Irish Republican Army

Irish Republican Army (IRA), formed during the First World War to fight the British for Irish independence. It continued to fight them after 1918 to make Eire a republic and to coerce them into leaving Northern Ireland (see UK, 4).

In January 1939 the IRA started a bombing campaign on the British mainland which continued until heightened security stopped it at the end of the year. On both sides of the Irish border the police acted promptly against the IRA when the war broke out. Many IRA suspects were interned, and an IRA raid on an army magazine in Dublin resulted in a further round-up. In August 1940 the organization's chief of staff, Sean Russell, died while returning to Eire from Germany in a U-boat and in 1941 his successor, Stephen Hayes, was accused by the leader of the IRA in Northern Ireland of being an informer. He was kidnapped and tortured by the IRA, but managed to escape; this led to a loss of public sympathy and the capture of the remaining IRA leaders.

In February 1939 the Abwehr sent an agent to discuss co-operation between the Germans and the IRA, and an IRA member then travelled to Germany three times to seek arms and financial assistance. To the annoyance of the German minister in Dublin, who knew that aiding and abetting subversion by the IRA could only help the Allied cause, several more Abwehr agents did arrive with radio transmitters and funds during the course of the war. All were captured and virtually nothing was gained by either party, one agent describing the IRA as rotten at its roots.