SUMMARY
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), also commonly referred to by the shortened name Irish Republican Army (IRA) after 1972 and Óglaigh na hÉireann in Irish, was a non-state armed group based in Dublin, Ireland. It was active in a conflict with the Government of the United Kingdom concerning the constitutional status of the Northern Irish territory.
PIRA was founded by several well-established supporters of the republican cause including Daithi O’Conaill, Seamus Twomey and Sean MacStiofan, who served as the first PIRA Chief of Staff. PIRA was led by the Chief of Staff and the seven-member Army Council, which functioned as the group’s senior decision-making body. Other notable leaders included Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (President of Sinn Féin, 1978 – 1983) and Gerry Adams (Vice-President of Sinn Féin, 1978 – 1983; President of Sinn Féin 1983 – incumbent 2017). Both were reported to be or have been members of the PIRA Army Council.
PIRA evolved from the original Irish Republican Army, which had been operating since the 1920s but split into two factions in December 1969 due to disputes over the use of violence. These factions were the “Provisional” Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and the “Official" Irish Republican Army (OIRA), which both disputed the constitutional status of the Northern Ireland territory as a part of the United Kingdom and sought to merge it with the independent Ireland into one united socialist republic. Crucially however, PIRA distinguished itself from OIRA by being a more militant splinter group that advocated violence as justified and necessary to pursue their objectives. During the early 1970s, PIRA became the more popular and active faction with increasing support partly resulting from British policies of detaining suspected PIRA members or collaborators; OIRA agreed to a ceasefire in 1972 and later disbanded.
Many PIRA recruits had been members of the original IRA or were young and supported the action-orientation of the organization, especially in Northern Ireland where discrimination against Catholics was prevalent. During its active time period in the UCDP database, PIRA had between 200 and 500 troops. It was organized according to a strict, traditional military structure with different tasks for units such as engineering or intelligence. However, to prevent infiltration, the group was restructured into isolated cells after support for the movement declined in the late 1970s. It used guerilla tactics to carry out targeted attacks, bombings and assassinations against members and supporters of the British establishment, mostly in Ireland and the United Kingdom but also in mainland Europe. PIRA engaged in criminal activities such as racketeering to support itself financially and established vigilante groups to police communities and distribute vigilante justice. Despite signing the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998, the PIRA did not formally decommission its weapons until 2005.
Although a formal political party that presented itself officially as independent, Sinn Féin was regarded as the political wing for PIRA and much of its leadership overlapped with PIRA. Therefore, despite being registered in Ireland, the party itself was banned in the United Kingdom until 1974. During the 1970s and 1980s, Sinn Féin followed a strategy of abstention meaning its political candidates stood for elections but did not take up their seats when elected in support for the Irish republican cause. This evolved into the “armalite and ballot box” strategy, which entailed pursuing political and military action simultaneously, after the death of several imprisoned PIRA members on hunger strike brought more attention to their cause. Consequently, the role of the political wing increased with both political and military methods being actively engaged by Sinn Féin and PIRA respectively from 1981 to the early 1990s to pursue the overall objective of establishing one united socialist Irish republic.
In 1986, ex-Sinn Féin President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh established the Republican Sinn Féin; a splinter group that formed in opposition to a change in Sinn Féin policy of abstaining from their elected seats in the Northern Ireland Parliament. In accordance with this, Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA) splintered from PIRA and Republican Sinn Féin became its political wing. In autumn 1997, a further splinter group from PIRA established itself, the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA).
Americans of Irish descent provided considerable support by sending funding to NORAID, an organization suspected to give funds directly to the IRA. This diaspora is also reported to have exerted enough influence to enable several IRA fugitives to escape prosecution by remaining in the United States.
As for warring support, a number of paramilitaries worked for the same (or related) cause as the IRA. The level of cooperation between them was however unclear. Paramilitary recruits have been members of different organizations at different times. The INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) has always been a much smaller, and less active, paramilitary group than the IRA. The IPLO (Irish Peoples Liberation Organization) was considered to be an off-shot of the INLA.
The Government of Libya supplied weapons to PIRA and also offered their support overtly as, in 1984, the Voice of The Arab People, an official Libyan radio station announced the intention of the Government of Libya to form an alliance with the IRA. Links to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) were also reported.
