THE I.R.A. PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Tim Pat Coogan | 832 pages | 17 Jul 2000 | HarperCollins Publishers | 9780006531555 | English | London, United Kingdom Inside The Ira - Organization And Command | The Ira & Sinn Fein | FRONTLINE | PBS On July 28, , however, the IRA announced that it had ended its armed campaign and instead would pursue only peaceful means to achieve its objectives. The IRA was back in the headlines in when an investigation into the murder of a former IRA leader revealed that at least some of the organizational structure of the Provisional IRA was still in place. Print Cite. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. Crime Museum - Irish Republican Army. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. See Article History. Britannica Quiz. World Organizations: Fact or Fiction? Fewer than 50 countries belong to the United Nations. Get exclusive access to content from our First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today. Learn More in these related Britannica articles:. Simultaneously, the Irish Republican Army IRA was organized to resist British administration and to secure recognition for the government of the Irish republic. The IRA launched widespread ambushes and attacks on…. In the IRA declared a cease-fire, and for the next 18 months there was considerable optimism that a new period of political cooperation between north and south had been inaugurated. The cease-fire collapsed in , however, and the IRA resumed its bombing campaign. History at your fingertips. Sign up here to see what happened On This Day , every day in your inbox! Email address. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice. On 28 July the IRA announced an end to the armed campaign, stating that it would work to achieve its aims solely by peaceful political means, with volunteers to dump all weapons and to end all paramilitary activity. Having compared 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 arrived at their conclusion that all IRA weaponry has been decommissioned. In the early days of the Troubles the IRA was poorly armed, in Derry in early the IRA's weaponry consisted of six M1 carbines , two Thompson submachine guns , one or two M1 Garand rifles, and a variety of handguns. The IRA was mainly active in Northern Ireland, although it took its campaign to England and mainland Europe, and limited activity also took place in the Republic of Ireland. The IRA was responsible for more deaths than any other organisation during the Troubles. All levels of the organisation were entitled to send delegates to General Army Conventions. The convention elected a member Executive, which selected seven members, usually from within the Executive, to form the Army Council. The chief-of-staff would be assisted by an adjutant general as well as a General Headquarters GHQ staff, which consisted of a quartermaster general , and directors of finance, engineering, training, intelligence, publicity, operations, and security. In late the IRA in Belfast restructured, introducing clandestine cells named active service units, consisting of between four and ten members. The IRA's goal was an all-Ireland democratic socialist republic. American TV news broadcasts tended to describe the Provisional IRA as "activists" and "guerrillas", while British TV news broadcasts commonly used the term "terrorists", particularly the BBC as part of its editorial guidelines published in It is unclear how many people joined the IRA during the Troubles, as it did not keep detailed records of personnel. Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi , was a supplier of arms to the IRA, donating two shipments of arms in the early s, [] and another five in the mids. Another main source of support was from Irish Americans in the United States, who donated weapons and money. In May , the Federal Security Service , Russia's internal security service, accused Estonia of arms smuggling, and claimed that the IRA had bought weapons from arms dealers linked to Estonia's volunteer defence force, Kaitseliit. The IRA publicly condemned sectarianism and sectarian attacks, however some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks. Protestants in the rural border areas of counties Fermanagh and Tyrone , where the number of members of the security forces killed was high, viewed the IRA's campaign as ethnic cleansing. To fund its campaign, the IRA was allegedly involved in criminal activities such as robberies, counterfeiting , protection rackets , kidnapping for ransom, fuel laundering and cigarette smuggling. Generally, the IRA was against drug dealing and prostitution, because it would be unpopular within Catholic communities and for moral reasons. The vigilantism of the IRA and other paramilitary organisations has been condemned as " summary justice ". Throughout the Troubles, some members of the IRA passed information to the security forces. The IRA regarded informers as traitors, [] and a threat to the organisation and lives of its members. Former IRA volunteers are involved in various dissident republican splinter groups , which are active in the low-level dissident Irish republican campaign. Irish War of Independence. Dissident Campaign. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the association of physics education professionals and enthusiasts, see Physics Instructional Resource Association. For other uses, see Pira disambiguation. See also: Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign — See also: Irish hunger strike and Armalite and ballot box strategy. Main article: Northern Ireland peace process. Main article: Active service unit. See also: Provisional IRA arms importation. Main article: Paramilitary punishment attacks in Northern Ireland. Main article: Dissident republican. O'Neill" was used during the s. The three judge Special Criminal Court was re-introduced following a series of regional court cases where IRA volunteers were acquitted or received light sentences from sympathetic judges and juries, and also to prevent jury tampering. This generally happened where the volunteer had children whose father was dead or imprisoned. There are some other cases where male IRA volunteers were permitted to present a defence. This was due to convictions being based solely on the evidence of dubious witnesses, as most supergrasses were paramilitaries giving evidence in return for a shorter prison sentence or immunity from prosecution. Ackerman, Gary. A Journal of Strategic Security. Aldridge, Meryl; Hewitt, Nicholas Manchester University Press. Armstrong, Charles I. Palgrave Macmillan. BBC News. Retrieved 7 June Bean, Kevin Oxford University Press. Bew, Paul ; Gillespie, Gordon Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles, Biersteker, Thomas J. Countering the Financing of Terrorism. Bowyer Bell, J. Poolbeg Press. Transaction Publishers. Boyne, Sean O'Brien Press. Brown, Joesph M. Columbia University Press. Campbell, Anne 24 February Irish Independent. Retrieved 25 August Clancy, Mary Alice C. Ashgate Publishing. Clarke, Liam; Johnston, Kathryn Mainstream Publishing. Cochrane, Feargal Journal of Peace Research. Connelly, Mark Conway, Vicky Coogan, Tim Pat Martin's Griffin. The I. A Farewell to Arms? Beyond the Good Friday Agreement. Dempster, Lauren Dillon, Martin The Dirty War. Arrow Books. Bantam Books. Dingley, James Combating Terrorism in Northern Ireland. Praeger Publishing. English, Richard Pan Books. Eriksson, Anna Justice in Transition: Community restorative justice in Northern Ireland. Willan Publishing. Pluto Press. Findlay, Mark Springer Publishing. Frampton, Martyn Geraghty, Tony Gillespie, Gordon Scarecrow Press. Goodspeed, Michael Grant, Patrick Hamill, Heather Princeton University Press. Hamilton, George 22 August Police Service of Northern Ireland. Archived from the original on 24 August Retrieved 23 August Hanley, Brian; Millar, Scott Penguin Books. Harding, Thomas 9 September The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 May Harnden, Toby Irish Republican Army: The Troubles, Attacks & Ceasefire - HISTORY The organization was declared illegal in and again in Five IRA leaders were executed, and many more were interned. After the withdrawal of Ireland from the British Commonwealth in , the IRA turned its attention to agitating for the unification of the predominantly Roman Catholic Irish republic with predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland. The situation changed dramatically in the late s, when Catholics in Northern Ireland began a civil rights campaign against discrimination in voting, housing, and employment by the dominant Protestant government and population. Violence by extremists against the demonstrators—unhindered by the mostly Protestant police force the Royal Ulster Constabulary —set in motion a series of escalating attacks by both sides. Units of the IRA were organized to defend besieged Catholic communities in the province and were sustained by support from units in Ireland. Conflict over the widespread use of violence quickly led to another split in the IRA. It was estimated that, between and , the IRA killed about 1, people, including approximately civilians. The fortunes of the IRA waxed and waned after In light of declining support in the late s, the IRA reorganized in into detached cells to protect against infiltration. Assisted by extensive funding from some Irish Americans, the IRA procured