193-738: The East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), also known as the Tyrone/Monaghan Brigade was one of the most active republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland during " the Troubles ". It is believed to have drawn its membership from across the eastern side of County Tyrone as well as north County Monaghan and south County Londonderry . Dates highlighted in bold indicate three or more fatalities. In
386-691: 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
579-512: 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 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
772-528: 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
965-520: 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
1158-668: A mortar attack on British Army facilities in Osnabrück , Germany , on 28 June 1996. Her extradition from Northern Ireland was eventually denied in 2007 due to discrepancies in the claims against her. The commander of the brigade, Kevin McKenna, was appointed Chief of Staff of the IRA in 1983. He would be the longest-serving volunteer in this position, right up to the 1997 ceasefire. Provisional Irish Republican Army Ulster loyalist paramilitaries The Provisional Irish Republican Army ( Provisional IRA ), officially known as
1351-593: 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
1544-643: 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
1737-586: 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
1930-581: A 20 pounds (9.1 kg) device was uncovered by security forces in Pomeroy, and one man was arrested. The RUC claim that the machine gun stolen in Coalisland and other arms were recovered from a farmhouse near Cappagh on 29 May 1992. An IRA volunteer was arrested, while two other members of the IRA made good their escape. Nationalist politician Bernardette Devlin McAliskey suggested that the recovery of
2123-593: 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
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#17327798261662316-405: 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
2509-489: 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
2702-516: 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 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
2895-511: A brigade's active unit on the town's main street, and two constables were slain. A second IRA rifle team fired at a British Army Lynx helicopter sending in reinforcements to the area over the surroundings of Fivemiletown. All the IRA members involved withdrew successfully. On 21 February 1994, the brigade launched a mortar attack from a travelling van on the RUC barracks at Beragh . The base suffered "major structural damage", as well as most houses in
3088-619: 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
3281-488: A derelict house in Drumcairne Forest, near Stewartstown. The same source reported that a British helicopter, a military ambulance and ground troops arrived to the scene shortly after, and that local residents believed that two soldiers had been wounded. Press reports at the time say that an abandoned house on Castlefarm Road was shattered by an explosion and subsequent fire, but that there were no security forces in
3474-567: 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 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
3667-455: A heavy patrolled area to the firing point on Station Road and launched the shell by timer from a range of 70 yards (64 m). The British Army claimed that the mortar round exploded in a bog just outside the perimeter fence, while the IRA unit said that the bomb landed in the grounds of the barracks. No injuries were reported. On 15 July 1994, an armed dump truck ambushed an RUC armoured mobile patrol at Killeshil, near Dungannon . Incidentally,
3860-404: 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
4053-575: 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
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#17327798261664246-482: A military base near Omagh after returning from leave in England. This attack forced the British military to ferry their troops to and from East Tyrone by helicopter. On 30 August 1988, an SAS ambush killed IRA members Gerard Harte, Martin Harte and Brian Mullin as they tried to kill an off-duty Ulster Defence Regiment member near Carrickmore . According to author Nick Van der Bijl, British intelligence identified them as
4439-531: 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
4632-438: 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
4825-494: 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
5018-587: 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
5211-410: 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
5404-467: A republican commemoration of those killed in the ambush. This was in response to a complaint from Democratic Unionist Party Assemblyman William McCrea accusing the GAA of turning a blind eye to "republican terrorist" events in the last years. GAA Central Council official reply was that "The GAA has strict protocols and rules in place regarding the use of property for Political purposes. (...) The Association
5597-767: 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 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
5790-644: A scaled-down version of the strategy, aimed at hampering the repair and refurbishment of British security bases. Scottish-born journalist Kevin Toolis has written that from 1985 onward, the brigade led a five-year campaign that left 33 security facilities destroyed and nearly 100 seriously damaged. In July 1983, the East Tyrone Brigade carried out a landmine ambush on an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) mobile patrol near Ballygawley, killing three UDR soldiers (a fourth UDR soldier died later). In 1985 and 1986,
5983-567: A split within the previous incarnation of the IRA and the broader Irish republican movement . It 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
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6176-413: A tractor near the town's health center, was deflected by a tree besides the barracks wall. Several people was evacuated, and the bomb disposal squad struggled 10 hours to defuse the device. A later IRA statement acknowledges that the mortar bomb had "failed to detonate properly". On 19 January 1993 the brigade claimed that their volunteers uncovered and destroyed a British army observation post concealed in
6369-524: 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
6562-484: A van carrying 14 workers who had been re-building Lisanelly British Army base in Omagh. Eight were killed and the rest were badly wounded. The bombing was at Teebane Crossroads, near Cookstown. One of the workers killed, Robert Dunseath, was an off-duty Royal Irish Rangers soldier. Two of the wounded were also off-duty UDR soldiers. The IRA said that the workers were legitimate targets because they were " collaborating " with
6755-541: 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
6948-426: 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
7141-754: 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
7334-577: Is committed to a shared future based on tolerance for the different identities and cultural backgrounds of people who share this Community and this island." The SAS ambush had no noticeable long-term effect on the level of IRA activity in East Tyrone. The level of IRA activity in the area did not show any real decline in the aftermath: in the two years before the Loughgall ambush the IRA killed seven people in East Tyrone and North Armagh, and eleven in
7527-582: 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
7720-713: 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 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
7913-578: 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
Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade - Misplaced Pages Continue
8106-724: 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 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
8299-530: The Irish Republican Army ( IRA ; Irish : Óglaigh na hÉireann ) and informally known as 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
8492-469: The Irish border . On 6 June 1993, an IRA unit converted a stolen van in a "mobile mortar launcher" in the area of Pomeroy and slipped through British forces' surveillance to the RUC barracks at Carrickmore. According to the brigade report, the van, fitted with a Mark-15 mortar, was left besides a military sangar. The area was previously secured by a group of armed volunteers. The unit dispersed after setting on
8685-565: 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
8878-617: 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 the Ulster Protestant Volunteers , a paramilitary group led by Ian Paisley . Marches marking
9071-437: 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 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
9264-467: The Parachute Regiment was the leader of the IRA unit, citing intelligence sources. On 11 February 1990 the brigade managed to shoot down a British Army Gazelle helicopter near Clogher by machine gun fire and wounding three soldiers, one of them seriously. The helicopter was hit between Clogher and Augher , over the border near Derrygorry, across the border. The Gazelle broke up during
9457-579: The Republic of Ireland . He joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) in the early 1970s. In December 1973 he was badly injured in a premature bomb explosion, arrested, and spent five years in the Maze Prison . While imprisoned, he studied and became a great admirer of Mao Zedong . After his release from prison in 1979 Lynagh was elected as a Sinn Féin councillor for Monaghan Urban District Council, and held this position when he
9650-538: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for smuggling weapons to the IRA after "raids in St. Catharines , Tavistock and Toronto and at the U.S. border at Windsor ". Philip Kent, one of those arrested, was discovered in his car for having "fifteen FN rifles and a .50 calibre machine gun ". Jim Lynagh James 'Jim' Lynagh ( Irish : Séamus Ó Laighneach ; 13 April 1956 – 8 May 1987)
9843-716: The Secret History of the IRA , states that the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade lost 53 members killed in the Troubles, the highest of any rural Brigade area. Of these, 28 were killed between 1987 and 1992. A major IRA attack in County Tyrone took place on 20 August 1988, barely a year after Loughall, which ended in the deaths of eight soldiers when a British Army bus was destroyed by a bomb at Curr Road, near Ballygawley . The soldiers were being transported from RAF Aldergrove to
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#173277982616610036-851: 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
10229-410: The "Barrack Busters" twice. On 11 May 1993, an IRA militant pretending to be a motorist that had been asked to show his licence at the barracks left a van carrying a mortar outside the facilities. The device landed unexploded inside the complex, resulting in its evacuation. The facilities came under attack once again on 7 November, when a supporting team armed with automatic weapons secured the area around
10422-695: The "forces of occupation". As the men were all Protestants, many Protestants saw it as a sectarian attack. The UDA retaliated by shooting dead five Catholic male civilians inside a betting shop on the Ormeau Road, Belfast. IRA volunteers in Tyrone were the target of an assassination campaign carried out by the loyalist paramilitaries of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The UVF killed 40 people in East Tyrone between 1988 and 1994. Of these, most were Catholics civilians with no known paramilitary connections but six were Provisional Irish Republican Army members. When
10615-628: 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 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
10808-427: The 1980s, the IRA in East Tyrone and other areas close to the border, such as South Armagh , were following a Maoist military theory devised for Ireland by Jim Lynagh , a high-profile member of the IRA in East Tyrone (but a native of County Monaghan ). The theory involved creating "no-go zones" that the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) did not control and gradually expanding them. Lynagh's strategy
11001-577: 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
11194-456: 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
11387-444: 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
11580-406: The Belfast leadership over 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
11773-574: 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
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#173277982616611966-413: 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
12159-424: 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
12352-421: 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"
12545-435: The British security forces from east Tyrone involved destroying isolated rural police stations and then intimidating or killing any building contractors who were employed to rebuild them. Lynagh's plans met strong criticism from senior brigade member Kevin McKenna , who regarded the strategy as "too impractical, too ambitious, and not sustainable" according to journalist Ed Moloney . The IRA Northern Command , however, approved
12738-409: The East Tyrone Brigade carried out two attacks on RUC bases in their operational area, described by author Mark Urban as "spectaculars". The first was an assault on Ballygawley base in December 1985. Two RUC officers were shot dead and the base was raked with gunfire before being destroyed by a bomb. The second was an attack on the part-time base at The Birches , County Armagh, in August 1986. The base
12931-405: The East Tyrone Brigade to study their pattern and carry out a deadly ambush in December 1993. Another IRA bomb attack on 12 May 1992, against British troops on patrol near Cappagh, in which a paratrooper lost both legs, triggered a series of clashes on that date between soldiers and local residents in the staunchly republican town of Coalisland , on 12 and 17 May 1992. The 12 May riots ended with
13124-406: The East Tyrone Brigade. Sources claim that the IRA leadership stood down the unit responsible. There were a number of actions carried out by the IRA in the eastern part of Tyrone from 1996 up to the latest IRA ceasefire of July 1997: Róisín McAliskey , daughter of political activist Bernadette McAliskey and suspected IRA member from Coalisland was accused by German authorities of being involved in
13317-455: 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
13510-404: 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
13703-417: 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,
13896-554: 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
14089-481: The IRA men thwarted an ambush and at least two SAS members were killed. A second shooting took place in the village of Pomeroy on 28 June, this time against British regular troops. One soldier was seriously wounded. On 5 September 1990, an "engineering" IRA unit from the Tyrone Brigade, supported by armed militants, planted a massive car bomb outside the RUC barracks at Loughgall. A warning was delivered, and
14282-560: The IRA responded by killing a retired UDR member, Leslie Dallas, and two elderly Protestants, Austin Nelson and Ernest Rankin at Coagh, on 7 March 1989, the UVF shot dead three IRA members and a Catholic civilian in a pub in Cappagh on 3 March 1991 . The main target, Brian Arthurs, escaped injury. The IRA alleged that Dallas was a senior UVF member but this was denied by his family, the police, and
14475-521: 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),
14668-561: The IRA used an AK-74 rifle in the Pomeroy ambush. IRA volunteers from the Tyrone Brigade also carried out attacks with automatic weapons on the RUC barracks at Dungannon, on 21 June 1992 and on the British Army base at Omagh, on 7 December 1992. The brigade was the first to use the Mark-15 Barrack-Buster mortar in an attack on 7 December 1992 against the RUC station in Ballygawley. The heavy mortar round, fired from
14861-619: 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
15054-404: 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
15247-419: The IRA was a Mark-15 mortar bomb, prompted the evacuation of a nearby housing state. Other operations against security facilities in this period included a sniper and small arms attack on the British Army base of Killymeal, Dungannon, on 22 May 1993; the brigade claimed a subsequent exchange of fire between IRA volunteers in supporting role and British soldiers crewing an observation post. RUC sources denied that
15440-413: 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
15633-633: 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
15826-503: 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
16019-548: 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
16212-457: 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
16405-530: 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 was carried out by
16598-684: 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
16791-418: 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
16984-520: 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
17177-547: The RUC base in Caledon , which was also hit by gunfire in the second attack, and the RUC compounds at Dungannon, Fintona , Carrickmore, and Pomeroy. A brigade statement claims that late on the evening of 26 April 1993, a "variation" of the Mark-15 was fired at a British Army position on an open field near the river Fury, a few miles east of Clogher. According to them, the explosion was heard from Augher to Fivemiletown, and there
17370-489: The RUC vehicle was carrying in custody Pat Treanor, a Sinn Féin councillor from Clones , a border town in County Monaghan , Republic of Ireland. The RUC patrol returned fire. Three constables and Treanor were wounded, as well as a passing-by elderly female motorist whose car was hit by the RUC vehicle. The IRA unit managed to get away unscathed. There were also a number of roadside bomb and mortar attacks thwarted by
17563-573: 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
17756-501: 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
17949-604: The Royal Ulster Constabulary. He was arrested and interrogated many times by the Garda Síochána in County Monaghan but was never charged. During this period he devised a Maoist military strategy, aimed at escalating the war against the British state in Northern Ireland . The plan envisaged the destruction of police stations and British Army military bases in parts of Northern Ireland to create "liberated" areas that would be thereby rendered under
18142-486: 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 ,
18335-601: 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
18528-514: 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
18721-452: 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
18914-561: 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 ,
19107-606: 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
19300-525: The UVF. Both Lost Lives and the Sutton Index of Deaths (at CAIN) list him as a civilian. The IRA retaliated on 5 August 1991 by shooting and killing a former UDR soldier leaving his workplace along Altmore Road, Cappagh. On 11 January 1993 a former sergeant of the B-Specials (Matthew Boyd) was shot dead while driving his car along Donaghmore Road, Dungannon, County Tyrone. The IRA claimed the man
19493-1025: 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 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
19686-683: 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 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 ,
19879-707: 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
20072-529: 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
20265-612: 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
20458-496: 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
20651-470: The air and were heard to shout, "Up the 'RA, that's for Tony Doris". A support vehicle further compromised the getaway by flashing its emergency lights. Six attackers gathered on the same spot afterwards. The IRA men were intercepted by the SAS as they were trying to dump the lorry and escape in cars in the car park of Clonoe Roman Catholic church, whose roof was set on fire by Army flares. Two IRA men escaped from
20844-455: The all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, 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
21037-479: The ambush became known as the "Loughgall Martyrs" among many republicans. In December 2011, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)'s Historical Enquiries Team found that not only did the IRA team fire first but that they could not have been safely arrested. They concluded that the SAS were justified in opening fire. In 2012 a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club in Tyrone distanced itself from
21230-519: The ambush. This was the IRA's greatest loss of life in a single incident since the days of the Anglo-Irish War (1919–1922). Six IRA members from a supporting unit managed to escape. The Volunteers killed at Loughgall were Declan Arthurs (21), Tony Gormley (24), Eugene Kelly (25), Pádraig McKearney (32), Jim Lynagh (31), Gerard O'Callaghan (28), Seamus Donnelly (19) and unit commander Patrick Joseph Kelly (30). The eight volunteers killed in
21423-435: The area between the checkpoint and the border, set a roadblock, then drove a tractor carrying the mortar to the firing point and issued a 30-minute warning. On 27 May 1994, the British Army checkpoint at Aughnacloy was the target of an attack once again, when the compound came under automatic fire from an improvised tactical vehicle consisting of a Ford Transit van mounting a concealed heavy machine gun. British troops manning
21616-487: The area when the device went off. On 30 March 1993, one of the brigade units claimed they thwarted a British undercover operation by detonating an explosive device in the Glen, between Loughmacrory and Mountfield , near the spot where the British personnel were hidden. An RUC report confirms that a bomb exploded close to a combined RUC-British Army patrol in the area. According to them, a second 264 pounds (120 kg) device
21809-670: 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), a paramilitary group which killed three people in May 1966, two of them Catholic men. In January 1967
22002-441: The barracks, allowing an Isuzu Trooper carrying a "Barrack Buster" to be driven just outside the base. The support team sprayed the installations with a burst of gunfire, but the mortar overshot the compound, damaging an adjacent church. Fifty people were evacuated. Ulster Unionist Party councillor Jim Hamilton denounced that an IRA unit riding on a three-vehicle motorcade launched the attack after travelling three miles from beyond
22195-480: The basis that they were supplying British forces, while a soldier was wounded in the arms by a tripwire bomb at Flavour Royal , near Augher, and had to be airlifted. A part-time RUC barracks at Fivemiletown , County Tyrone, in the operational area of the brigade, was destroyed by an IRA tractor-bomb on 7 May 1992, though the attack was claimed by the South Fermanagh Brigade. In the aftermath of
22388-582: The blast of a booby-trap planted in his car. The device exploded while he was driving on Carrydarragh road, near Moneymore , County Londonderry, on 31 May 1993, just a few miles from Cookstown. A second soldier, Sergeant Dean Oliver, died in a fratricide incident in Fivemiletown on 9 May 1992, in the aftermath of an IRA bomb attack in the area, as mentioned above. At least two British soldiers were severely wounded in action near Cappagh and Pomeroy in 1992. On 17 January 1992, an IRA roadside bomb destroyed
22581-454: 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
22774-511: The bombing, on 9 May, a sergeant mayor of the 1st Battalion, the Staffordshire Regiment was shot and killed by a soldier of his company in a blue-on-blue incident at the same spot, while taking part of a security detail around the devastated base. According to a later IRA's statement, the destruction of the security base forced the RUC and the British Army to organised their patrols from nearby RUC barracks at Clogher, allowing
22967-477: 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
23160-407: 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
23353-404: 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
23546-572: The city centre and to the RUC/Army base. In October 1990, two IRA volunteers from the brigade ( Dessie Grew and Martin McCaughey ) were shot dead near Loughgall by SAS undercover members while allegedly collecting two rifles from an IRA arms dump. On 3 June 1991 , three IRA men, Lawrence McNally, Michael "Pete" Ryan, and Tony Doris, died in another SAS ambush at Coagh , where their car was riddled with gunfire. Ryan, according to Moloney, had led
23739-469: The convention were a resolution to enter into 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
23932-585: 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
24125-755: 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
24318-449: The device exploded after midnight, causing extensive damage to the base. On 1 January 1991, a British Army checkpoint was fired on by an IRA unit at Aughnacloy . On 26 March, an IRA unit firing a light machine gun disrupted a UDR mobile checkpoint at Lurgylea road, north of Cappagh. No casualties were reported. On 31 January 1992, an IRA van bomb blew up in downtown Dungannon, resulting in three people wounded and severe property damage to
24511-531: 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
24704-467: The domination of the IRA. In 1984 he started co-operating with Pádraig McKearney who shared his views. The strategy began materialising with the destruction of an RUC police station in Ballygawley in December 1985 which killed two police officers, and in the attack on RUC Birches barracks in August 1986. Lynagh was killed by the British Army 's Special Air Service on 8 May 1987 during an attack on
24897-446: 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
25090-541: The ending of abstentionism, and 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
25283-654: 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
25476-547: The exchange of fire, the British forces involved incurring no fatalities. The incident subsequently became known as the Loughgall Ambush . Lynagh was buried at St Joseph's Cemetery (Latlurcan Cemetery) in Monaghan Town . During his funeral, as his coffin was carried through the village of Emyvale , Irish Garda Síochána officers were attacked by the crowd of mourners after they pursued three masked members of
25669-483: The following weeks between members of the brigade and British Army foot patrols. On 22 June 1992, British troops exchange fire with snipers near Cookstown, while a British soldier from the Coldstream Guards was seriously wounded in Pomeroy when his patrol was fired on by an IRA unit on 2 August 1992. Another soldier in the same patrol had a narrow escape when a rifle round hit his gear. News reports claim that
25862-494: 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
26055-400: 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
26248-469: 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
26441-431: The isolated rural part-time police station at the small Armagh village of Loughgall , the third such attack that he had taken part in. During the incident the IRA detonated a 200 lb bomb, and attacked the station with automatic weapons , and in the process were ambushed by the British Army which was lying in wait for them, having been forewarned of the IRA operation. All eight of the IRA attacking force were killed in
26634-400: 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
26827-429: 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
27020-685: 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
27213-558: The machine gun was actually staged by the security forces as a publicity stunt. On 11 May 1993, British security forces found and defused a horizontal mortar complete with warhead in Dungannon. An IRA man was taken in custody in Newtownstewart, west Tyrone, on 10 July 1993, after being injured during a mishap while testing an improvised mortar in a barn near Dungannon whose firing pack exploded prematurely. Three active members of
27406-512: 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
27599-637: The mixed flying column under direct orders of top IRA Army Council member Thomas "Slab" Murphy two years before. The RUC stated the men were on their way to mount an ambush on Protestant workmen. Another four IRA members were killed in an ambush in February 1992 . The four, Peter Clancy, Kevin Barry O'Donnell, Sean O'Farrell and Patrick Vincent, were killed at Clonoe after an attack on the RUC station in Coalisland. O'Donnell had been released without charges for possession of weapons on two different occasions in
27792-458: The mortar's timer. The projectile landed within the grounds of the base, causing some damage according to the RUC. The IRA asserts instead that the barracks were "extensively damaged". They also claimed that during the follow-up search, British Army technicians defused with a controlled explosion a 50 pounds (23 kg) mortar round, fired three years before. An explosive device fired at the RUC barracks in Dungannon on 9 July 1993, that according to
27985-413: The outpost returned fire. The armed vehicle crossed the border after the engagement. Sources from the brigade released a detailed statement on the attack on Pomeroy security base, carried out in the first hours of 26 June 1994, claiming that they had fired a single 220 pounds (100 kg) Mark-15 barrack-buster bomb. The unit, moving on two vehicles from the townland of Turnabarson, managed to snake into
28178-486: The paratroopers' assault on three bars , where they injured seven civilians. Another street fracas five days later, on 17 May, between a King's Own Scottish Borderers platoon and a group of nationalist youths in Coalisland resulted in the theft of an army machine gun and a new confrontation with the paratroopers. Six paratroopers were charged with criminal damage in the aftermath, but were acquitted in 1993. Five were bound over . At least two minor engagements occurred in
28371-482: The past. They had mounted a heavy DShK machine gun on the back of a stolen lorry, driven right to the RUC/British Army station and opened fire with tracer ammunition at the fortified base at point-blank range, no efforts were made to conceal the firing position or the machine gun. After the shooting they drove past the house of Tony Doris, the IRA man killed the previous year, where they fired more shots in
28564-692: The perpetrators of the bombing of the military bus at Curr Road. Peter Taylor, instead, says that only Mullin was suspected, and that plans for the SAS operation were already underway at the time of the IRA roadside bomb attack. On 16 September 1989, a British sergeant of the Royal Corps of Signals (Kevin Froggett) was shot and killed by an IRA sniper while he was repairing a radio mast at Coalisland Army/RUC base. According to journalist Ed Moloney , Michael "Pete" Ryan (himself killed with two other IRA volunteers on 3 June 1991), an alleged top Brigade member,
28757-528: 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
28950-495: 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
29143-528: 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
29336-415: 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
29529-405: 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
29722-546: 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
29915-420: 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
30108-422: The scene, but the four named above were killed. One British soldier was wounded. Author Brendan O'Brien reports a witness claiming that some of the men were wounded and tried to surrender but were killed by the British soldiers. Patrick Vincent was shot in the cab of the lorry whilst Kevin Barry O'Donnell and Peter Clancy were shot just outside. Sean O'Farrell was wounded and attempted to escape. After being caught he
30301-421: The security forces in east and south Tyrone in this period. A primed Mk-12 horizontal mortar was defused near Clogher on 9 April 1992 by British Army technicians, while a trailer carrying a 'barrack buster' was recovered by security forces and also defused in the same area on 16 January 1994. The IRA acknowledged that the attack "had to be abandoned due to heavy presence of crown forces in the area". On 30 July 1993,
30494-402: The security forces were killed by the East Tyrone Brigade during this period. Among them there were Constable Andrew Beacom and Reserve Constable Ernest Smith, the two RUC members ambushed and shot dead while driving a civilian type vehicle in Fivemiletown's main street on 12 December 1993. Another fatality was a Royal Irish Regiment (RIR) soldier, Private Christopher Wren, slain when off-duty by
30687-454: 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
30880-437: 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
31073-510: The soldiers returned fire during the shooting. The fortified courthouse in Cookstown was meanwhile damaged by two bombs planted there on 15 October 1993, in an attack also directed to the adjoining British Army checkpoint. Dozens of residents were evacuated to a neighbouring church's hall. A joint RUC/British Army patrol was caught in the second blast, but no injuries were reported. A major ambush occurred on 12 December 1993 in Fivemiletown , when an RUC mobile patrol received intense cross fire from
31266-409: The station. On 24 March 1990, there was a gun battle between an IRA unit and undercover British forces in the main street of the village of Cappagh, County Tyrone , in which IRA members fired at a civilian-type car driven by security forces, according to Archie Hamilton , then Secretary of State for Defence . Hamilton stated that there were no security or civilian casualties. An Phoblacht claimed
31459-432: The subsequent crash-landing. On 4 March 1990, ten IRA volunteers launched an assault on the RUC station at Stewartstown using an improvised flamethrower consisting of a manure-spreader towed by a tractor to spray 600 imperial gallons (2,700 L) of a petrol/diesel mix to set the base ablaze, and then opened up with rifles and an RPG-7 rocket launcher. The next day the IRA threatened any contractor who took on repair of
31652-505: 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
31845-413: 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
32038-446: The two years following the ambush. Additionally, most of the attacks which took place in County Fermanagh during this period of the Troubles were also launched from south Tyrone and Monaghan. However, many of their remaining members were young and inexperienced and fell into further ambushes, leading to high casualties by the standards of the low intensity guerrilla conflict in Northern Ireland. Ed Moloney , Irish journalist and author of
32231-400: The unmanned Loughgall RUC base. The IRA unit used the same tactics as it had done in The Birches attack. It destroyed a substantial part of the base with a 200 lb bomb and raked the building with gunfire. However, as their attack was underway, the IRA unit was ambushed by a Special Air Service (SAS) unit. The SAS shot dead eight IRA members and a civilian who had accidentally driven into
32424-430: The village. On 9 April 1994, after a three-day IRA ceasefire, a Mark-15 mortar was launched at midday at the British Army permanent checkpoint in Aughnacloy. The heavy projectile landed at the rear of the small base without exploding, forcing the evacuation of Coronation Park housing state. According to other sources, the device actually exploded but caused little damage. The East Tyrone Brigade reported that they took over
32617-413: 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
32810-444: 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
33003-403: Was a UVF commander, responsible for the killings of Catholic civilians. This was denied by the dead man's family. CAIN lists Boyd as a Protestant civilian. A former UDR soldier (David Martin) was killed when an IRA bomb exploded underneath his car in Kildress , County Tyrone on 25 April 1993; it was claimed that he had loyalist connections. The latter attack led to loyalist allegations that the IRA
33196-436: Was a member of the East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), from Monaghan Town in the Republic of Ireland , who was killed by British special forces whilst attacking an R.U.C. station in Northern Ireland . One of twelve children, Lynagh was born and raised on the Tully Estate, a housing estate in the townland of Killygowan on the southern edge of Monaghan Town , County Monaghan , in
33389-405: Was a number of British casualties. A British Army report states that a 100 pounds (45 kg) device exploded beside an army patrol near County Bridge, a border crossing between Augher and Aughnacloy. On 30 April, a heavy horizontal mortar was fired at an RUC patrol vehicle near Ballygawley roundabout; the round missed its target and hit a wall. The RUC security base at Caledon became the target of
33582-494: 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
33775-409: 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
33968-434: 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
34161-463: Was defused in the follow-up operation. From mid-1992 up to the 1994 cease fire , IRA units in east and south Tyrone carried out a dozen bomb and mortar attacks against RUC and military bases and assets. The facilities targeted by "Barrack Buster" mortars included the above-mentioned Ballygawley barracks, a British Army border outpost at Aughnacloy, the RUC barracks at Clogher and Beragh , both resulting in massive damage but no fatalities; two attacks on
34354-408: 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
34547-433: 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
34740-455: 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
34933-437: Was killed. At the time of his death, Lynagh had been living in a flat on Dublin Street in Monaghan Town. After his release from prison Lynagh became active in the IRA again, active with the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade . He quickly became a unit commander and gradually built up his ruthless reputation. After a series of Ulster loyalist attacks against Irish nationalist politicians in late 1980 and early 1981, Lynagh
35126-423: Was killing Protestant land-owners in Tyrone and Fermanagh in an orchestrated campaign to drive Protestants out of the region, to the point that they drew an analogy with contemporaneous ethnic cleansing in the Balkans . This is disputed by some authors as an "exaggeration". A gun attack on the home of DUP politician Willie McCrea on 10 July 1994 at Magherafelt , County Londonderry, was attributed to members of
35319-522: 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;
35512-429: Was put up against a fence and killed. According to a British intelligence officer, from then on, the brigade change tactics and resorted mostly to mortar attacks on security bases, while the British Army reinforced their patrols around the main urban centres in the county. In March 1992, members of the brigade destroyed McGowan's service station along the Ballygawley-Dungannon road with a 150 pounds (68 kg) bomb, on
35705-430: Was raked with gunfire and a JCB digger with a 200 lb (91 kg) bomb in its bucket was driven through the perimeter fence. The bomb detonated, destroying much of the base and damaging nearby buildings. In April 1987 the brigade shot and killed Harold Henry, one of the main building contractors to the security forces in Northern Ireland. On 8 May 1987, at least eight members of the brigade launched another attack on
35898-471: 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
36091-412: Was suspected of involvement in an attack on the Stronge estate near Middletown in County Armagh , where the IRA murdered the retired Ulster Unionist Party Stormont speaker, Sir Norman Stronge , and his son James , a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer, before burning down their home, Tynan Abbey , and shooting their way out through a police cordon. Lynagh was known as "The Executioner" by
36284-414: 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
36477-461: Was the commander of the IRA flying column that launched the attack on Derryard checkpoint in Fermanagh on 13 December 1989. British military sources reported that other IRA volunteers from East Tyrone were involved in the assault. The checkpoint was stormed using an improvised armoured truck and two British soldiers (James Houston and Michael Patterson) were killed in action. Journalist Ian Bruce claims that an unidentified Irishman who had served in
36670-416: 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
36863-558: Was to start off with one area which the British military did not control, preferably a republican stronghold such as east Tyrone. The South Armagh area was considered to be a liberated zone already, since British troops and the RUC could not use the roads there for fear of roadside bombs and long-range harassing fire. Thus it was from there that the IRA East Tyrone Brigade attacks were launched, with most of them occurring in east Tyrone in areas close to south Armagh, which offered good escape routes. The first phase of Lynagh's plan to drive out
37056-443: 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
37249-496: 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
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