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 predominantly middle-class and student civil rights movement, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provos), a spinoff of the original IRA (which thereafter became known as the Officials), took advantage of the turmoil to re-emerge in the early 1970s as a significant political and terrorist force. The Provos represented a new development--a cadre with its political base in the Catholic urban working class and rural poor, with radical goals and revolutionary methods. The Provos and, less effectively, the Officials exploited the existing civil unrest and, together with Protestant ultras, incited an escalating cycle of violence which by 1972 threatened to destroy civil order. Only very slow and intermittent progress, the result of British prodding, was made during this period in initiating a fundamental reshaping of the relationships among the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland, the Ulster authorities, the government of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the ultimate outcome of which is still uncertain.
The IRA and Pre-1968 Developments in Northern Ireland
Historical origins of the IRA. The origins of...