Terrorism in Ireland

All right, I'm going to try to actually give some information on this site so it's not totally usuless.  I put in a paper I did on Irish terroism and I'm not including the work cited so you can't copy it! Hahahahahaha!  Anyways, I hope you get some useful information out of it.  I wanted to put the picture that I used on the cover of my project but it's too big so visit this site to get more info and see the pic.  It's the one of the saoirse on the brich wall.

4/1/04

"A felon's cap is the noblest crown an Irish head can wear." This phrase is one that defines the attitude of the IRA. What are the histories and goals of the IRA? This is the question I hope to answer through my research. I chose this topic because I am half Irish and feel a great connection to Ireland. More specifically, I want to find out about the terrorist group because I wish to achieve a greater understanding of the hate triangle between the Catholic Irish, Protestant Irish and British. I think it is worth studying because most people do not realize how much rage and violence is between the two main religions of Ireland and that peace has never really been reached. More reason it's important to me is that my Irish ancestors are from Catholic southern Ireland, so it's possible that some of them could have been freedom fighters or in the IRA.

The IRA is a terrorist group from the Republic of Ireland that is trying to achieve a unified country between the Republic and Northern Ireland. They use violent means to get their desired ends, through bombings and assassinations. The earliest of what could be called the beginning of the IRA was back in the 16^th century when Wolf Tone was advocating peace between the two religions. Unfortunately, this never caught on because the hatred ran so deep. I personally am for peace in Ireland and it saddens me that so many deaths have been caused by this "war". Probably over four thousand deaths have been a result from the war during the past 30 or so years; the exact number is not known. Catholics and Protestants have been fighting for centuries, though, not just in the 1960's and on, which is the most commonly known.

I mainly want to focus on the IRA and try to get a better understanding of the history and goals they wish to accomplish. How the groups go about getting what they want really interests me. I know most of them are very violent but I think there have been hunger strikes in prisons and I want to find some specific examples. I hope by the end of my research, anyone who reads it will have more sympathy for what has been and what is going on in Ireland.

The searching for my research information went pretty well and it was not frustrating at all. Just on the first day in the LMC I found a magazine article. It worked well to focus on one kind of source for the day in the LMC, like getting the magazine on one day and then on the next, looking at the books. I found that in the LMC, the books were the most helpful place I got information from, but the Internet search on one of the newspaper sites was good, too.

My best information came from the Middleton Public Library, however. I got the book that has been most helpful so far, The IRA a History, from there. I was also able to get books from the Public library that I had found in the LMC so I didn't have to check them out from there but could still have them at home. When searching through a book I usually would look at the table of contents and go to the chapter that seemed like it contained what I wanted at that time. Sometimes I would just skim through a book and I actually found some interesting facts that way.

For my alternate research method I interviewed Professor James Donnelly from the University of Madison. It actually was a long process in getting the interview. I started by doing an Internet search for Celtic clubs in Madison. I then e-mailed the presidents of two of them, asking if they could put me in contact with someone with great knowledge of Irish terrorism. I never got an answer from one, but the other, Dineen Grow, knew Professor Donnelly so it all worked out. He does post-modern history of Ireland and Britain and has extensive knowledge on the troubles. Going into the interview I had an outline of what I wanted to go over, so he could see ahead of time what I wanted to know.

The three main reasons why there is terrorism in Ireland are religion, history, and geography (Mansbach 1). These are all interrelated and most of the time combine to make explosive situations. It seems to me that all the problems begin and end with religion. The Catholics and the Protestants have been fighting for centuries over land, rights, just about everything. Protestantism was brought over to Ireland by the British, who encouraged loyalist Protestants to settle in Northern Ireland (Mansbach 1). The British also tried to force Catholics to switch to the English church. This type of forced conversion was first tried by King Henry VIII in 1541 and created a basis for the anti-British feeling that many have in Southern Ireland (Mansbach 1). This feeling can be associated with what is called Irish Revolutionary Separatism (Donnelly). That just means someone who wants a completely separate, unified Ireland from Britain.

One of the first very prominent rebels was a young man named Theobald Wolfe Tone, more commonly known just as Wolfe Tone. He started his rebellion attempts with a pamphlet called Arguments on Behalf of the Catholics in Ireland, published in September of 1791 (Coogan 4). Tone was a Protestant, so the residents of Ulster were more accepting of him and the pamphlet was a big success (Coogan 4). Soon after Arguments, United Irishmen Societies were being formed in Dublin and Belfast. In 1791 the Society of United Irishmen was founded (Norman 31). This was a group that was trying to get Ulster radicals and southern republican radicals to work together but was not successful. This is very sad to me because it seems that if the United Irishmen had worked, now Ireland might be unified and there wouldn't be any troubles. Even more unfortunate for everyone in Ireland, Wolfe Tone was killed during his revolt attempt in 1798 and a great leader was lost (Coogan 5). After Tone there was many revolt attempts, all so "…small and almost laughable…" says Professor Donnelly, that they are known as the Cabbage Patch Revolutions. Most of them were only between rebels and local police with some rare appearances of British military. During this time an important pre-IRA group was the Fenians, established in 1858. They were among many groups formed during the 1800s that staged the small revolutions that were so common during that time (Mansbach 3). The word Fenian comes from an ancient Gaelic warrior whose legion was known as the Feana (I'm not entirely sure of the spelling) (Donnelly). Protestant loyalists refer to Catholics in the south as "those Fenian bastards" in reference to that.

Before the well known rising in 1916 and after Wolfe Tone, there was a huge revolution in 1898. The British had to draft at least 5,000 troops to put down the revolt, it was so big (Donnelly). The casualties were numerous, numbering around 25 or 30 thousand rebels and civilians killed during the fighting and immediately afterwards (Donnelly). Interestingly enough, if the assistance from France had come as the Irish rebels had wanted, the outcome could have been drastically different, maybe even a victory for the revolutionaries. However, French help never came in time or in the right numbers and, yet again, they lost (Donnelly). Things died down for a while but it didn't stay that way for long.

By 1916 World War I was going in full force, so the Fenians decided to use Britain's distraction with the war to their advantage. Britain had passed a statute giving Ireland something called Home Rule, which meant that Ireland would have a parliament that would decide on "home" matters, while the British parliament controlled the other things, like foreign policy (Donnelly). However, this was suspended due to the war. The loss of Home Rule made the Fenians even more determined to do something big and this time they looked to the Nazis for help (Winchester 151).

Unlike the French, the Nazis actually were going to send a ship with contraband to the Irish rebels to help them with their revolt. Unfortunately for them, the Nazis didn't know that their code had been broken and the British knew the boat was coming and intercepted it (Donnelly). To make matters worse, as the ship was being escorted by the British to Cork Harbor the Captain blew it up, so all of the contraband was lost (Donnelly). This caused many people who might have been involved with the revolution to decide to keep out. Their thinking was that without that support from the Nazis there was no way they could win.

Despite this, the revolt went on as planned on Easter Monday, 1916, with around 16,000 men and about equal the amount on the British side, consisting of police and army (Donnelly). It was "started" when a man named Patrick Pearse stood in front of the General Post Office in Dublin and made the Proclamation of the Irish Republic to a small crowd of people. Britain soon flooded Dublin with troops and the rebels' chance for victory was reduced down to 20 to 1 (Donnelly). The rebels had a stronghold in the center of Dublin, so the British decided to send in the ship Helga to fire off shells at it from the river Liffy on the Wednesday after Easter Monday (Donnelly). This combined with the number of British troops overwhelmed the rebels and the rising was over in a week. Casualties numbered around 2,000, counting children wounded, so it was not the biggest loss the rebels endured but much of central Dublin was destroyed from British artillery and guns (Donnelly).

In spite of that, the Easter Rising brought in a lot of new recruits into the Fenians, not because it was a heroic defeat but by the way the British dealt with the people involved in it. Originally around ninety men were sentenced to die but eventually seventy-five of them had their sentences reduced to terms of imprisonment (Donnelly). However, the remaining fifteen were still to be executed by firing squad. What really affected the public was the way two of the men, James Connelly and Joseph Mary Plunken, were both seriously wounded and shot while so badly hurt; Connelly had to be propped up in a chair and was shot sitting in it (Donnelly). The Fenians successfully exploited their deaths and they all because martyrs and heroes to the cause. Professor Donnelly says, "Their funerals because political demonstrations…". The Easter Rising really changed the political views of many Irishmen, from acceptance of Home Rule, to wanting complete independence from Britain.

"Over the next two years the Irish Volunteers become the IRA…", Professor Donnelly says, on when exactly the IRA started. The Irish Volunteers were also involved in the Easter Rising and that is when they started to get bigger and morphed into the IRA. Women have never played a huge role in the IRA; there is no known record of a women being in one of the head positions (Donnelly). However, if a member's wife, sister, or mother knew about their relative being in it, many of them supported the IRA any way they could. They might hide someone or have there house be a safe point for members. Many men didn't tell their women relations about their part in the IRA and Professor Donnelly speculates that it could be shame on the men's part. Another possibility is that they feared the women might spill IRA secrets and the fate of someone who betrays the IRA is hideous. A severe beating, that includes cigarette burns and whippings, finished with a bullet in the head is what could be expected.

One of the IRA's greatest weaknesses was how much they feared informants. Their fear was rooted in the fact that the RUC greatly exaggerated the usefulness of their informers in the IRA (Coogan 434). The IRA really hated informants, whom they called touts, so they were overzealous when searching for them. It is thought that the IRA has killed many people who they thought were touts but were really innocent. Their paranoia was not completely unfounded, however, and a good example of this happened on May 8, 1987. The IRA had planned to make a hit on a barracks in the city of Loughall, County Armagh to blow it up. Eight IRA men were there, including four senior members named James Lynagh, James Lynch, Patrick Kelly and Patrick McKearney. They had all been betrayed by a women named Colette O'Neill, who was close to Kelly and Lynagh, to the British Army (Coogan 433). All of the men died, including an innocent bystander by the name of Anthony Hughes, a Protestant (Coogan 433).

Five of them were killed just in the opening fire fight between them and the SAS team that had been sent there (Coogan 435). Two of them were in a digger that managed to bust through the wall around the barracks and detonated the bomb, leveling the building (Coogan 435). They were captured along with the one other survivor. The three were forced to lie on the ground and were shot dead (Coogan 435). Many people condemn the IRA for what they do but this is a prime example of the British using exactly the same tactics, if not worse ones, as the terrorists they so hate. Interestingly, the IRA actually agreed with what the SAS did, saying, "It was war and they'd have done the same" (Coogan 435). This episode leads me to talk about the SAS.

The SAS is a special force unit in the British army. They were increasingly used in the war against the IRA. To me, they sound like a British equivalent of our navy SEALs. They are basically an elite hit team that isn't made for taking prisoners (Coogan 433). Britain has repeatedly denied a shoot-to-kill policy but what happened at Loughall definitely refutes that and, in my mind, there is no doubt that Britain does give shoot-to-kill orders. In a sense, the IRA has a bit more honor in the fact that at least the own up to what they do, whereas the British pretend it never happens.

Which brings me to what the IRA does to get attention. When a group of IRA members go out to do a "job", they are called ASUs, or Active Service Units. One of the most horrific things they do is a thing called proxy bombing. Proxy bombing is when someone who is thought to be a tout, or is just hated, is blackmailed into driving a car bomb into a building (Coogan 438). They are blackmailed usually by threats made to their families, which makes it especially cruel because either way someone's going to die. Proxy bombing was used on British government or military buildings and it reached it's peak of usage on October 24, 1990. On that date the IRA tied up three supposed touts to trucks and forced them to drive into British Army installations (Coogan 438).

They also use basic bombs to try to blow up buildings, public transportation, or the cars of important British figures. The IRA has a history for either missing their targets or having the bomb go off at the wrong time and many civilians have been killed because of this. Assassinations are another tactic they use. I'm not sure how often they've actually been successful in this but the IRA periodically tries to kill British parliament members, British aristocracy or members of opposing terrorist groups. The only non-violent tactic the IRA uses is the hunger strike. This is only when a member is in prison, however, and is trying to either get political prisoner status, to protest unfair prison conditions, or to get released. Some people have died during a hunger strike and many of them are considered martyrs.

Considering the ways the IRA tries to get their ends, it's not surprising that even in southern Ireland most people do not agree with them. There is one thing, though, that is considered the absolute worst act the IRA has ever done. It took place on Remembrance Day, November 8, 1987 at Enniskillen (Coogan 437). At Enniskillen was the annual gathering for honoring locals who had died in Britain's wars. As always, there had been a large number in attendance because that was an important thing to the people. During the ceremony a bomb exploded on the speaker's platform. Eleven civilians were killed and sixty-three were injured (Coogan 437). The IRA publicly apologized for this but it was not the end of civilian casualties. Several more episodes of bombs going off in the wrong spot happened that year and this didn't do anything to help Catholic-Protestant relations.

To get a full view of the terrorist action in Ireland, I'm going to give a brief overview of what Protestant loyalist groups there are. The most well known and, at a time, the most powerful was the Orange Order (Trouble 26). They're still around but not nearly in the same numbers. It used to be 2/3 of all adult Protestant males in Ulster was one but now it is only about 1/3 of them (Donnelly). Anyway, the Orange Order was for the protection of Protestants from the Catholic influence in Ulster (Trouble 26). It started in 1795 and was dedicated to Protestant rule in Northern Ireland. Every year there is still a Parade on July 12 to celebrate the victory of the Battle of Boyne, where William the Orange defeated Catholic forces at Boyne (Mansbach 97). Well, the Order doesn't have nearly the same amount of influence it used to, so a person who wanted to get rid of the Catholics, and who was Protestant, might join the UDA, Ulster Defense Association, or the UVF, Ulster Volunteer Force, instead. These groups are both Protestant and radical and basically stand for the same things the Orange Order does. The IRA and these groups are constantly trading bombs and bullets in Northern Ireland.

I'm pretty satisfied with all that I found out during my research. The only thing I didn't like was that I was unable to get more information on the peace processes. This is because all my books were 1997 or older and the part where Professor Donnelly was talking about it didn't get recorded because the tape ran out. I think for the most part I answered what I set out to and none of the stuff I learned really surprised me. My feeling is that this kind of thing will never end because it has been going on too long, and the Catholics and Protestants have too long of memories to just forgive and forget. Even after all the research I still agree with the IRA in wanting a unified Ireland, but not in how they go about trying to get it. Also, I still really don't like the British, even though I have no tangible reason to. I just feel they never did enough about the Famine and treated the Catholics badly for such a long time. I'm definitely going to continue to be interested and learn about the IRA and Irish history in general.

Please put in my guestbook if there is any incorrect information or comments about my paper.  Thanks!