Would the 'real' IRA please stand up? Why, and how, the IRA splintered. The Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, the Irish National Liberation Army, the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA have all assumed responsibility for the struggle for Irish freedom over the course of the late-20th century. Yet as recently as 1969 there was only one Irish Republican Army trying to unify Ireland using physical force., Andrew Sanders explains how and why the transition from one IRA to several IRAs occurred, analysing all the dissident factions that have emerged since the outbreak of the Northern Ireland troubles. He looks at why these groups emerged, what their respective purposes are, and why, in an era of relative peace and stability in Northern Ireland, they seek to prolong the violence that cost over 3500 lives.
A portrayal of the Irish Republican Army includes coverage of its associations with Qaddafi's regime, Margaret Thatcher's secret diplomacy with Gerry Adams, and the Catholic Church's negotiations with Republican leadership.
BRADLEY SPEAKS OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME – WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE IRA The IRA was Gerry Bradley's life. His sole interest was in 'ops' – carrying out on-the-ground war. Inspired, initially, to defend his home place against Loyalist threats, he became one of the most senior operators in Belfast IRA. When things turned political, there seemed to be no place for his kind of activism. THE INSIDE STORY BY A SENIOR IRA MAN
For ten years Kevin Toolis investigated the lives of the IRA soldiers who wage a secret battle against the British State. His journeys took him from the back kitchens of Belfast, where men joked while making two-thousand-pound bombs, to prisons for interviews with men serving life sentences, and to the graveyards where mourners weep. Each chapter explores a world where history, faith, and human savagery determine life and death. At once moving and harrowing,Rebel Hearts is the most authoritative and insightful book ever written on the IRA.
Discover the Inspiring Story of a Revolutionary: Mick Ryan's memoir of growing up in Dublin's East Wall and his journey as former IRA Director of Operations. Explore his commitment to the cause, despite suffering, hardship, and disappointment in My Life in the IRA. Understand why these volunteers persisted against all odds, driven by a deep sense of obligation to the ideals of 1916. Immerse yourself in the journey of a man who saw his involvement as a calling, a way to give meaning to his life. Get a unique perspective on the Irish struggle for independence and be moved by this tale of bravery, conviction and regret.
This book analyzes the underlying reasons behind the formation of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), its development, where this current in Irish republicanism is at present and its prospects for the future. Tommy McKearney, a former IRA member who was part of the 1980 hunger strike, challenges the misconception that the Provisional IRA was only, or even wholly, about ending partition and uniting Ireland. He argues that while these objectives were always the core and headline demands of the organization, opposition to the old Northern Ireland state was a major dynamic for the IRA’s armed campaign. As he explores the makeup and strategy of the IRA he is not uncritical, examining alternative options available to the movement at different periods, arguing that its inability to develop a clear socialist program has limited its effectiveness and reach. This authoritative and engaging history provides a fascinating insight into the workings and dynamics of a modern resistance movement.
This book examines the grass-roots relationship between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the civilian population during the Irish Revolution. It is primarily concerned with the attempts of the militant revolutionaries to discourage, stifle, and punish dissent among the local populations in which they operated, and the actions or inactions by which dissent was expressed or implied. Focusing on the period of guerilla war against British rule from c. 1917 to 1922, it uncovers the acts of 'everyday' violence, threat, and harm that characterized much of the revolutionary activity of this period. Moving away from the ambushes and assassinations that have dominated much of the discourse on the revolution, the book explores low-level violent and non-violent agitation in the Irish town or parish. The opening chapter treats the IRA's challenge to the British state through the campaign against servants of the Crown - policemen, magistrates, civil servants, and others - and IRA participation in local government and the republican counter-state. The book then explores the nature of civilian defiance and IRA punishment in communities across the island before turning its attention specifically to the year that followed the 'Truce' of July 1921. This study argues that civilians rarely operated at either extreme of a spectrum of support but, rather, in a large and fluid middle ground. Behaviour was rooted in local circumstances, and influenced by local fears, suspicions, and rivalries. IRA punishment was similarly dictated by community conditions and usually suited to the nature of the perceived defiance. Overall, violence and intimidation in Ireland was persistent, but, by some contemporary standards, relatively restrained.
Recruited by British Intelligence to infiltrate the IRA and Sinn Féin during the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles, they were ‘agents of influence’. With codenames like INFLICTION, STAKEKNIFE, 3007 and CAROL, these spies played a pivotal role in the fight against Irish republicanism. Now, for the first time, some of these agents have emerged from the shadows to tell their compelling stories. Agents of Influence takes you behind the scenes of the secret intelligence war which helped bring the IRA’s armed struggle to an end. Historian Aaron Edwards, the critically acclaimed author of UVF: Behind the Mask, explains how the IRA was penetrated by British agents, with explosive new revelations about the hidden agendas of prominent republicans like Martin McGuinness and Freddie Scappaticci and lesser-known ones like Joe Haughey and John Joe Magee. Bringing to light recently declassified TOP SECRET documents and the firsthand testimonies of agents and their handlers, Edwards reveals how British Intelligence gained extraordinary access to the IRA’s inner circle and manipulated them into engaging with the peace process. With new insights into the spy masters behind the scenes, their strategies and tactics, and Britain’s international intelligence network in Northern Ireland, Europe, and beyond, Agents of Influence offers a rare and shocking glimpse into the clandestine world of secret agents, British intelligence strategy and the betrayal at the heart of militant Irish republicanism during the vicious decades of the Troubles.
In this groundbreaking title, A. R. Oppenheimer tells how the Irish Republican Army became the most adept and experienced insurgency group the world has ever seen through their bombing expertise – and how, after generations of conflict, it all came to an end. The book is a comprehensive account of more than 150 years of Irish republican strategic, tactical, and operational details, and an analysis of the IRA’s mission, doctrine, targeting, and acquisition of weapons and explosives. As a leading expert on non-conventional weapons and explosives, Oppenheimer vividly presents the story behind the bombs – those who built and deployed them; those who had to deal with and dismantle them; and those who suffered or died from them. He analyses where, how, and why the IRA’s 19,000 bombs were built, targeted and deployed, and explores what the IRA was hoping to accomplish in its unrivaled campaign of violence and insurgency through covert acquisition, training, intelligence and counter-intelligence. Beginning with the Fenian ‘Dynamiters’ in the second half of the nineteenth century, Oppenheimer fully describes and assesses the impact of the pre-1970s bombing campaigns in Northern Ireland and England and the evolution of strategies and tactics during the Troubles. He concludes with the decommissioning of an arsenal big enough to arm several battalions – which included an entire home-crafted missile system, an unsurpassed range of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and enough explosives to blow up several urban centres. The author scrutinises the level of deadly improvisation that became the hallmark of the Provisional IRA’s expertise and the ingenuity in its pioneering IED timing, delay and disguise technologies, and follows the arms race it carried on with the British Army and security services in a long war of mutual assured disruption. He also provides an insight into the bombing equipment and guns in the vast IRA inventory held at Irish Police HQ in Dublin.
