Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA ... The report said that the weapons were to be used to defend Catholic areas if there was an outbreak of major ...
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to anti-imperialism through Irish republicanism , the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic free from British colonial rule.
The new IRA was willing to take on the role of "defenders of the Catholic community", [118] rather than seeking working-class ecumenical unity across both communities. Nationalists point to a number of events in these years to explain the upsurge in violence.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland.
Support for the IRA rose, and hatred for the Army became widespread amongst the Catholic community. The IRA and other republican paramilitaries used the events to justify a campaign against the British Army and other agents of the British state including the police and the Ulster Defence Regiment.
The Provisional IRA emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in 1969, partly as a result of that organisation's perceived failure to defend Catholic neighbourhoods from attack in the 1969 Northern Ireland riots. The Provisionals gained credibility from their efforts to physically defend such areas in 1970 and 1971.
Protestant loyalists attacked the Catholic community in retaliation for IRA actions. More than 500 people were killed, more than 8,000 workers were driven out of their jobs, and more than 10,000 became refugees – mostly from the Catholic minority (see The Troubles in Ulster (1920–1922) ). [ 82 ]
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) of 1922–1969 was a sub-group of the original pre-1922 Irish Republican Army, characterised by its opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It existed in various forms until 1969, when the IRA split again into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA .