Provisional Irish Republican Army

All levels of the organisation were entitled to send delegates to General Army Conventions (GACs). The GAC was the IRA's supreme decision-making authority, and was supposed to convene every two years.[25] Before 1969 GACs met regularly, but since 1969 they were held in September 1970,[26] October 1986,[26] October or November 1996,[27][28] October 1997,[29] and June 2002,[30] owing to the difficulty in organising such a large gathering of an illegal organisation in secret.[26]

The GAC, in turn, elected a 12-member Executive,[n 2] which selected seven volunteers to form the Army Council.[32] 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.[33][34]

The Chief of Staff would appoint an adjutant general as well as a General Headquarters (GHQ) staff, which consisted of directors of the following departments:

• Quartermaster
• Finance
• Engineering
• Training
• Intelligence
• Publicity
• Operations
• Security[32]

Republican colour party in Dublin, March 2009. The blue flag being carried at the front is that of "Dublin Brigade IRA".

Below GHQ, the IRA was divided into a Northern Command and a Southern Command.[32] Northern Command operated in the nine Ulster counties as well as the border counties of Leitrim and Louth, and Southern Command operated in the remainder of Ireland.[35] The Provisional IRA was originally commanded by a leadership based in Dublin. However, in 1977, parallel to the introduction of cell structures at the local level, command of the "war-zone" was given to the Northern Command. These moves at re-organisation were the idea of Ivor Bell, Gerry Adams and Brian Keenan.[36] Southern Command consisted of the Dublin Brigade and a number of smaller units in rural areas.[32] It was charged mainly with the support activities for Northern Command, such as importation and storage of arms, providing safe houses, raising funds through robberies, and organising training camps.[37][38]

The IRA referred to its ordinary members as volunteers (or óglaigh in Irish). Until the late 1970s, IRA volunteers were organised in units based on conventional military structures. Volunteers living in one area formed a company as part of a battalion, which could be part of a brigade, although many battalions were not attached to a brigade. The Belfast Brigade had three battalions, in the west, north and east of the city. In the early years of the Troubles, the IRA in Belfast expanded rapidly; in August 1969, the Belfast Brigade had just 50 active members – by the end of 1971, it had 1,200 members, giving it a large but loosely controlled structure.[39] Other brigades included the Derry Brigade,[32] South Armagh Brigade,[40] North Armagh Brigade,[41] East Tyrone Brigade (which also included County Monaghan),[32][42] Donegal Brigade,[32] West Fermanagh Brigade,[43] Dublin Brigade,[32], South Derry Brigade,[44] and North Antrim Brigade.[45]

In late 1973 the IRA in Belfast restructured, introducing clandestine cells named active service units (ASU), consisting of between four and ten members.[46] Similar changes were made elsewhere in the IRA by 1977, moving away from the larger conventional military organisational principle owing to its security vulnerability.[47][48] A system of two parallel types of unit within an IRA brigade was introduced in place of the battalion structures. Firstly, the old "company" structures were used for support activities such as "policing" nationalist areas, intelligence-gathering, and hiding weapons.[49] The bulk of actual attacks were carried out by the second type of unit, the ASU, using weapons controlled by the brigade's quartermaster.[32] It was estimated that in the late 1980s the IRA had roughly 300 members in ASUs and about another 450 serving in supporting roles.[50] The exception to this reorganisation was the South Armagh Brigade, which retained its traditional hierarchy and battalion structure and used relatively large numbers of volunteers in its actions.[51] South Armagh did not have the same problems with security that other brigades had, with less arrests than any other area and only a handful of IRA volunteers were convicted of serious offences.[52]

An IRA badge – the phoenix is frequently used to symbolise the origins of the Provisional IRA.

In August 1969, a confrontation between Catholic residents of the Bogside and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Derry following an Apprentice Boys of Derry march led to a large communal riot now referred to as the Battle of the Bogside – three days of fighting between rioters throwing stones and petrol bombs on one side, and police who saturated the area with CS gas and other unionists on the other.

Protests organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in support of the Bogsiders were held elsewhere in the region, sparking retaliation by Protestant mobs; the subsequent burning, damage to property and intimidation, largely against the minority community, forced 1,800 people (1,505 of them Catholics[53]) from their homes in Belfast in what became known as the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969, with over 200 Catholic homes being destroyed or requiring major repairs.[18] A number of people were killed on both sides, some by the police. The Irish Republican Army had been poorly armed and its defence of Catholic-majority areas from Ulster loyalists, which had been considered one of its traditional roles since the 1920s, was seen by many as inadequate.[54]

Veteran republicans were critical of the IRA's Dublin leadership which, for political reasons, had refused to prepare for aggressive action in advance of the violence.[55][56] On 24 August Joe Cahill, Seamus Twomey, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Billy McKee and several other future Provisional leaders came together in Belfast intending to remove the Belfast leadership and turn back to traditional militant republicanism.[57] Although the pro-Goulding commander Billy McMillen stayed in command, he was told it was only for three months and he was not to have any communication with the IRA's Dublin based leadership.[57]

Traditional republicans formed the "Provisional" Army Council in December 1969, after an IRA convention was held at Knockvicar House in Boyle, County Roscommon.[58][59] The two main issues were a motion to enter into a "National Liberation Front" with radical left-wing groups, and a motion to end abstentionism, which would allow participation in the British, Irish and Northern Ireland parliaments.[58] The traditionalists refused to vote on the "National Liberation Front" and it was passed by twenty-nine votes to seven.[58][60] The traditionalists argued strongly against the ending of abstentionism, and the official minutes report the motion passed by twenty-seven votes to twelve.[n 3][58][60] IRA Director of Intelligence Seán Mac Stíofáin announced that he no longer considered that the IRA leadership represented republican goals, however there was no walkout.[58][61] Those opposed, who included Mac Stíofáin and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, refused to go forward for election to the new Executive.[58]

While others canvassed support throughout Ireland, Mac Stíofáin was a key person making a connection with the Belfast IRA under Billy McKee and Joe Cahill, who had refused to take orders from the IRA's Dublin leadership since September 1969, in protest at their failure to defend Catholic areas in August.[63][64] Nine out of thirteen IRA units in Belfast sided with the Provisionals in December 1969, roughly 120 activists and 500 supporters.[65] The first "Provisional" Army Council was composed of Seán Mac Stíofáin, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, Paddy Mulcahy, Sean Tracey, Leo Martin, Dáithí Ó Conaill and Joe Cahill.[66] The term "provisional" was chosen to mirror the 1916 Provisional Government of the Irish Republic,[58] and also to designate it as temporary pending reorganisation of the movement.[66] Although this reorganisation eventually happened in 1970, the name stuck.[66] The Provisional IRA issued their first public statement on 28 December 1969, stating:

We declare our allegiance to the 32 county Irish republic, proclaimed at Easter 1916, established by the first Dáil Éireann in 1919, overthrown by forces of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed six-county and twenty-six-county partition states.[2][n 4]

The Sinn Féin party split along the same lines on 11 January 1970, when a third of the delegates walked out of the Ard Fheis in protest at the party leadership's attempt to force through the ending of abstentionism, despite its failure to achieve a two-thirds majority vote of delegates required to change the policy.[69] Despite the declared support of that faction of Sinn Féin, the early Provisional IRA was extremely suspicious of political activity, arguing rather for the primacy of armed struggle.[70]

What would become the Provisional IRA received arms and funding from the Fianna Fáil-led Irish government in 1969, resulting in the 1970 Arms Crisis in which criminal charges were pursued against two former government ministers and others including Belfast IRA volunteer John Kelly. Roughly £100,000 was donated by the Irish government to "Defence Committees" in Catholic areas and, according to historian Richard English, "there is now no doubt that some money did go from the Dublin government to the proto-Provisionals".[71]

The Provisionals maintained the principles of the pre-1969 IRA; they considered both British rule in Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland to be illegitimate, insisting that the Army Council was the only valid government, as head of an all-island Irish Republic. This belief was based on a series of perceived political inheritances which constructed a legal continuity from the Second Dáil.[72][15]

By 1971, the Provisionals had inherited most of the existing IRA organisation in Northern Ireland, as well as the more militant IRA members in the rest of Ireland. In addition, they recruited many young nationalists from Northern Ireland, who had not been involved in the IRA before but had been radicalised by the violence that broke out in 1969. These people were known in republican parlance as "sixty niners", having joined after 1969.[73] The Provisional 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".[74]

Following the violence of August 1969, the IRA began to arm and train to protect nationalist areas from further attack.[75] In January 1970 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.[76]

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 IRA's 1956–62 Border Campaign had avoided actions in urban centres of Northern Ireland to avoid civilian casualties and probable resulting sectarian violence.[77]

The Provisional IRA's strategy was to use force to cause the collapse of the government of Northern Ireland and to inflict such casualties on the British forces that the British government would be forced by public opinion to withdraw from Ireland. According to journalist Brendan O'Brien, "the thinking was that the war would be short and successful. Chief of Staff Seán Mac Stíofáin decided they would 'escalate, escalate and escalate' until the British agreed to go".[78] This policy involved recruitment of volunteers and carrying out attacks on British forces, as well as mounting a bombing campaign against economic targets.[79][80] In the early years of the conflict, IRA slogans spoke of, "Victory 1972" and then "Victory 1974".[79] Its inspiration was the success of the "Old IRA" in the Irish War of Independence (1919–1922), which also relied on British public opinion to achieve its aims. In their assessment of the IRA campaign, the British Army would describe the period from the mid-1971 to the mid-1970s as a "classic insurgency".[81]

In June 1972 the IRA brought out the Éire Nua (New Ireland) policy, which advocated an all-Ireland federal republic, with decentralised governments and parliaments for each of the four historic provinces of Ireland.[82] The British government held secret talks with the IRA leadership in 1972 to try to secure a ceasefire based on a compromise settlement after the events of Bloody Sunday led to an increase in IRA recruitment and support. The IRA agreed to a temporary ceasefire from 26 June to 9 July. In July 1972, Seán Mac Stíofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Ivor Bell, Seamus Twomey, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness met a British delegation led by William Whitelaw. The republicans refused to consider a peace settlement that did not include a commitment to British withdrawal, a retreat of the British Army to its barracks, and a release of republican prisoners. The British refused and the talks broke up.[83]

By the mid-1970s, the hopes of the IRA leadership for a quick military victory were receding and the British military was unsure of when it would see any substantial success against the IRA. Secret meetings between Provisional IRA leaders Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Billy McKee with British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees secured an IRA ceasefire which began in February 1975. The IRA initially believed that this was the start of a long-term process of British withdrawal, but later came to the conclusion that the British were unwilling and/or unable to make concessions in areas they deemed crucial.[84][85] Critics of the IRA leadership, most notably Gerry Adams, felt that the ceasefire was disastrous for the IRA, leading to infiltration by British informers, the arrest of many activists and a breakdown in IRA discipline resulting in sectarian killings and a feud with fellow republicans in the Official IRA. At this time, the IRA leadership, short of money, weapons, and members was on the brink of calling off the campaign. However, the ceasefire was ended in January 1976 instead.[86]

IRA political poster from the 1980s, featuring a quote from Bobby Sands – "There can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically".

Thereafter, the IRA evolved a new strategy which they called the "Long War". This underpinned IRA strategy for the rest of the Troubles and involved the re-organisation of the IRA into small cells, an acceptance that their campaign would last many years before being successful and an 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 the propaganda war and is the public and political voice of the movement".[87] 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:

1. A war of attrition against enemy personnel [British Army] based on causing as many deaths as possible so as to create a demand from their [the British] people at home for their withdrawal.
2. A bombing campaign aimed at making the enemy's financial interests in our country unprofitable while at the same time curbing long-term investment in our country.
3. To make the Six Counties... ungovernable except by colonial military rule.
4. To sustain the war and gain support for its ends by National and International propaganda and publicity campaigns.
5. By defending the war of liberation by punishing criminals, collaborators and informers.[19]

The Éire Nua policy was discontinued by the Army Council in 1979[88] but remained Sinn Féin policy until 1982,[89] reflecting the sequence in which the old leadership of the republican movement were being sidelined.

IRA funeral, 1981

IRA prisoners convicted after March 1976 did not have Special Category Status applied in prison. In response, more than 500 prisoners refused to wear prison clothes. This activity culminated in 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 elected to the British Parliament, and two other protesting prisoners were elected to the Dáil. In addition, there were work stoppages and large demonstrations all over Ireland in sympathy with the hunger strikers. More than 100,000 people attended the funeral of Sands, the first hunger striker to die.[90]

The success of the 1981 Irish hunger strike in mobilising support and winning elections led to the "Armalite and ballot box strategy", named after Danny Morrison's speech at the 1981 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (annual meeting):

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?[91]

The IRA made an attempt to escalate the conflict with the so-called "Tet Offensive" in the 1980s, which was reluctantly approved by the Army Council and did not prove successful. The perceived stalemate along with British government's hints of a compromise[92] and secret approaches in the early 1990s led republican leaders increasingly to look for a political agreement to end the conflict,[93][94] with a broadening dissociation of Sinn Féin from the IRA. Public speeches from two Northern Ireland Secretaries of State, Peter Brooke[95] and Patrick Mayhew[96] hinted that, given the cessation of violence, a political compromise with the IRA was possible. Gerry Adams entered talks with John Hume, the leader of the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in 1993, and secret talks were also conducted since 1991 between Martin McGuinness and a senior MI6 officer, Michael Oatley.[92][94][97] Thereafter, Adams increasingly tried to disassociate Sinn Féin from the IRA, stating they were separate organisations and refusing to speak on behalf of the IRA.[98]

The new strategy was described by the acronym "TUAS", described as either "Tactical Use of Armed Struggle" to the Irish republican movement or "Totally Unarmed Strategy" to the broader Irish nationalist movement.[99] Following the negotiations with the SDLP and secret talks with British civil servants, the IRA ultimately called a ceasefire in 1994 on the understanding that Sinn Féin would be included in political talks for a settlement.[100] When the British government then demanded the disarmament of the IRA before it allowed Sinn Féin into multiparty talks, the organisation called off its ceasefire in February 1996. The renewed bombings caused severe economic damage, with the Manchester bombing and the Docklands bombing causing approximately £800 million in combined damage.

After the IRA declared a new ceasefire in July 1997, Sinn Féin was admitted into all-party talks, which produced the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. One aim of the agreement was that all paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland cease their activities and disarm by May 2000. Calls from Sinn Féin led the IRA to commence disarming in a process that was monitored by Canadian General John de Chastelain's decommissioning body in October 2001,[101] and some weapons were decommissioned on 23 October 2001 and 11 April 2002.[102] In October 2002 the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended by the British government and direct rule returned, in order to prevent a unionist walkout.[103] This was partly triggered by Stormontgate—allegations that republican spies were operating within Parliament Buildings and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI)[104]—and the IRA temporarily broke off contact with General de Chastelain.[105] However, further decommissioning took place on 21 October 2003.[102] In the aftermath of the December 2004 Northern Bank robbery, 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.[106] At the beginning of February 2005, the IRA declared that it was withdrawing a decommissioning offer from late 2004.[106] This followed a demand from the Democratic Unionist Party, under Ian Paisley, insisting on photographic evidence of decommissioning.[106]

On 28 July 2005, the Army Council announced an end to the armed campaign, stating that it would work to achieve its aims solely by peaceful political means. The Army Council stated that it had ordered volunteers to dump all weapons and to end all paramilitary activity. It also announced that the IRA would complete the process of disarmament as quickly as possible.[107]

This was not the first time that an organisation calling itself the IRA had issued orders to dump arms.[108] After its defeat in the Irish Civil War in 1924 and at the end of its unsuccessful Border Campaign in 1962, the IRA issued similar orders.[108] However, this was the first time that an Irish republican paramilitary organisation had voluntarily decided to dispose of its arms.[108] On 26 September 2005, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) announced that "the totality of the IRA's arsenal" had been decommissioned. The IRA invited two independent witnesses to view the secret disarmament work: Catholic priest Father Alec Reid and Protestant minister Reverend Harold Good.[109][110] Among the weaponry, estimated by Jane's Information Group, to have been decommissioned as part of this process were:

• 1,000 rifles
• 2 tonnes of Semtex
• 20–30 heavy machine guns
• 7 surface-to-air missiles (unused)
• 7 flamethrowers
• 1,200 detonators
• 11 rocket-propelled grenade launchers
• 90 handguns
• 100+ hand grenades[111]

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.[112][n 5] The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, said he accepted the conclusion of the IICD.[114] Since then, there have been occasional claims in 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 tenth report that the IRA had decommissioned all weaponry "under its control".[115] It said that if any weapons had been kept, they would have been kept by individuals and against IRA orders.[115][n 6]

There have also been claims that the IRA is still active and has carried out punishment shootings.[118] Some former members of the IRA have joined dissident republican paramilitary organisations, including the Continuity IRA,[119] the Real IRA,[120] Republican Action Against Drugs,[121] and the New IRA.[122]

In February 2015, the Garda Commissioner stated that Gardaí have no evidence that the IRA's military structure remains or that the IRA is engaged in crime.[123] In August 2015, the PSNI Chief Constable stated that the IRA no longer exists as a paramilitary organisation. He said that some of its structure remains, but that the group is committed to following a peaceful political path and is not engaged in criminal activity or directing violence.[124] However, he added that some members have engaged in criminal activity or violence for their own ends.[124] The statement was in response to the recent killings of two former IRA members. In May, former IRA commander Gerard Davison was shot dead in Belfast. He had been involved in Direct Action Against Drugs and it is believed he was killed by an organised crime gang. Three months later, former IRA member Kevin McGuigan was also shot dead in Belfast. It is believed he was killed by the group Action Against Drugs, in revenge for the Davison killing. The Chief Constable believed that IRA members collaborated with Action Against Drugs, but without the sanction of the IRA.[124] In response, the UK government commissioned the Assessment on Paramilitary Groups in Northern Ireland, which concluded in October 2015 that the IRA, while committed to peace, continues to exist in a reduced form.[125]

The IRA publicly condemned sectarianism and sectarian attacks.[139] However, some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks.[139] Of those killed by the IRA, Sutton classifies 130 (about 7%) of them as sectarian killings of Protestants.[140] Unlike loyalists, the IRA denied responsibility for sectarian attacks and the members involved used cover names, such as "Republican Action Force".[141] They stated that their attacks on Protestants were "retaliation" for attacks on Catholics.[139] Many in the IRA opposed these sectarian attacks, but others deemed them effective in preventing similar attacks on Catholics.[142] Professor Robert White writes the IRA was "in general, was not a sectarian organization",[143] and Rachel Kowalski writes that the IRA acted "in a fashion that was, for the most part, blind to religious diversity".[144]

Some unionists allege that the IRA took part in "ethnic cleansing" of the Protestant minority in rural border areas, such as Fermanagh.[145][146] Many local Protestants allegedly believed that the IRA tried to force them into leaving. However, most Protestants killed by the IRA in these areas were members of the security forces, and there was no exodus of Protestants.[147]

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.[148][149][150][151] The IRA also raised funds through donations and by running legitimate businesses such as taxi firms, social clubs, pubs and restaurants. It is estimated that, by the 1990s, the IRA needed £10.5 million a year to operate.[152]

IRA supporters argue that the IRA's "securing of funds by extralegal methods is justified as a means to achieve a political goal. Unlike crimes committed for personal gain, IRA operations are considered strategic attacks against an oppressive state".[148] However, this activity allowed the British Government to portray the IRA as no more than a criminal gang.[148]

It was estimated that the IRA carried out 1,000 armed robberies in Northern Ireland, mostly of banks and post offices.[148] It was accused of involvement in the biggest bank raid in Irish history—the 2004 Northern Bank robbery—when £26.5 million was stolen.[153] The PSNI, the Independent Monitoring Commission, and the British and Irish governments all accused the IRA of involvement.[154][155] It is suggested that the IRA needed the money to pay pensions to its volunteers, and to ensure that hardliners stuck with the peace strategy.[148] The IRA denied involvement, however.[156]

Generally, the IRA was against drug dealing and prostitution, because it would be unpopular within Catholic communities and for moral reasons.[157] The Chief of the RUC's Drugs Squad, Kevin Sheehy, said "the Provisional IRA did its best to stop volunteers from becoming directly involved [in drugs]" and noted one occasion when an IRA member caught with a small amount of cannabis was "disowned and humiliated" in his local area.[158] The IRA often targeted drug dealers. Many were given punishment shootings or banished, and some were killed. However, there are claims the IRA "licensed" certain dealers to operate and forced them to pay protection money.[149][159]

Speaking in 2005, Gerry Adams said: "There is no place in republicanism for anyone involved in criminality". However, he went on to say "we refuse to criminalise those who break the law in pursuit of legitimate political objectives".[160]

In 2008, the Independent Monitoring Commission stated that the IRA was no longer involved in criminality, but that some members have engaged in criminality for their own ends, without the sanction or support of the IRA.[161]

An IRA signpost with the word "Provoland" underneath in Strathroy, Omagh, County Tyrone.

During the conflict, the IRA took on the role of policing in some Catholic/nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.[162] Many Catholics/nationalists did not trust the official police force—the Royal Ulster Constabulary—and saw it as biased against their community.[162][163] The RUC found it difficult to operate in certain nationalist neighbourhoods and only entered in armoured convoys, due to the threat of attack from rioters and the IRA. In these neighbourhoods, many residents expected the IRA to act as a policing force,[162][164] and such policing "provided the IRA a certain propaganda value".[165] The IRA also sought to minimize contact between residents and the RUC, because residents might pass on information or be forced to become a police informer.[162] The IRA set up arbitration panels that would adjudicate and investigate complaints from locals about criminal or 'anti-social' activities.[166] Those responsible for minor offences would be given a warning, be made to compensate the offendee or be made to do community work. Those responsible for more serious and repeat offences could be given a punishment beating or kneecapping, or be banished from the community.

The IRA's vigilantism has been repeatedly condemned as "summary justice". However, on several occasions, the British authorities have recognized the IRA's policing role.[167] In January 1971, the IRA and British Army held secret talks aimed at stopping persistent rioting in Ballymurphy. It was agreed that the IRA would be responsible for policing there, but the agreement was short-lived.[168][169] During the 1975 ceasefire, the government agreed to the setting up of 'incident centres' in nationalist areas. They were staffed by Sinn Féin members and were to deal with incidents that might endanger the truce. Residents went there to report crime as well as to make complaints about the security forces. The incident centres were seen by locals as 'IRA police stations' and gave some legitimacy to the IRA as a policing force.[167]

Political opponents accused the IRA and Sinn Féin of a coverup. The Sinn Féin leader apologized to victims who were "let down" by the IRA and admitted it "was ill-equipped to deal with such matters".[170][171][172]

Throughout the Troubles, some members of the IRA passed information to the security forces. In the 1980s, many IRA members were arrested after being implicated by former IRA members known as "supergrasses" such as Raymond Gilmour.[173][n 7]

A Belfast newspaper has claimed that secret documents show that half of the IRA's top men were also British informers.[176] There have been some high-profile allegations of senior IRA figures having been British informers. In May 2003, an American website named Freddie Scappaticci as being Stakeknife.[177] Scappaticci was said to be a high-level IRA informer working for the British Army's Force Research Unit, while he was head of the IRA's Internal Security Unit, which interrogated and killed suspected informers.[178] Scappaticci denies being Stakeknife, and involvement in IRA activity.[178] In December 2005, Sinn Féin member and former IRA volunteer Denis Donaldson appeared at a press conference in Dublin and confessed to being a British spy since the early 1980s.[179][180] Donaldson, who ran Sinn Féin's operations in New York during the Northern Ireland peace process, was expelled by the party.[179][181] On 4 April 2006, Donaldson was found shot dead at his retreat near Glenties in County Donegal.[182] The Real IRA claimed responsibility for his assassination on 12 April 2009.[183] Other prominent informers include Eamon Collins,[175] Sean O'Callaghan,[184] and Roy McShane, who worked as a driver for the leadership of Sinn Féin including Gerry Adams.[181][185]

The IRA took a hard line against anyone believed to be secretly passing information about IRA activity to British forces. The IRA regarded them as traitors,[186] and a threat to the organisation and lives of its members.[187] Suspected informers were dealt with by the IRA's Internal Security Unit (ISU). It carried out an investigation, and interrogated the suspect. Following this a court martial would take place, consisting of three members of equal or higher rank than the accused, plus a member of GHQ or the Army Council acting as an observer.[188] Any death sentence would be ratified by the Army Council, who would be informed of the verdict by the observer.[188] IRA members who confessed to being informers were killed with a shot to the head. Civilian informers were regarded as collaborators and were usually either killed or exiled. The IRA killed 59 alleged informers, about half of them IRA members and half of them Catholic civilians. The bodies of alleged informers were usually left in public as a warning to others. Twelve, however, were secretly buried and became known as "the Disappeared".

One particularly controversial killing of an alleged informer was that of Jean McConville. A Catholic civilian and widowed mother-of-ten, her body was secretly buried and not found until thirty years later. The IRA has since issued a general apology, saying it "regrets the suffering of all the families whose loved ones were killed and buried by the IRA".[189]

The original IRA, as well as loyalist paramilitaries, also had a policy of killing alleged informers.[190]

The IRA has also feuded with other republican paramilitary groups such as the Official IRA in the 1970s and the Irish People's Liberation Organisation in the 1990s.

Leading Real Irish Republican Army member Joseph O'Connor was shot dead in Ballymurphy, west Belfast on 11 October 2000.[191] Claims have been made by O'Connor's family and others including Marian Price and Anthony McIntyre that he was killed by the IRA,[191] but Sinn Féin denied the claims as did the IRA.[192][193] No-one has been charged with his killing.

It is unclear how many people joined the IRA during the troubles, however in the early to mid-1970s, the numbers recruited by the IRA may have reached several thousand. Official membership reduction coincided with the adoption by the IRA of a 'cell structure' in an attempt to counter security force penetration through the use of informers.[216] In addition to members in Ireland the IRA also had one or two 'active service units' in Britain and mainland Europe.[216]

An RUC report of 1986 estimated that the IRA had 300 or so members in active service units and up to 750 active members in total in Northern Ireland.[50] This does not take into consideration the IRA units in the Republic of Ireland or those in Great Britain, continental Europe, or elsewhere. In 2005, the then Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell told the Dáil that the organisation had between 1,000 and 1,500 active members.[217]

According to the book The Provisional IRA (by Eamon Mallie and Patrick Bishop), roughly 8,000 people passed through the ranks of the IRA in the first 20 years of its existence, many of them leaving after arrest, "retirement" or disillusionment.[24] According to Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly approximately 30,000 members passed through the ranks of the IRA between 1969 and 1997 with most leaving after a short period of time.[218]

Popular support for the IRA's campaign in the Troubles is hard to gauge, given that Sinn Féin, the IRA's political wing, did not stand in elections until the early 1980s. Most nationalists in Northern Ireland voted for the moderate SDLP until 2001. After the 1981 hunger strikes, Sinn Féin mobilised large electoral support and won 105,000 votes, or 43% of the nationalist vote in Northern Ireland, in the 1983 UK general election, only 34,000 votes behind the SDLP.[219] However, by the 1992 general election, the SDLP won 184,445 votes and four seats to Sinn Féin's 78,291 votes and no seats.[220] In the 1993 Local District Council elections in Northern Ireland, the SDLP won 136,760 votes to Sinn Féin's 77,600 votes.[221]

Few Protestant voters voted for Sinn Féin. In 1992, many of them voted for SDLP West Belfast candidate Joe Hendron rather than a unionist candidate to make sure Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin lost his seat in the constituency.[222]

An IRA wall mural in Coalisland, County Tyrone

The IRA enjoyed some popular support in the Republic of Ireland in the early 1970s. However, the movement's appeal was hurt badly by bombings such as the killing of civilians at the Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen in 1987, and the Warrington bomb attacks, which led to tens of thousands of people demonstrating on O'Connell Street in Dublin to call for an end to the IRA's campaign. In the 1987 Irish general election, they won only 1.7% of the votes cast.[223] They did not make significant electoral gains in the Republic until after the IRA ceasefires and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. By the 2011 Irish general election Sinn Féin's proportion of the popular vote had reached 9.9 percent.

As of 2020, Sinn Féin has 29 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly (out of 90), 7 members of the British Parliament (out of 18 from Northern Ireland) and 37 TDs in the Republic of Ireland's Dáil Éireann (out of 160).

The IRA have had contacts with foreign governments and other illegal armed organisations.

Libya was a supplier of arms to the IRA, donating two shipments of arms in the early 1970s,[224] and another five in the mid-1980s.[225] The final shipment in 1987 was intercepted by French authorities,[225] 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 Semtex, a plastic explosive.[226]

The IRA has also received weapons and financial support from Irish Americans in the United States.[227] Apart from the Libyan aid, this has been the main source of overseas IRA support. In the United States in November 1982, five men, including George Harrison and Michael Flannery, were acquitted of smuggling arms to the IRA after they claimed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had approved the shipment through arms dealer George de Meo, although de Meo denied any connection with the CIA.[228] Harrison is estimated to have smuggled 2,500 weapons and a million rounds of ammunition to Ireland, an estimate described as "conservative" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[229] American support was weakened by the 11 September 2001 attacks and the subsequent "War on Terror".[230]

There was contact between the IRA and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and specifically the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine starting from the mid-1970s which included the intensive training of IRA volunteers. In 1977, the Provisionals received a 'sizeable' arms shipment from the PLO, including arms, rocket launchers and explosives, but this was intercepted at Antwerp after the Israeli intelligence alerted its European counterparts. Afterwards, they declined on the grounds that it was impossible to smuggle arms out of the Levant region without alerting Israeli intelligence. Tim Pat Coogan wrote that assistance from the PLO has dried up in the late-1980s after the PLO had forged stronger links with the government of the Republic of Ireland.[231]

Falls Road in 1981

The IRA had links with the Basque separatist group ETA.[227] Maria McGuire states the IRA received fifty revolvers from ETA in exchange for explosives training.[232][233] In 1973 it was accused by the Spanish police of providing explosives for the assassination of Spanish prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid, and the following year an ETA spokesman told German magazine Der Spiegel they had "very good relations" with the IRA.[227][232] In 1977 a representative of the Basque political party Euskal Iraultzarako Alderdia attended Sinn Féin's 1977 ard fheis, and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh had a close relationship with Basque separatists, regularly visiting the Basque region between 1977 and 1983.[234]

In May 1996, the Federal Security Service (FSB), 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.[235] In 2001, three Irish men, who later became known as the Colombia Three, were arrested after allegedly training Colombian guerrillas, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in bomb making and urban warfare techniques. The US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations in its report of 24 April 2002 concluded "Neither committee investigators nor the Colombians can find credible explanations for the increased, more sophisticated capacity for these specific terror tactics now being employed by the FARC, other than IRA training".[236]