rejection of British rule. The IRA aimed to keep Northern Ireland unstable, which would frustrate the British objective of installing a power sharing government as a solution to the Troubles. The prison protest against criminalisation culminated in
27156-457: The ranks of the IRA in the first 20 years of its existence, many of them leaving after arrest, retirement or disillusionment. McGuinness, who held a variety of leadership positions, estimated a total membership of 10,000 over the course of the Troubles. The British Army estimates the IRA had 500 volunteers in July 1971, 130 in Derry and 340 in Belfast, journalist Ed Moloney states by the end of
27342-546: The remainder were loyalist or republican paramilitary members, including over 100 IRA members accidentally killed by their own bombs or shot for being security force agents or informers. Overall, the IRA was responsible for 87–90% of the total British security force deaths, and 27–30% of the total civilian deaths. During the IRA's campaign in England it was responsible for at least 488 incidents causing 2,134 injuries and 115 deaths, including 56 civilians and 42 British soldiers. Between 275 and 300 IRA members were killed during
27528-420: The rest of the Troubles. This strategy accepted that their campaign would last many years before being successful, and included increased emphasis on political activity through Sinn Féin. 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
27714-512: The rest of the world does tomorrow." Manchester's golden age was perhaps the last quarter of the 19th century. Many of the great public buildings (including Manchester Town Hall ) date from then. The city's cosmopolitan atmosphere contributed to a vibrant culture, which included the Hallé Orchestra . In 1889, when county councils were created in England, the municipal borough became a county borough with even greater autonomy. Although
27900-707: The right to elect its own MP . Charles Worsley , who sat for the city for only a year, was later appointed Major General for Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire during the Rule of the Major Generals . He was a diligent puritan , turning out ale houses and banning the celebration of Christmas; he died in 1656. Significant quantities of cotton began to be used after about 1600, firstly in linen and cotton fustians , but by around 1750 pure cotton fabrics were being produced and cotton had overtaken wool in importance. The Irwell and Mersey were made navigable by 1736, opening
28086-510: The seven months prior to internment 34 people had been killed, 140 people were killed between the introduction of internment and the end of the year, including thirty soldiers and eleven RUC officers. Internment boosted IRA recruitment, and in Dublin the Taoiseach , Jack Lynch , abandoned a planned idea to introduce internment in the Republic of Ireland. IRA recruitment further increased after Bloody Sunday in Derry on 30 January 1972, when
28272-495: The shooting death three months earlier of Davison. The Chief Constable stated there was no evidence that the killing of McGuigan was sanctioned by the IRA leadership. Also in response, the British government commissioned the Assessment on Paramilitary Groups in Northern Ireland . The assessment, concluded in October 2015, was that "all the main paramilitary groups operating during the Troubles are still in existence, including
28458-464: The sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence . It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland , both of whose authority it rejected. The Provisional IRA emerged in December 1969, due to a split within the previous incarnation of the IRA and the broader Irish republican movement . It
28644-475: The south of Manchester. Much of the inner city, especially in the south, is flat, offering extensive views from many highrise buildings in the city of the foothills and moors of the Pennines, which can often be capped with snow in the winter months. Manchester's geographic features were highly influential in its early development as the world's first industrial city. These features are its climate, its proximity to
28830-553: The terms "activists", "guerrillas", and "terrorists" to describe IRA members, while British TV news broadcasts commonly used the term "terrorists", particularly the BBC as part of its editorial guidelines published in 1989. Republicans reject the label of terrorism, instead describing the IRA's activity as war, military activity, armed struggle or armed resistance. The IRA prefer the terms freedom fighter , soldier, activist , or volunteer for its members. The IRA has also been described as
29016-469: The total damage caused by the Troubles in Northern Ireland up to that point. In December 1992 Patrick Mayhew , who had succeeded Brooke as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, gave a speech directed at the IRA in Coleraine , stating that while Irish reunification could be achieved by negotiation, the British government would not give in to violence. The secret talks between the British government and
29202-498: The towns of south Lancashire and north Cheshire, and Manchester was for a time the most productive centre of cotton processing. Manchester became known as the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods and was dubbed " Cottonopolis " and "Warehouse City" during the Victorian era . In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the term "manchester" is still used for household linen: sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc. The industrial revolution brought about huge change in Manchester and
29388-422: The violence. On 24 August a group including Joe Cahill , Seamus Twomey , Dáithí Ó Conaill , Billy McKee , and Jimmy Steele came together in Belfast and decided to remove the pro-Goulding Belfast leadership of Billy McMillen and Jim Sullivan and return to traditional militant republicanism. On 22 September Twomey, McKee, and Steele were among sixteen armed IRA men who confronted the Belfast leadership over
29574-413: The weapons decommissioned with the British and Irish security forces' estimates of the IRA's arsenal, and because of the IRA's full involvement in the process of decommissioning the weapons, the IICD concluded that all IRA weaponry had been decommissioned. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain , said he accepted the conclusion of the IICD. Since then, there have been occasional claims in
29760-549: The world. A centre of capitalism, Manchester was once the scene of bread and labour riots, as well as calls for greater political recognition by the city's working and non-titled classes. One such gathering ended with the Peterloo massacre of 16 August 1819. The economic school of Manchester Capitalism developed there, and Manchester was the centre of the Anti-Corn Law League from 1838 onward. Manchester has
29946-444: The year the IRA in Belfast had over 1,200 volunteers. After the late 1970s restructure, the British Army estimated the IRA had 500 full-time volunteers. A 1978 British Army report by Brigadier James Glover stated that the restructured IRA did not require the same number of volunteers as the early 1970s, and that a small number of volunteers could "maintain a disproportionate level of violence". Journalist Brendan O'Brien states by
30132-494: Was a supplier of arms to the IRA, donating two shipments of arms in the early 1970s, and another five in the mid-1980s. The final shipment in 1987 was intercepted by French authorities, but the prior four shipments included 1,200 AKM assault rifles , 26 DShK heavy machine guns , 40 general-purpose machine guns , 33 RPG-7 rocket launchers, 10 SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles, 10 LPO-50 flamethrowers, and over two tonnes of plastic explosive Semtex. He also gave $ 12 million in cash to
30318-686: Was aided by external sources, including Irish diaspora communities within the Anglosphere , and the Palestine Liberation Organization and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi . It used guerrilla tactics against the British Army and RUC in both rural and urban areas, and carried out a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and England against military, political and economic targets, and British military targets in mainland Europe. They also targeted civilian contractors to
30504-409: Was blamed for the Abercorn Restaurant bombing in March 1972, when a bomb exploded without warning killing two women and injuring many people. Due to negative publicity after the Abercorn bombing, the IRA introduced a system of telephoned coded warnings to try to avoid civilian casualties while still causing the intended damage to properties and the economy. Civilian deaths were counter-productive to
30690-459: Was built between 1888 and 1894, in some sections by canalisation of the Rivers Irwell and Mersey, running 36 miles (58 km) from Salford to Eastham Locks on the tidal Mersey. This enabled oceangoing ships to sail right into the Port of Manchester. On the canal's banks, just outside the borough, the world's first industrial estate was created at Trafford Park . Large quantities of machinery, including cotton processing plant, were exported around
30876-416: Was carried out by the armed Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the B-Specials , both of which were almost exclusively Protestant. In the mid-1960s tension between the Catholic and Protestant communities was increasing. In 1966 Ireland celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, prompting fears of a renewed IRA campaign. Feeling under threat, Protestants formed the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF),
31062-434: Was chosen to mirror the 1916 Provisional Government of the Irish Republic , and also to designate it as temporary pending ratification by a further IRA convention. Nine out of thirteen IRA units in Belfast sided with the "Provisional" Army Council in December 1969, roughly 120 activists and 500 supporters. The Provisional IRA issued their first public statement on 28 December 1969, stating: We declare our allegiance to
31248-408: Was donated by the Fianna Fáil -led Irish government in 1969 to the Central Citizens Defence Committee in Catholic areas, some of which ended up in the hands of the IRA. This resulted in the 1970 Arms Crisis where criminal charges were pursued against two former government ministers and others including John Kelly , an IRA volunteer from Belfast. The Provisional IRA maintained the principles of
31434-429: Was elected as the first mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017 . At 53°28′0″N 2°14′0″W / 53.46667°N 2.23333°W / 53.46667; -2.23333 , 160 miles (260 km) northwest of London, Manchester lies in a bowl-shaped land area bordered to the north and east by the Pennines , an upland chain that runs the length of northern England , and to the south by the Cheshire Plain . Manchester
31620-433: Was engineering, which manufactured improvised explosive devices and improvised mortars. Below GHQ, the IRA was divided into a Northern Command and a Southern Command. Northern Command operated in Northern Ireland as well as the border counties of Donegal , Leitrim , Cavan , Monaghan , and Louth , while Southern Command operated in the remainder of Ireland. In 1977, parallel to the introduction of cell structures at
31806-448: Was formed in 1913 as the Irish Volunteers , at a time when all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom . The Volunteers took part in the Easter Rising against British rule in 1916, and the War of Independence that followed the Declaration of Independence by the revolutionary parliament Dáil Éireann in 1919, during which they came to be known as the IRA. Ireland was partitioned into Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland by
31992-616: Was held in Manchester (at the Mechanics' Institute, David Street), from 2 to 6 June 1868. Manchester was an important cradle of the Labour Party and the Suffragette Movement. At that time, it seemed a place in which anything could happen—new industrial processes, new ways of thinking (the Manchester School , promoting free trade and laissez-faire ), new classes or groups in society, new religious sects, and new forms of labour organisation. It attracted educated visitors from all parts of Britain and Europe. A saying capturing this sense of innovation survives today: "What Manchester does today,
32178-455: Was in contact with Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and a delegation representing the Irish government, in order to find political alternatives to the IRA's campaign. As a result of the republican leadership appearing interested in peace, British policy shifted when Peter Brooke , the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland , began to engage with them hoping for a political settlement. Backchannel diplomacy between
32364-496: Was initially the minority faction in the split compared to the Official IRA but became the dominant faction by 1972. The Troubles had begun shortly before when a largely Catholic, nonviolent civil rights campaign was met with violence from both Ulster loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), culminating in the August 1969 riots and deployment of British soldiers . The IRA initially focused on defence of Catholic areas, but it began an offensive campaign in 1970 that
32550-399: Was key to the increase in Manchester's population. Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as people flocked to the city for work from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and other areas of England as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by the Industrial Revolution . It developed a wide range of industries, so that by 1835 "Manchester
32736-522: Was known as the "Armalite and ballot box strategy", named after Danny Morrison 's speech at the 1981 Sinn Féin ard fheis: Who here really believes that we can win the war through the ballot box? But will anyone here object if with a ballot paper in this hand and an Armalite in this hand we take power in Ireland? Attacks on high-profile political and military targets remained a priority for the IRA. The Chelsea Barracks bombing in London in October 1981 killed two civilians and injured twenty-three soldiers;
32922-455: Was quickly revised upwards. The final insurance payout was over £400 million; many affected businesses never recovered from the loss of trade. Spurred by the investment after the 1996 bombing and aided by the XVII Commonwealth Games , the city centre has undergone extensive regeneration. New and renovated complexes such as The Printworks and Corn Exchange have become popular shopping, eating and entertainment areas. Manchester Arndale
33108-471: Was revealed to the IRA's rank-and-file following the ceasefire, described as either "Tactical Use of Armed Struggle" to the Irish republican movement or "Totally Unarmed Strategy" to the broader Irish nationalist movement. The strategy involved a coalition including Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Irish government acting in concert to apply leverage to the British government, with the IRA's armed campaign starting and stopping as necessary, and an option to call off
33294-465: Was switched to bomb making; Dunlop's rubber works in Chorlton-on-Medlock made barrage balloons ; and just outside the city in Trafford Park , engineers Metropolitan-Vickers made Avro Manchester and Avro Lancaster bombers and Ford built the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines to power them. Manchester was thus the target of bombing by the Luftwaffe , and by late 1940 air raids were taking place against non-military targets. The biggest took place during
33480-414: Was the England department, responsible for the bombing campaign in England. The IRA referred to its ordinary members as volunteers (or óglaigh in Irish), to reflect the IRA being an irregular army which people were not forced to join and could leave at any time. Until the late 1970s, IRA volunteers were organised in units based on conventional military structures. Volunteers living in one area formed
33666-423: Was the host city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games . The city is notable for its architecture , culture , musical exports , media links , scientific and engineering output , social impact , sports clubs and transport connections . Manchester Liverpool Road railway station is the world's oldest surviving inter-city passenger railway station. At the University of Manchester , Ernest Rutherford first split
33852-416: Was the start of a process of British withdrawal. Occasional IRA violence occurred during the ceasefire, with bombs in Belfast, Derry, and South Armagh. The IRA was also involved in tit for tat sectarian killings of Protestant civilians, in retaliation for sectarian killings by loyalist paramilitaries. By July the Army Council was concerned at the progress of the talks, concluding there was no prospect of
34038-443: Was to use force to cause the collapse of the Northern Ireland government and to inflict such heavy casualties on the British Army that the British government would be forced by public opinion to withdraw from Ireland. Mac Stíofáin decided they would "escalate, escalate and escalate", in what the British Army would later describe as a "classic insurgency ". In October 1970 the IRA began a bombing campaign against economic targets; by
34224-496: Was withdrawing a decommissioning offer from late 2004. This followed a demand from the Democratic Unionist Party , under Paisley, insisting on photographic evidence of decommissioning. On 28 July 2005, the IRA, with a statement read to the media by Séanna Walsh , declared an end to the armed campaign, affirming that it would work to achieve its aims solely through peaceful political means and ordering volunteers to end all paramilitary activity. The IRA also stated it would complete
34410-426: Was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world". Engineering firms initially made machines for the cotton trade, but diversified into general manufacture. Similarly, the chemical industry started by producing bleaches and dyes, but expanded into other areas. Commerce was supported by financial service industries such as banking and insurance. Trade, and feeding the growing population, required
34596-462: Was −17.6 °C (0.3 °F) on 7 January 2010. The highest temperature recorded in Manchester is 38.0 °C (100.4 °F) on 19 July 2022, during the 2022 European Heatwave . Manchester lies at the centre of a green belt region extending into the wider surrounding counties. This reduces urban sprawl , prevents towns in the conurbation from further convergence, protects the identity of outlying communities, and preserves nearby countryside. It
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