View source

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

You do not have permission to edit pages, for the following reasons:

• The action you have requested is limited to users in one of the groups Users, Sysops, editors.
• You must confirm your e-mail address before editing pages. Please set and validate your e-mail address through your user preferences.

You can view and copy the source of this page:

{{subpages}} {{TOC|right}} Actually a broad term encompassing both historical and factional organizations, the '''Irish Republican Army (IRA)''' includes various [[insurgency|insurgent]] groups beginning when [[Ireland (island)|Ireland]] was a colony of the [[United Kingdom]], and latterly in the [[Ireland (state)|Republic of Ireland]] and in [[Northern Ireland]]. At various times and currently, different groups have claimed the title, resulting in various qualifiers such as Official IRA, Provisional IRA, Real IRA, Continuity IRA, etc. IRA groups variously have considered themselves subordinate to overt political organizations, or been autonomous movements of their own. ==Origins== Before any group called itself the IRA, there was the Irish Home Rule movement, opposed by the Protestant [[Ulster Volunteer Force]] (UVF) that objected to Catholic-dominated, Irish nationalist Home Rule. Had there been no UVF and no opposition to Home Rule, the [[Irish Volunteers]] would not have had a motivation to conduct the Easter Rising of 1916.<ref name=Rosa>{{citation | title = Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 | author = Peter De Rosa | publisher = Ballantine | year = 1992}}</ref> While the Irish Volunteers were not the only nationalist force, which arose from the [[Irish Republican Brotherhood]] (IRB), the original IRA can be traced most clearly to them. The IRB had been formed in 1858. <ref name=Coogan>{{citation |title = The IRA: A History | author = Tim Pat Coogan | publisher = Roberts Rinehart | year = 1993}}, pp. 3-5</ref> ==Northern Ireland== ===Provisional IRA=== ===Real IRA=== The Real IRA (RIRA) group formed in Northern Ireland, from PIRA members who had rejected the 1998 peace process and continued fighting the British. Both the British and Irish governments consider it separate from the Provisional IRA. <ref name=NYT>{{citation | date = August 19, 1998 | title = I.R.A. Splinter Group Says It Carried Out Bombing | author = James F. Clarity | journal = New York Times | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DE1DC153DF93AA2575BC0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print}}</ref> According to the RAND Corporation, it was created by PIRA’s ex-quartermaster general, Michael McKevitt and his common-law wife Bernadette Sands-McKevitt.<ref name=Cragin>{{citation | title = The Dynamic Terrorist Threat: An Assessment of Group Motivations and Capabilities | publisher = RAND Corporation | year = 2004 | author = Kim Cragin and Sara A. Daly }}, p. 27</ref> The two were public members of a political organization called the Sovereignty Committee. <ref name=Guardian2001-03-30>{{citation | Special report, Northern Ireland: Dissident couple arrested | author = Rosie Cowan | date = March 30, 2001 | journal = Guardian | url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/mar/30/northernireland.ireland{}}</ref> She was the sister of Bobby Sands, who was the first PIRA member to die as a result of a hunger strike, in 1981. They recruited a number of PIRA bomb-makers, and their operations have emphasized bombing rather than small unit combat.<ref name=Cragin /> The RIRA claimed responsibility for the Omagh bombing of August 1998,<ref name=CBC>{{citation | title = | IRA splinter group declares 'complete ceasefire' | date = November 13, 1998 | journal = CBC News | http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/1998/09/08/nireland980908a.html}}</ref> which Sands-McKevitt condemned; she said she approved of the halt to violence of the RIRA and PIRA. <ref name=>{{citation | date = August 19, 1998 | title = Bobby Sands' sister condemns bombers | journal = BBC | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/northern_ireland/latest_news/154064.stm}}</ref> The RIRA has been designated a "foreign terrorist organization" by the U.S. government, beginning in 2001. <ref name=DOS>{{citation | date = May 13, 2003 | author = Philip T. Reeker, Deputy Spokesman, [[U.S. Department of State]] | url =http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2003/May/20030513170400osnhojac0.7209436.html | title = U.S. Redesignates Real IRA as Terrorist Organization}}</ref> "RIRA opposes compromise with the British government or with the Protestant unionist majority in Northern Ireland, which favors keeping Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Many of the attacks have coincided with the implementation of the new steps of the Good Friday Accord." ==References== {{reflist|2}}

• Template:!
• Template:Citation
• Template:Citation/core
• Template:Citation/patent
• Template:Every page
• Template:Every page below
• Template:H:title
• Template:Harvard reference/authors
• Template:Howard C. Berkowitz/Metadata
• Template:Link
• Template:Move
• Template:Reflist
• Template:Subpages (protected)
• Template:TOC
• Template:Tl
• Template:Tln
• Template:X0

Return to User:Howard C. Berkowitz/Irish Republican Army.