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IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY IN 1960S-1970S.   Term Paper ID:25649 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines re-emergence of IRA as political & terrorist force. Origins, aims, leadership, tactics, civil rights, Catholic-Protestant struggle, role of Britsh govt., marches, violence.... More...

16 Pages / 3600 Words 7 sources, 47 Citations, MLA Format $64.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Examines re-emergence of IRA as political & terrorist force. Origins, aims, leadership, tactics, civil rights, Catholic-Protestant struggle, role of Britsh govt., marches, violence. Paper Introduction: ROLE OF THE IRA IN NORTHERN IRELAND IN THE 1960S AND 1970S This research paper discusses the factors which led to the re-emergence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as a significant force in the late 1960s and early 1970s in connection with the disturbances and movements (the Troubles) which arose in Northern Ireland. The Catholic minority in Northern Ireland took to the streets in the late 1960s to protest its political and economic grievances against the established Ulster authorities and the dominant Protestant majority. That protest failed to accomplish its objectives in 1968-1969 because of Protestant intransigence and paramilitary violence. The British intervened militarily to restore order but only hesitantly pushed Ulster to initiate reforms. Although the IRA was only marginally involved in this Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Boulder: Roberts Rinehart, 1997.McFerran, Douglass. According toCoogan, the Provos also had to be cautious because "the pretexts for usingguns refused to present themselves. . in thisexplosion for civil rights movement that was sweeping uncontrollably overNorthern Ireland" (111). . Moreover, these parties were perceived by theleaders of the NICRA to be conservative, unresponsive to the everydayconcerns of working and/or poor Catholics and as an result of what Irishhistorians Bew et al. In 1964, Goulding announced that the IRA would abandonits policy of abstentionism and permit its members to engage in politicsand Sinn Fein to take its elected seats in the British and Northern IrelandParliaments (96). Although the IRA was only marginally involved in this predominantlymiddle-class and student civil rights movement, the Provisional IrishRepublican Army (Provos), a spinoff of the original IRA (which thereafterbecame known as the Officials), took advantage of the turmoil to re-emergein the early 197 s as a significant political and terrorist force. As the British Army adopted a "get tough" policy, which includedraids on Catholic homes in search of prisoners and weapons and the settingup of detention centers, including the infamous Curragh Prison, where deepinterrogation techniques and 'low-tech' torture was used, Coogan says that"the reality on the ground in the North was that the British Army was theIRA's best recruiting agent" (115). In March, 1972, the Heathgovernment suspended the Stormont Parliament and imposed direct rule. . Under a 1922 Speaker's Ruling,matters concerning Northern Ireland could not be raised in the House ofCommons. . . Bell saysthat "the London establishment . Afavorite tactic of the ultra-loyalists has always been to paint their IrishCatholic opponents with the Bolshevik brush in the 192 s and to call themcommunists during the Cold War. Martin's, 1993.Bew, Paul, Peter Gibbon, and Henry Patterson. In September, 1969, military dissidents effectively wrested controlof the Belfast IRA from GHQ's man. called governmental policies of "political exclusiontoward the Catholic political parties which . London: Serif, 1995.Coogan, Tim P. Althoughhaving much the same ideas and motivation, O'Neill was a lesser man" (97). . Works CitedAdams, Jane. Another rising planned by the IRBfizzled in 1867, forcing the IRB underground. O'Neill made gestures of conciliation toward the Catholic community,but his hands were tied politically in the 196 s by the rise of strongultra-loyalist sentiment among the Protestants, whose evangelical leaderIan Paisley, Coogan says, was "the loudest political voice in NorthernIreland" (45). They also blamed the Catholicsfor their high birth rates, which kept them poor. . In October, O'Neill said that "theactivities of the Civil Rights movement appeared to the [Unionist] Party tobe nearly treasonable" (O'Ballance 63). The November march was more provocative because it went throughProtestant sections of Derry, a favorite Paisleyite tactic. The IRA takes over leadership of the Catholic cause in the North.Because they had only a few old small arms, the first priority of theProvos was to rearm, which they accomplished by smuggling arms first fromthe South and from IRA supporters among Irish-Americans and others, whicheventually included the Czechoslovaks, the Libyans and other sellers on theunofficial international arms market. Coogan says that "no British prime minister warned the Unioniststhat they must heed the winds of change . TheBritish Army in 1972 launched major attacks on Catholic no-go zones such asOperation Motorman in August, but the armed struggle went on with no end insight, despite strong efforts made by the British government to promote asettlement. Traditionally, Catholics filled the unskilled jobs andsuffered from rank discrimination in employment in all fields, includingeducation and housing. However, Ireland in the196 s was preoccupied with its own problems and plans for modernizing itseconomy through exports to the European Economic Community, which itultimately joined in 1972. Deepening of the Abyss (August 1969 to Bloody Sunday January 1972) First Tentative Involvement of the IRA. The Fianna Fail Party which dominated Irishpolitics in the 196 s had less interest in affairs in Northern Ireland thantheir predecessors in Sinn Fein. . They also opposed, less vociferously at the time than later, thepartition of Ireland into a Catholic south and an autonomous six-countyProtestant Ulster "statelet," which was amalgamated into Great Britain.Bitter civil war then ensued between Collins and other Free Staters and theIRA, which ended in 1923 shortly after Collins was killed by the IRA.Disarmed, the IRA led an uneasy existence with the Free State, headed byEamon de Valera, who eventually in the 193 s and 194 s, after Ireland hadachieved Dominion status and later (in 1937) declared itself a republic,"ruthlessly made use of emergency powers to cripple the organisation"(Coogan 55). . Taking control of the civil rights movement. The Uncivil Wars. anancient formula began to have an application once more: fear + distrust =IRA" (81). In late April, fierce rioting, again in theBogside, and attacks on the RUC caused 288 casualties. Boston: Beacon, 1997.----------------------- 17 2. it took a crisis . New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.Bell, J. Goulding and his ExecutiveCommittee fell for a time under the sway of left-wing Marxist intellectualswho argued that the IRA should pursue its goals through long-terminfiltration of other political parties and bloodless revolution, "abrotherhood of the Orange and Green proletariats" (Coogan 56). During the early 197 s, the Provos never obtained complete controlover the Catholic community, which was alternately heartened by the successof the Provos defensive efforts and appalled by their escalation ofbombings and other terrorist actions. In 1963, Captain Terence O'Neill, who was described by Bell as "amild, seemingly moderate man," took over as prime minister and was electedto that post in 1965 (4). The Troubles. British conservatives such as Adams arguethat, as terrorist links between the Provos became stronger in the mid-7 sand since, that "the organization became more radical" and favored theestablishment of a Marxist state (141). Coogan says thatits leaders represented a "non-violent, non-sectarian, a genuine cross-party (and creed) mass movement, aimed not at a united Ireland, but atreform within the system" (63). Bower. arrest withoutany judicial safeguards, which was introduced in August 1971. According to Adams, Irish-Americans,through an organization called Irish Northern Aid (NORAID), provided abouthalf of all financial support to the Provos in the early 197 s (134). The Catholics were delighted with their new-foundpower. Relative indifference of the Irish and British governments. . These marches and other demonstrations triggered savage assaults byProtestant toughs on marchers and raids into Catholic areas with the RUClooking on, in Belfast and in Armagh during the balance of the year and thefirst part of 1969. At some point, when saner heads prevail and the peaceprocess becomes a reality, they will fade back into obscurity but willremain ready to take charge again whenever centrist politics fail torespond to the needs of the Catholics in Northern Ireland. The Irish Troubles. The Catholicminority in Northern Ireland took to the streets in the late 196 s toprotest its political and economic grievances against the establishedUlster authorities and the dominant Protestant majority. Northern Ireland 1921-1994. After 1921,the Protestants refused to accept the principle of proportionalrepresentation in Parliament. was almost totally divorced fromIreland . . O'Ballance says his predecessor LordBrookeborough"had been a strong and determined Protestant leader who hadpreserved and consolidated Protestant rights and privileges. In March and April, 1969, the level of violence escalated, withbombings of electric substations and waterworks outside Belfast which wereblamed on the IRA but which Coogan said were later shown to have beenperpetrated by the UPV (71-72). 3. According to O'Ballance, the lesson, however,which the IRA's GHQ, headed by Cathal Goulding, derived from the failure ofthe 1957-1962 border campaign was that the republican movement should"actively begin to take an interest in people's everyday problems andgeneral welfare". The way the IRA GHQ became involved in such problems was, accordingto O'Ballance, offensive to many of the IRA's long-time veterans and theyoung Turks in the republican movement (96). In fact,the IRA had little to do with the marches in Derry: the August 24, 1968march by 4, , which went off peacefully, and the march of October 5,1968, which did not, were demonstrations of civil protest which weremodelled on the civil rights marches in American South. The ultra-loyalists were quick to detectthe hand of the IRA in any demonstrations of organized opposition. Thereafter, Bell says,"the Provos began to reap the full reward: a new wave of recruits", but"even after the Falls Curfew, the Provos felt that they had neither thegear nor the support of the population to escalate" (178-179). . effectively deprivedCatholics of effective political representation" (157). IRA elements had fought theBritish in Northern Ireland, and, after 1921, Collins covertly sent themarms and "Flying Columns" (bicycling ambush squads) to subvert the newOrange regime. OnAugust 14, the first British troops arrived and restored order. Now, it proved to betoo little, too late to appease all sections of Catholic opinion; and . At the September,1968 IRA convention, Sean Mac Stiofan, the leading advocate of a moreactivist stance by the IRA in the North and later after he split with theOfficials in December 1969, estimated that the total strength of the IRA inNorthern Ireland in the fall of 1968 did not exceed 15 (O'Ballance 1 2). The policeand supporting British units had used rubber bullets and CS gas; the Provosresponded with steel darts, bombs and hand grenades (Coogan 111).O'Ballance says that about this time "the Provos were beginning to operateprotection rackets, collecting money and organizing the people under theirdomination" (138). Meanwhile, efforts by IrishParliamentary nationalists with the support of William Gladstone's LiberalParty to achieve Home Rule failed because of the determined opposition ofthe Ulster Protestant Unionists in alliance with the British Tory party. Asa result of a combination of unexpected and fortuitous events in NorthernIreland, the IRA or, more precisely, the Provos, were to get a new lease onlife. Conclusion The Provo wing of the IRA took advantage of the political andmilitary vacuum which developed after the middle-class civil rightsmovement failed to induce the rigid Stormont regime to make meaningfulreforms to the Catholic minority. . clear proofs of being unreconstructed supremacists" (81). That night, riots erupted in the CatholicBogside area of Derry, including "stoning police cars, petrol-bombings andsmashing shop windows" (O'Ballance 62). Westport: Praeger, 1997.O'Ballance, Edgar. Only very slow and intermittent progress, the result ofBritish prodding, was made during this period in initiating a fundamentalreshaping of the relationships among the Catholic minority in NorthernIreland, the Ulster authorities, the government of the United Kingdom andthe Republic of Ireland, the ultimate outcome of which is still uncertain. No-go zones were proclaimed by the Provos. To many inthe IRA, this was patent nonsense and a betrayal of the defenselessCatholic communities in Northern Ireland who had begun writing on wallsthat IRA meant "I Ran Away" (Bell 145). The leadership contained many elements across the political spectrum,including some leftists and a few local IRA men, who had been givenpermission by the IRA's GHQ in Dublin to participate. In themeantime, Jack Lynch, the Irish prime minister, announced that "the IrishGovernment can no longer stand aside and see innocent people being injuredand perhaps worse" (Coogan 76). For a time the Catholics proved to bedismayingly appreciative of the British army's presence" (94). IRA Man. In March, 1971, Chichester-Clarkresigned to be replaced by an even more hardline Prime Minister, BrianFaulkner, who urged the British to impose internment--i.e. Even though Michael Collins, the leader of the IRA, Arthur Griffithfor Sinn Fein, and other nationalists negotiated that treaty, significantelements of the IRA refused to accept the Oath of Allegiance to the BritishCrown. Because of the decay of Ulster's traditionalindustries, linen weaving and shipbuilding, and abysmal rural poverty,unemployment in the 196 s was high, in the 9 percent-11 percent range andreached as high as 6 percent in the Belfast shipyards (Coogan 39-4 ). TheProvos quickly found that any support they would get from the IrishRepublic would be unofficial, and that route closed off quickly after theIrish government tried some of its officials caught illegally supplyingarms to the Provos. From its beginning, theIRA had been plagued by frequent internal divisions, partly overpersonalities but also over the degree to which violent action should beemployed in pursuit of political goals, at first Irish independence andlater over support for the unification of Northern Ireland and the IrishRepublic. O'Ballance says that "little IRAactivity took place between 1962 and 1967" (95). Debate and Schism within the IRA 1969-197 . The Provos remain a radical organization because of theiraddiction to revolutionary violence, but it is overwhelmingly a nationalistorganization, but no less dangerous as such. According to Coogan, "a tradition ofguerrilla warfare entered into Irish folklore to emerge finally with adegree of success in the twentieth century" (4). TheIrish government and politicians routinely paid lip service to the goal ofeventually unifying Northern and Southern Ireland. Worsening economic conditions and economic and socialdiscrimination. . Reconstituted and reorganized in the late 19 s into a secretmilitary arm and an open political party, Sinn Fein, the IRB was "the coreof the Easter [1916 Dublin] Rising and provided the guerrillas of the[Black and] Tan War" of 1918-1921 (Bell 26). On April 28, 1969,O'Neill, who was under attack by Paisley and his supporters for notreacting firmly enough and criticized by the British for the slow progressof reforms, resigned and was replaced by James Chichester-Clark. He saysthat, "in the wake of the burnings, evacuations, and riotings, . This produced Protestant counter-reactions, especially after the leadership of the the NICRA passed to agroup of student militant militants, the People's Democracy Movement, inwhich later MP to the House of Commons Bernadette Devlin was prominent. Coogan says that, "after Bloody Sunday, NationalistIreland was in . TheProvos represented a new development--a cadre with its political base inthe Catholic urban working class and rural poor, with radical goals andrevolutionary methods. During the winter of 197 -1971, Coogan says that Northern Island wasbeset with "a rising tide of violence from both communities" (111). Throughout the rest of 1971 and 1972, except for brief truces,violence escalated, culminating in the wanton shooting by Britishparatroopers of 13 civilians at a protest march near Derry on January 22,1972 ("Bloody Sunday"). InFebruary, 1971, the British Army suffered its first fatality. Financing the Terrorists. Novato: Presidio, 1981.O'Malley, Padraig. The IRB, renamed the IRA,with the support of some labor elements, the portion of the Irish VolunteerForce which refused to fight for the British in France and otherrepublicans, led the final fight for independence, resulting in theDecember 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was narrowly approved by the newIrish Parliament, or Dail. From then, the Provosand the Officials in the North would vie for control of the struggle, feudwith each other and engage in intramural killings, until finally theOfficials tired of the struggle and agreed to a lasting truce with theBritish in 1972. In August 1969, sectarianrioting recurred in the Bogside and in Belfast. According to Bell, he andothers then formed the Provos, who, at their first Council meeting inJanuary 197 , decided to support in the North "a patriotic Irish rebellionagainst the traditional British enemy" and to unite the two regions by amilitary campaign which, because of their weakness, "would begin withdefense, move to retaliation, and then blossom into war, a war the Britishcould not win and the Irish could not lose" (153). . The Provos and, less effectively, the Officialsexploited the existing civil unrest and, together with Protestant ultras,incited an escalating cycle of violence which by 1972 threatened to destroycivil order. TheProtestants were fond of pointing out that the Catholics in the North werebetter off than most of their counterparts in the Republic because of thegreater degree of industrialization in the North and subsidies given theNorthern Ireland government by Westminister. . In the mid-196 s and later, Paisley's Ulster ProtestantAction Group (UPA), the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV) and the UlsterVolunteer Force (UVF) conducted a series of provocative parades throughCatholic Districts, raids and petrol bomb attacks on Catholic homes,schools and shops and was involved in some killings of Belfast Republicanswhich outraged the Catholic minority. The result waspredictable: the spectacle of international television of the Royal UlsterConstabulary attacking the marchers with batons and water hoses, resultingin injuries to 77 civilians. Working class does not, however, meancommunist. The truth is more complicated. The partieswhich the Catholics supported, principally the Nationalist Party and theNorthern Ireland Labour Party, consistently received less than 2 percentrepresentation in Parliament and lost seats in the 196 s to the UnionistParty and other Protestant parties, which in the 1969 election had an 87percent majority (Bell 1 2). The Officials, not the Provos, toyedwith Marxist doctrine in the 196 s and even proposed a merger with the tinyCommunist Party of Ireland, and the Provo leadership, generallyconservative, rejected communist influence. Chichester-Clark said on national television inFebruary that "Northern Ireland is at war with the Irish Republican ArmyProvisionals" (Coogan 112). .inflamed and frightened the Protestants" (65). Marches and Clashes in Derry and Belfast (1968-1969) 1968 and early 1969 marches. a state of outrage" (144). Bell says that "most in the Republic hadgiven little thought to the direction of development of Northern Ireland,assuming that in the fullness of time the island would be united" (137). Ever since 1921, the British government pursued a hands-off policytoward its Protestant wards in Northern Ireland. As, however, the Provosconsolidated their political base in the poor urban districts and ruralareas of Northern Ireland, O'Malley says that they "became essentially aworking class organization" (262). The ineffectiveness of Catholic political parties. ROLE OF THE IRA IN NORTHERN IRELAND IN THE 196 S AND 197 S This research paper discusses the factors which led to the re-emergence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as a significant force in thelate 196 s and early 197 s in connection with the disturbances andmovements (the Troubles) which arose in Northern Ireland. Causes of the Civil Rights Movement The accumulated grievances of the groups which coalesced in supportof the civil rights movement of the late 196 s and the other factors whichcaused that movement to erupt on the Northern Island scene with seeminglyirresistible momentum in 1968-1969 fell into four broad and inter-relatedcategories: 1. . The British intervened militarilyto restore order but only hesitantly pushed Ulster to initiate reforms. Proceeding at firstcautiously with obtaining arms, funds, recruiting and training, the Provosgot their first major break when they defended Catholic sections of Belfastin June 197 from Protestant mobs and gained support by the British army'simposition of the Great Falls Curfew in July, 197 . Relevance of Socialism The Irish nationalist movement and the IRA have always containedsocialist and other left-wing elements, as have other open nationalistparties in Ireland and Northern Ireland, such as the Social Democratic andLabour Party, which was founded in August 197 and has become the principalvehicle for the political expression of Catholic sentiment ever since. In December, 1969, Mac Stiofan declaredthat GHQ had betrayed basic IRA principles by failing to support the causeof revolution in the North, and he stormed out. toforce Britain to do something about the political slum it had allowed tofester under its jurisdiction for half a century" (25, 33-34). They used property-owning votingrequirements, gerrymandering of voting districts and other techniques toensure that the Unionist and other Protestant parties controlled thegovernment. Coogan says that, "where some sections ofCatholic opinion were concerned, the Northern Ireland Government had given. According to Bell, "There was considerable dissatisfactionamong the Catholic population in Northern Ireland at the blatant way inwhich the constitution, wards, and voting had been organized to enable theUnionist Party to gain and retain power" (98). The rank and file of the clandestine IRA originally came from thelower middle class, people without property who were also not muchinterested in social issues. The IRA's immediateprecursor was the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) founded in 1858. Partition had taken theIrish question off the British agenda. However, according to Bell, at this point "the IRA had beentaken by surprise and its involvement was minimal" (127) . With London's permission,CS tear gas was used by government forces for the first time. 4. Under pressure from British PrimeMinister Harold Wilson, O'Neill reluctantly agreed to study reforms whichwould address the marchers' "One Man-One Vote" and other demands.O'Ballance says that, "before the civil rights movement got going, thepackage would probably have appeased Catholics . However, the better-educated generation ofCatholic middle-class professionals, labor leaders, students and others whoformed the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in 1967 wasfed up with being treated as second class. That protestfailed to accomplish its objectives in 1968-1969 because of Protestantintransigence and paramilitary violence. However, as O'Malleynotes, "the most remarkable attribute of the IRA is its persistence in theface of failure. Some IRAmembers engaged in stone throwing, but no guns were used by either side. Coogan says "the tide of civil rights was running so strongly thatit swept up all sorts of people" (63). The IRA and pre-1968 Northern Ireland. Particularly rankling was theovert preference given to Protestant-dominated town councils in allocatingmunicipal housing units. Impelled by long memories of religious strife and massacres,the Protestants, who dominated Catholics in the North by two to one,conducted pogroms against the Catholic minority and suppressed the IRA'soperations with the aid of the B-Specials, what McFerrran called "a privatearmy with police badges" (71). Othermovements had staged abortive rebellions which were suppressed by theBritish, including the 1798 and 1848 uprisings, led, respectively, by theUnited Irishmen and the Young Irelanders. According to Bell, theuprising lacked broad public support, "but the Easter sacrifice [was]authenticated by British firing squads" (31). . The Ulster Parliamentary governmentestablished an apartheid-type regime. Coogan saidthat "internment had increased, rather than diminished the violence" (128).Combat deaths increased from 25 in 197 to 174 in 1971, bombings from 213to 1,767. British hesitance and its half-heartedmilitary intervention largely on the side of the Orange gave the Provos theopportunity they needed to seize control of the civil rights movement andto assume the role of principal defenders of the Irish nationalist cause inNorthern Ireland. O'Neill placed his faith in technocratic solutions, such as inducingmultinational corporations to establish synthetic fiber plants in NorthernIreland by offering them tax and other incentives, which a number of them,such as Dupont and the ICI, had done, and he had other economic developmentplans on his drawing boards. New York: St. The IRA conducted a border campaign from sanctuaries in Eire againstthe Northern Ireland government in the North between 1957-1962 whichultimately failed for three principal reasons: (1) vigorous suppression bythe Protestant police and militias; (2) lukewarm support by the Dublingovernment which eventually arrested a number of IRA leaders; and (3),according to Coogan, the IRA lacked "a mass movement of support" among mostCatholics in Northern Ireland (55). [it] knew nothing much of the island and cared less" (94). They were aided immeasurably by therigid and intransigient attitude of the Northern Ireland government, whichdragged its feet on reforms, despite considerable pressure imposed on it byJames Callaghan, Britain's Home Secretary, to speed the pace of reformuntil the Labour government was thrown out of office in June 197 .Thereafter, the Conservative government under Ted Heath and his ineffectiveSecretary of State, Reginald Maulding, wobbled indecisively between itstraditional support for the Unionists and its realization that, if theStormont government failed, it would have to intervene militarily withgreater force and impose direct rule. When things get bad, it simply goes underground" (3 5). Some of the same people were involved with theNICRA, such as Eamon McCann, who formed the Derry Housing Action Committee,Austin Currie, a Nationalist MP, who organized "squat-ins" in empty housingin June 1968, and John Hume, a school teacher and member of the NationalistParty (Coogan 57-59; Bell 58-59). Terror in Ireland. . Thebattlelines were now drawn. The IRA and Pre-1968 Developments in Northern Ireland Historical origins of the IRA. . The origins of the IRA lay deeplyembedded in the centuries-old struggle of Irish Catholics and someProtestants to break the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy and to achieveindependence from Great Britain. Political discrimination and sectarian ultra-loyalism. . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.