Provisional Irish Republican Army
From Metapedia
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) is an Irish Republican, left wing paramilitary organisation that, until the Belfast Agreement, sought to end Northern Ireland's status within the United Kingdom and bring about a United Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion. Since its emergence in 1969, its stated aim has been the overthrow of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and their replacement by a sovereign socialist all-island Irish state. The organisation is classified as an illegal terrorist group in the United Kingdom and as an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland.
The IRA sees itself as a direct continuation of the Irish Republican Army (the army of the Irish Republic — 1919–1921) that fought in the Irish War of Independence. Like all other organisations calling themselves the IRA , the Provisionals refer to themselves in public announcements and internal discussions as Óglaigh na hÉireann ("The Irish Volunteers"), which is also the Irish language title of the Irish Defence Forces (the Irish army).
On 28 July 2005, the IRA Army Council announced an end to its armed campaign, stating that it would work to achieve its aims using "purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means" and that IRA "Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever".
An internal British Army document released in 2007 stated an expert opinion that the British Army had failed to defeat the IRA by force of arms but also claims to have 'shown the IRA that it could not achieve its ends through violence'. The military assessment describes the IRA as 'professional, dedicated, highly skilled and resilient'.
The IRA have reportedly killed more people than any other organisation since the Troubles began. In addition, they have killed more Roman Catholics, more Protestants, more civilians and more foreigners (those not from Northern Ireland) than any other organisation. Members of the IRA however have frequently disputed that the forces ranged in opposition to the IRA throughout 'the Troubles' represent separate, distinct "organisations". In the republican analysis of the conflict, organisations like the UDR, British Army, along with the UVF, and UDA represent an alliance of state and paramilitary forces, making a tally of this type nonsensical as it does not represent the nature of the conflict in their view.
Two very detailed studies of deaths in the Troubles, the CAIN project at the University of Ulster, and Lost Lives, differ slightly on the numbers killed by the Provisional IRA but a rough synthesis gives a figure of 1,800 deaths. Of these, roughly 1,100 were members of the security forces - British Army, Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Defence Regiment, between 600 and 650 were civilians and the remainder were either loyalist or republican paramilitaries (including over 100 IRA members accidentally killed by their own bombs).
It has also been estimated that the IRA injured 6,000 British Army, UDR and RUC and up to 14,000 civilians, during the Troubles.
The IRA lost a little under 300 members killed in the Troubles. In addition, roughly 50-60 members of Sinn Féin were killed.
Far more common than the killing of IRA volunteers however, was their imprisonment. Journalists Eamonn Mallie and Patrick Bishop estimate in their book The Provisional IRA, that between eight and ten thousand members of the organisation had been imprisoned by the mid-1980s, a number they also give as the total number of past and present IRA members at that time.
