Irish Republican Army: Terror in Ireland
(Institute/College/University)
Regarded as the oldest terrorist group in Europe, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was initially named as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) or the “Fenians” on the 15th of February 1858. Its earliest objectives engaged the liberation of the region from the “invading” British forces; in the course of time, the IRB forged a close collaboration with Sinn Fein (“Ourselves Alone”) after the latter’s establishment in 1905. The IRB’s radical wing carried numerous attacks including the “Easter Uprising” onslaught in 1916 under the name “Irish Republican Army.” After a cease fire was concluded in 1923, the main IRA force ceased its struggle against the government; however, the senior IRA leadership did not fully accommodate the concept that the ruling Irish government actually represented the legitimate governing body in Ireland (Atkins, 2004, p. 141).
After the Irish lost its struggle for self-rule against the British in the 1920s, Ireland was sliced into two regions, 26 counties in the south were apportioned comprising the Free State of Ireland, the forerunner of the Republic of Ireland that was established in 1949; the other six Northern counties formed the future state of Northern Ireland. The British government administered the six Northern counties, while the Free State ruled over the other counties. However, in what can be regarded as the distinguishing characteristic of the two, Catholics living in the Free State were allowed to practice their religious beliefs unhampered; Catholics in the north could not.
The Northern Irish were severely discriminated and brutalized; in effect, these were treated as nothing more than criminals, ostracized in their own homeland. The segregating of the country was and is still unwelcome to Irish Republican factions. Irish Republicans that count among future IRA members have dedicated themselves to forming a “thirty-two county, independent Irish republic;” to this end, if achieving this end will be attained by using force, many of these elements will not hesitate to engage that avenue (Derkins, 2003, pp. 4-5).
Established in 1919 as a replacement for the Irish Volunteers, the IRA was the military force of the movement that sought the establishment of an Ireland under self-rule; the political arm of this movement was the Sinn Fein movement. Nonetheless, it must be noted that the IRA moved outside any political control (Arthur, 2016). The execution of the “Rising” scheme in 1916 was somewhat a symbolical move on the part of the IRA as a gesture of their rebellion against the British. With the British too preoccupied with the conduct of the War, the insurrectionists believed that it was an opportune time to initiate their plans (English, 2008, p. 5).
The British Irish government, realizing the possible rise of the rebellion, was deeply troubled with the combination of the rebellion and the possibility that the militants will collaborate with the enemy. In response to this seemingly possible threat, the British created a number of tribunals to prosecute detained rebel leaders for cases of sedition and treason. Nevertheless, intermittent IRA attacks continued until 1923; the trials of the IRA members and leaders were interspersed with the coercion and harassment of witnesses as well as jury members. Withal, systematized attacks by the IRA was nearly extinct, with the number of organized assaults dropping from more than 14,000 in 1924 to roughly 5,000 two years later.
Given this development, the leaders of the IRA called for a new “General Army Convention” that would set the new direction for the terrorist group. During the summit, a new basic law was adopted featuring four main points. One, the defense of the prestige and respect of the Republic as well as the united independence of the Irish people; two, to set down the legitimate Irish government to rule over all of Ireland; three, to protect and ensure the integrity of fundamental civil and religious freedoms, parities, and guarantees for all people, and to rekindle the Irish’s Gaelic culture and identity (Dingley, 2012, p. 80).
After the Great War, the force that developed into the IRA began a brutal extremist campaign that resulted in a great number of casualties and destruction across the Irish homeland; these hostilities served only to increase the widening chasm between the north and south. The British, on the other hand, were focusing more on efforts that will separate the Irish homeland from the rest of the country, holding that the problems in this region were too difficult and time consuming to resolve. The “silver lining” in this problem was the 1920 law that saw the establishment of two “Home Rule” chambers, one based in Belfast for Northern Ireland, the other in Dublin for the Free State. Southern Ireland soon transformed into an independent state while the Northern Irish determined to remain in the Union as a semi-independent political entity (Dingley, 2012).
In the Anglo-Irish War, or the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), under the command of Michael Collins, the IRA engaged guerilla warfare tactics-traps, raids, and treachery-with the goal of forcing the British government to arbitrate the concern. Though there was a negotiated settlement to the problems, a number of the provisions of the agreement with the British were unacceptable to some IRA members. As a result of the rift in the group, the IRA splintered into two groups, one under the leadership of Collins that advocated the agreement with the British and one under Eamon de Valera that opposed the accord. Collin’s forces came to compose the core of the Irish Free State Army with de Valera’s forces comprising the independence forces and were known as the “Irregulars.”
Even though the main forces of the Irish independence surrendered, their guns were never taken nor were the forces officially disbanded. In addition, the desire and motivation to attain Irish independence, by violence if necessary, was still very much alive. In one instance of the Second World War, the IRA even went to the extent for calling on the aid of German dictator Adolf Hitler to help in expunging the British from Ireland. This action of the IRA led to the execution of a number of the group’s leaders and the imprisonment of the others.
After the secession of Ireland from the British Commonwealth in 1949, the efforts of the group turned to increasing its violent activities to unify the Catholic South and the Protestant Northern Irish republics. Over the years, the “fortunes” of the group expanded and ebbed; in 1998, the IRA concluded the Good Friday Agreement (“Belfast Agreement”) that connected the formation of a new government structure in Northern Ireland with the demobilization of the IRA forces as well as the implementation of a number of programs designed to normalize “cross-country” relations. The republicans that formed the core of the IRA eventually agreed that as long as the majority of the people wanted to remain in the Union, then the IRA would respect that desire, undermining the military slant of the IRA. In 2005, the IRA officially declared an end to its armed struggle and would rather pursue non-violent means to attain its objectives (Arthur, 2016).
The man who developed the guerilla tactics engaged by the IRA, Michael Collins, was an Irish rebel; Collins is also acknowledged as the extremist group’s founder. The youngest of eight siblings, Collins attended a school in Lisavaird where he met schoolmaster Dennis Lyons, an active cadre of the IRB. In 1916 after assuming the presidency of the IRB in London, Collins immigrated back to Ireland where he immediately set to work in rebuilding the IRB (Kuznicki, Willett, Griffin, Manley, and Matten, pp. 13-14). From 1922, after the splintering of the IRA forces owing to the treaty with the British, Collins began to organize a new military force from the IRA elements that supported the treaty. Later that year, the IRA convened a summit rejected the right of the Dail to break up the Republic. A force under the command of Rory O’Connor occupied the Four Courts area; Collins adjudicated with de Valera to reunite the anti-treaty IRA forces with its former partner the Sinn Fein to avoid bloodshed. However, a number of events threatened to reignite the violence in Ireland. Henry Wilson, a former British military officer, was killed by two IRA militants, who were later executed. There is no evidence as to the actual mastermind behind the killing; however, there are unverified reports that Collins ordered the assassination in revenge for Wilson’s role as military adviser in Northern Ireland (Dorney, 2012).
The Four Courts incident proved to be one of the turning points in the history of the IRA. The anti-treaty forces were adamant in not surrendering the area to the British forces; Collins, with the blessings of the British, Collins launched an attack that decimated the anti-treaty forces; this marked the start of the Irish Civil War. Collins successfully led the Free State armies until the 22nd of August 1922, when Collins was waylaid by anti-treaty agents in County Cork (BBC, 2014).
Collins was assassinated when the convoy he was on was on its way back to Cork from Mallow. Knowing that Collins would be coming through the same way he left, a column of anti-treaty forces were waiting for the convoy. When the ambush was engaged, Collins opted to fight rather than drove forward as was the suggestion of his aide-de-camp, Emmet Dalton. In the course of the firefight, Collins was killed with a solitary gunshot to the head, killing him on the spot (McGreevy, Collins, 2014).
References
Arthur, P (2016) “Irish Republican Army” Retrieved 31 March 2016 from <http://www.britannica.com/topic/Irish-Republican-Army
Atkins, S.E (2004) Encyclopedia of modern worldwide extremists and extremist groups. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group
BBC (2014) “Michael Collins (1890-1922)” Retrieved 31 March 2016 from <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/collins_michael.shtml
Derkins, S (2003) The Irish Republican Army. New York: Rosen Publishing Group
Dingley, J. (2012) The IRA: The Irish Republican Army. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO
Dorney, J (2012) “The Irish Civil War-a brief overview” Retrieved 31 March 2016 from <http://www.theirishstory.com/2012/07/02/the-irish-civil-war-a-brief-overview/#.Vv3ok-TK36T
English, R (2008). Armed struggle: the history of the IRA. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd
McGreevy, R., Collins, S (2014, October 3) Gunman believed to have killed Michael Collins was granted military pension” The Irish Times
Kuznicki, M., Willett, C., Griffin, M., Manley, E., and Matten, R. “Terrorism: Irish Republican Army” Retrieved 31 March 2016 from <http://www.emich.edu/cerns/downloads/papers/PoliceStaff/Unsorted/IrishRepublicanArmy.pdf
