Irish Republican Army

Irish Republican Army (IRA). The rising of 1916 left the Irish Volunteers in disarray. However, the organization was quickly re‐established on a wave of popular support, due to the events surrounding the rising and a fear of conscription. The new leadership did not envisage starting another uprising for the time being. At their first post‐rising convention in October 1917 it was determined that the Volunteers were primarily to be used to exert political pressure on the British government to recognize the Irish Republic. For this aim the Volunteers were to arm, train, and organize. However, the public drilling exercises which started at the end of 1917, particularly in the south‐west, brought them into conflict with the authorities. The increasingly harsh measures taken by the government during 1918 drove the organization underground. The concurrent success of the politicians in Sinn Féin made the militarists in the Volunteers feel left out, and, without the sanction of their leadership, they began to take increasingly violent action which slowly led to the start of the Anglo‐Irish War.

After the foundation of Dáil Éireann in January 1919 the organization became increasingly known as the Irish Republican Army, but also retained the name Irish Volunteers. This highlighted the ambivalent relationship between individual Volunteer units and their military and political leadership. Although now officially the army of the Republic, Volunteers never fully accepted the central power of their GHQ, established only in March 1918, or the political control of the Dáil government, despite swearing an oath of allegiance to it.

The Volunteers/IRA were unevenly distributed over the country. They attracted the largest membership in the west, closely followed by Munster. Membership was limited in the more prosperous east, and extremely low in Ulster, where the Volunteers were a largely marginal organization concentrated in a few small areas. Membership was young, aged mainly between 20 and 30, and overwhelmingly Catholic. Volunteers were broadly representative of Irish Catholic male society, coming from most sectors of the working and middle or upper classes, and few were unemployed or indigent. Officers tended to be older, more urban based, and of a higher status—better educated, more skilled, and financially better off. In Dublin the majority of officers and men had working‐class backgrounds. There are clear changes in the composition of membership after the fighting started. The average age of Volunteers decreased, and in the most active areas the rank and file became more working class and urban, while officers became more middle class. The difference in backgrounds which had existed between areas in the early period largely disappeared in 1920–1.

Losing the Civil War, which followed the signing of the Anglo‐Irish treaty of 1921, showed the IRA that for the moment it could not achieve its objective through a military confrontation. However, neither did it accept the legitimacy of the Irish Free State or of Northern Ireland, nor did it hand in its arms. All it could do now was to try to maintain the organization and mobilize support through Sinn Féin, but the 1916–22 period left it with a difficult legacy. Abstention had become the benchmark of true republicanism, the organization had acquired an inherent suspicion of involvement in politics, and memories of James Connolly and the democratic programme gave rise to a strong socialistic tendency within its ranks. These elements combined made it nearly impossible to obtain the wide public support necessary to make a military campaign a success.

In 1925 the link with Sinn Féin was broken when a large section of the party under de Valera decided that abstention from parliament would lead them nowhere. The subsequent political success of Fianna Fáil, and the IRA's inability to launch a military campaign, soon made it clear that the IRA needed its own political party. This led to the launch of several unsuccessful political initiatives, including Comhairle na Poblachta in 1929 and Saor Éire in 1931. The left wing of the movement subsequently broke away in 1934 and formed Republican Congress. A more traditional republican party, Cumann Poblachta na hÉireann, was then launched by Sean MacBride in 1936, again without success.

The takeover of government by Fianna Fáil in 1932 led to a large increase in enthusiasm for the IRA. However, after slowly undermining their strength by satisfying many of their supporters' demands, de Valera banned the organization, now no longer needed as possible allies against the Blueshirts, in 1936.

In a final attempt to regain its relevance the hard‐line remnants of the IRA under Sean Russell embarked on a bombing campaign in Great Britain in January 1939. Their hope of forcing Britain to renegotiate the treaty soon proved futile. Some damage was done to economic targets but the campaign soon ended with relatively few casualties (7 deaths and 137 injured). Attention then turned to Northern Ireland but by December 1944 the movement there was virtually wiped out by a combined effort of the British, Irish, and Northern Irish governments.

After the Second World War the IRA was reestablished by some of its former members. The organization renewed its links with Sinn Féin, but again dedicated itself to reuniting Ireland by physical force. The subsequent border campaign, launched in 1956, failed due to a lack of public support. Hoping to attract a mass following the movement slowly moved to the left during the 1960s, becoming involved in economic and social agitation. These attempts to rouse the masses inevitably led those involved to a desire to become more fully engaged in politics through existing institutions. This in turn meant conflict with the more traditional abstentionists in the organization.

A formal split came about under pressure of the violence which erupted in the north in 1969. At the Army Convention of 1969 the militarists broke away over the issue of abstention and formed the provisional IRA, which became the dominant grouping, while the remainder became known as the officials. The official IRA suspended military operations in May 1972, although it remained in existence for some years, carrying out bank robberies and similar operations for fund‐raising purposes. A breakaway group unwilling to accept the ceasefire became the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).

Although the provisional IRA sustained the campaign of violence for much longer than in the past, the tensions between abstentionism, political action, and physical force that have characterized the republican movement since the Civil War continued to dog it. The initial belief that a full‐scale military campaign with a maximum of civil disorder could bring about an early British withdrawal gave way from the mid‐1970s to the concept of the ‘long haul’, which would gradually sap the British will to remain; this change coincided with the adoption of a tighter cellular structure. From the early 1980s the continued use of violence was combined an attempt to establish Sinn Féin as a force in national, local, and community‐based politics. This fusion of military and political action in the two‐pronged approach of the ‘armalite and the ballot box’ was challenged by supporters of traditional abstentionism, who broke away to form Republican Sinn Féin in 1986. By 1994 successful involvement in social and political action had brought about a serious reappraisal of the role of physical force, leading to the formal suspension of the military campaign. This cleared the way for Sinn Féin to enter into a compromise political settlement, the 1998 ‘Good Friday Agreement’ (see peace process). However, the reluctance of unionists to accept Sinn Féin as a genuine political party and the continued uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the agreement have given a boost to supporters of continued violence and abstentionist politics. The emergence of the Continuity Army Council, connected to Republican Sinn Féin, and the formation of the Real IRA in 1995, show the potential for further conflict. The political success of Sinn Féin has so far constrained them, but in the long run the dominance of political tactics among republicans will depend on the success of the new power‐sharing institutions.

Bibliography

Bell, J. Bowyer , The Secret Army: The IRA (1996)
English, Richard , Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003)
Hart, Peter , The I.R.A. at War 1916–1923 (2003)
Smith, M. L. R. , Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement (1995)

Joost Augusteijn