Provisional Irish Republican Army |
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) is a paramilitary group demanding the political unification of Ireland.
The PIRA's guerrilla campaign against the British state has played a key role in the Troubles in Northern Ireland but it has been
officially on ceasefire since 1997.
The PIRA is also known as the Provisional IRA, the 'Provos' and the Irish Republican
Army. It is most commonly referred to simply as the IRA, but several groups claim this title (see:
Irish Republican Army).
Overview
The PIRA was formed in 1969, with the stated aim of severing the political Union between Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, and achieving the unification of
the island of Ireland by force. It is organised into small, tightknit cells under the
leadership of the IRA Army Council. Because the PIRA's 'armed struggle' has often included attacks on police officers and unarmed
civilians, and the assassination of diplomats and politicians, it is described by many as a terrorist group. Membership of the PIRA is outlawed in both the UK and the
Republic of Ireland but PIRA prisoners convicted before
1998 have been granted conditional early release as part of the Good Friday (Belfast)
Agreement. In the United Kingdom a person convicted of membership of a "proscribed organisation", such as the PIRA, faces
imprisonment for up to 10 years.
Origins
The Provisional IRA was initially a splinter group of the 'Official' IRA, which claimed descent from the Old IRA: the guerrilla army of the 1919-1922
Irish Republic. The Official IRA moved to a Marxist analysis of the
'Irish Problem' in the mid 1960s while the PIRA held to a more traditional republican
analysis and became larger and more successful, eventually overshadowing the original group. The commonly used name of the PIRA
arose when those who were unhappy with the IRA's Army Council formed a "Provisional Army Council" of their own, echoing in turn
the "Provisional Government" proclaimed during the Easter Rising of
1916.
The split in the armed wing of the republican movement was mirrored in the separation of the republican political wing.
Supporters of the PIRA split from 'Official' Sinn Féin to form Provisional Sinn Féin. Provisional Sinn Féin was later known simply as Sinn Féin (while 'Official' Sinn Féin eventually became the Workers' Party).
Strength and Support
The PIRA has several hundred members as well as several thousand civilian sympathisers on the island of Ireland, although its strength has been affected in recent times, to some extent, by
operatives leaving the organisation to join hardline splinter groups such as the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA. If the PIRA has enjoyed mass
support this has not, historically, been reflected in support for its associated political party, Sinn Féin, which, until recently, did not receive the support of more than a minority of nationalists in
Northern Ireland, or of voters in general in the Republic of Ireland.
In the past the PIRA has received funds and arms from sympathisers in the United States, notably from the Noraid (Irish Northern Aid) organisation. The PIRA has also, on occaion,
received assistance from foreign governments and paramilitary groups, including considerable training and arms from Libya and assistance from the Palestinian Liberation
Organisation (PLO). This support has been weakened by the so called "War against Terrorism", the events of the 11th September 2001 and the discovery of three PIRA suspects in Colombia, allegedly training Colombian FARC guerrillas (these suspects
were all eventually acquitted of aiding FARC, and convicted solely on the lesser charge of possessing false passports).
The Belfast Agreement
The PIRA cease-fire in 1997 formed part of a process that led to the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement. The Agreement has amongst its aims that all extra-legal paramilitary
groups in Northern Ireland cease their activities and disarm.
Calls from Sinn Féin have lead the PIRA to commence disarming in a process that has been overviewed by General John de Chastelain's decommissioning body in October, 2001. However, following the
collapse of the Stormont power-sharing government in 2002, which was partially triggered by allegations that republican spies
were operating within Parliament Buildings and the Civil Service, the PIRA abandoned their association with General de
Chastelain. It is expected that if and when power-sharing resumes, the PIRA disarmament process will begin again, though it is
already considered by some to be behind schedule. Increasing numbers of people, from the Ulster Unionists under David Trimble and the
SDLP under Mark Durkan to the Irish
Government under Bertie Ahern and the mainstream Irish media, have begun
demanding not merely decommissioning but the wholesale disbandment of the PIRA.
Activities
The Provisional IRA's activities have included bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, so-called 'punishment beatings',
robberies and extortion. Previous targets have included the British
military, the Royal Ulster Constabulary,
Loyalist militants, British Government officials, Unionist politicians and
civilians in both Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Members of the Garda Síochána (the Republic of Ireland's police force) have also been killed; most notorious was the
killing of Detective Garda Gerry McCabe, who was shot and killed after the commencement of the PIRA ceasefire. PIRA
bombing campaigns have been conducted against rail and London
Underground (subway) stations, pubs and shopping areas on the island of Great Britain, and a British military facility on Continental Europe.
It has recently been claimed that elements of the PIRA have been involved in a spate of bank robberies throughout the island
of Ireland, allegedly to build up funds to 'pension off' PIRA members and so facilitate disbandment.
The PIRA has been officially on ceasefire since July 1997 (although hardline splinter groups such as the Continuity IRA and
so-called Real IRA continue their campaigns). It previously observed a cease-fire
from 1 September 1994 to February 1996, after the
Downing Street Declaration.
Notable events
- 1971: Three British soldiers are killed in a bomb attack in Belfast.
- 1971: Catholic mother of ten, Jean McConville, is executed by the Provisional IRA for
cushioning the head of a dying British soldier, although it is also claimed that she was informing the British Army of PIRA
activities. The PIRA would deny any involvement in the killing until the 1990s, when it would acknowledge its action.
- 21 July 1972: On 'Bloody
Friday' 22 bombs kill 9 and seriously injure 130. 30 years later the PIRA would officially apologise for this set of
attacks.
- 1974: The Guildford pub bombing kills
19 and injures 182. The motive for the bombing was apparently that the pub attacked was frequented by soldiers. Four people,
dubbed the 'Guildford Four', would be convicted for the bombing and
imprisoned for life. The Guidford Four would claim police tortured them into confessing and 15 years later Lord Lane of the Court
of Appeal would overturn their convictions noting "the investigating officers must have lied".
- 1974: In the Birmingham Pub Bombings bombs in two pubs kill 19. The Birmingham Six' would be tried for this and convicted. Many years later, after new evidence of police
fabrication and suppression of evidence, their convictions would be quashed. Appeals by the Birmingham Six that the real
IRA bombers had admitted responsibility for the bombings were ignored.
- 1975: The Balcombe
Street Siege.
- 1976: A PIRA bomb kills the newly appointed British ambassador to the Republic of
Ireland, resulting in the declaration of a State of
Emergency in the Republic. The PIRA also threatens to kidnap or kill Irish cabinet ministers and the President of Ireland.
- 1979: A PIRA bomb kills Earl Mountbatten of Burma, members of his family and a local child off the Irish coast. On the
same day the PIRA kill 18 British soldiers at Narrow Water, near Newry, County Down; in an attack described by the British government as "a classic guerilla attack", they first plant
one bomb, which kills 6, and then begin firing with sniper rifles at soldiers sheltered near a nearby gate where a second bomb
explodes, killing 12 others. During an Irish visit Pope John Paul
II calls for the PIRA campaign of violence to come to an end.
- 1981: IRA prisoner Bobby Sands,
imprisoned in connection with his involvement in an attack involving a bomb and subsequent gun battle, is elected Member of Parliament for the Northern Ireland constituency of
Fermanagh and South Tyrone in a by-election. The moderate nationalist
Social Democratic and Labour
Party decides not to run a candidate, and so split the nationalist vote, leaving Sands as the main nationalist candidate.
Sands had been on a hunger strike for 'Prisoner of War' status for 41 days prior to being elected. He died 23 days later.
- 1981: The PIRA kill Ulster Unionist Party Belfast MP Rev Robert Bradford along with the caretaker of a community centre. Irish Taoiseach Dr.
Garret FitzGerald and former taoiseach Charles Haughey condemn
the killings in Dáil Éireann. SDLP party leader John Hume accuses the Provisionals of waging a campaign of "sectarian genocide".
- 1982: In Hyde Park,
two bombs kill eight members of the Household Cavalry and
Royal Green
jackets; units performing ceremonial duties in one of the few attacks to occur on the island of Great Britain that targeted soldiers. Seven of their horses are also killed.
- 1983: A Harrods department store bomb
planted by the PIRA during Christmas shopping season kills six (three police) and wounds 90.
- 1984: In the Brighton hotel bombing a bomb in the Grand Hotel kills five in a failed attempt to assassinate
members of the British cabinet, including
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
- 1987: In the Enniskillen 'Massacre'
the PIRA bombing of a Remembrance Day parade kills eleven civilians
and injures sixty-three. Among the dead is nurse Marie Wilson, whose father, Gordon Wilson, would go on
to become a leading campaigner for an end to violence in Northern
Ireland. The PIRA would later claim that their target was a colour guard of British soldiers. On Remembrance Day 1997 the leader of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams,
formally apologised for the bombing.
- 1989: Ten Royal Marine bandsmen
are killed and 22 injured in the bombing of their base in Deal in Kent.
- 1990: Car bombings in Northern Ireland kill seven and wound 37.
- 1990: A British Army Artillery officer is killed by the PIRA in Dortmund in the then West
Germany.
- 1991: Mortar attack on members of the British cabinet and the Prime Minister, John Major at the height of a huge security clampdown amid the Gulf War is launched by PIRA.
- 1991: Two PIRA members are killed in St.
Albans when their own bomb detonates prematurely.
- 1992: Eight Protestant builders are
killed by a PIRA bomb on their way to work at an army base near Omagh.
- 1993: A PIRA bomb in Warrington kills two children.
- 1993: The PIRA detonates a huge truck bomb in the City of London at Bishopsgate, which kills two and
causes around £350m of damage, including the near destruction of St. Ethelburga's Bishopsgate.
- 1993: A bomb at a fish and chip
shop underneath a UDA office on the Protestant Shankill Road in Belfast
detonates prematurely, killing ten, including the bomber and two children.
- 1 September 1994: the PIRA declares the first of two cease-fires in the 1990s.
- 1996: The PIRA ends its 1994 cease-fire, killing two in a bomb at the Canary Wharf towers in London.
- 15 June 1996: The PIRA detonates a 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) bomb in Manchester, injuring 206
people and damaging seventy thousand square metres of retail and office space.
- 1997: The PIRA declares a second cease-fire.
Infiltration
There have been persistent rumours that the Provisional IRA had been infiltrated by British Intelligence agents, and that in
past senior PIRA members have been informers.
In May 2003 a number of newspapers named Freddie Scappaticci as the alleged identity of the British Force Research Unit's most senior informer within the Provisional
IRA, code-named Steakknife, who is thought to have been head of the
Provisional IRA's internal security force, charged with rooting out informers like himself. Scappaticci denies that this is the
case and is taking legal action to challenge this claim.
See Also
Other paramilitary groups in Ireland
Related topics
|