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More info on Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign 1969–1997
Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign 1969–1997: Map
From 1969 until 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA) conducted an armed paramilitary campaign in Northern Ireland and England , aimed at ending British rule in Northern Ireland in order to create a united Ireland.
Other aspects of the Provisional IRA's campaign are covered in the following articles:
For a chronology, see Chronology of Provisional IRA actions
For the Provisional IRA's armament, see Provisional IRA arms importation
For the Provisional IRA's political strategy, see Provisional IRA Strategy.
In the early days of the Troubles (1969-71), the Provisional IRA was poorly armed, with only a handful of old fashioned weapons left over from the IRA's Border campaign of the 1950s. The IRA had split in December 1969 into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA factions, in part over the failure of the IRA to defend nationalist areas of Belfast from loyalist attack - leading to the burning of many Catholic homes during the Battle of the Bogside in Derry and in Belfast during the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969. In the first years of the conflict, the Provisionals' main activities were providing firepower to support nationalist rioters and defending nationalist areas from attacks.
In contrast to the IRA's relative inaction during the rioting of 1969, in the summer of 1970 the Provisional IRA members mounted determined armed defences of the nationalist areas of Belfast against loyalist attackers, killing a number of loyalists in the process. A notable example of this came on 27 June 1970, when the IRA killed seven Protestants in rioting Belfast. Three Protestants were shot in Ardoyne in north Belfast after gun battles broke out during an Orange Order parade. When loyalists retaliated by attacking the nationalist enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast, Billy McKee, the Provisionals' commander in Belfast, occupied St Matthew's Church and defended it in a five hour gun battle with the loyalists. One of his men was killed and he was badly wounded. Four Protestants were also killed. The Provisional IRA gained much of its support from these activities, as they were widely perceived within the nationalist community as being defenders of Irish nationalist and Catholic people against aggression.
Initially, the British Army, deployed into Northern Ireland in August 1969 to reinforce the RUC and restore law and order, was welcomed in Catholic nationalist areas as a neutral force compared to the Protestant and unionist dominated Northern Ireland security forces. However this good relationship with the nationalist community did not last long. The Army was discredited in the eyes of many nationalists by incidents such as the Falls curfew of July 1970, when 3,000 British troops imposed martial law conditions on the nationalist lower Falls area of west Belfast . After a gun and grenade attack on troops by Provisional IRA members, the British fired over 1,500 rounds of ammunition in gun battles with both the Official IRA and Provisional IRA in the area, killing six civilians. Thereafter, the Provisionals began targeting British soldiers. The first soldier to die was Robert Curtis, killed by Billy Reid in a gun battle in February 1971.
1970 and 1971 also saw feuding between the Provisional and Official IRAs in Belfast, as both organisations vied for supremacy in nationalist areas. Charlie Hughes, commander of Provisionals' D Company in the Lower Falls, was killed before a truce was brokered between the two factions.
Early campaign 1970-1980
In the early 1970s, the IRA imported large quantities of modern weapons and explosives, primarily from supporters in the United States and Libya .
As the conflict escalated in the early 1970s, the numbers recruited by the IRA mushroomed, in response to the nationalist community's anger at events such as the introduction of internment without trial and Bloody Sunday when the Parachute Regiment of the British army shot dead 13 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry . The IRA leadership took the opportunity to launch an offensive, believing that they could force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland by inflicting severe casualties, thus undermining public support in Britain for its continued presence.
The first half of the 1970s was the most intense period of the Provisional IRA campaign. About half the total of 500 or so British soldiers to die in the conflict were killed in the years 1971-1973.O'Brien, p. 135 In 1972 alone, the IRA killed 100 British soldiers and wounded 500 more. In the same year, they carried out 1,300 explosions and 90 IRA members were killed. Up to 1972, The Provisionals controlled large urban areas in Belfast and Derry, but these were eventually re-taken by a major British operation known as Operation Motorman. Thereafter, fortified police and military posts were built in republican areas throughout Northern Ireland. During the early 1970s, a typical IRA operation involved sniping at British patrols and engaging them in fire-fights in urban areas of Belfast and Derry. They also killed local police and soldiers when off-duty. These tactics produced many casualties for both sides and for civilian by-standers. The British Army study of the conflict later described this period (1970-1972), as the 'insurgency phase' of the IRA's campaign.
Another element of their campaign was the bombing of commercial targets such as shops and businesses. The most effective tactic the IRA developed for its bombing campaign was the car bomb, where large amounts of explosives were packed into a car, which was driven to its target and then exploded. The most devastating example of the Provisionals' commercial bombing campaign was Bloody Friday in July 1972 in Belfast city centre, where 22 bombs exploded killing nine people and injuring 130. While most of the IRA's attacks on commercial targets were not designed to cause casualties, on many occasions they killed civilian bystanders. Other examples include the bombing of the Abercorn restaurant in Belfast in 1972, where two people were killed and 130 wounded and the La Mon Restaurant bombing in County Down in February 1978, where 12 customers were killed by an incendiary bomb.
In rural areas such as South Armagh (which is a majority Catholic area near the border with the Republic of Ireland), the IRA unit's most effective weapon was the "culvert-bomb" - where explosives were planted under drains in country roads. This proved so dangerous for British army patrols that virtually all troops in the area had to be transported by helicopter, a policy which continued until 2007, when the last British Army base was closed in South Armagh.The highest military death toll from an IRA attack came on 27 August 1979, with the Warrenpoint ambush in County Down, when 18 British soldiers from the Parachute Regiment were killed by two culvert bombs placed by the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. On the same day the IRA killed one of their most famous victims, the uncle of Prince Philip, Lord Louis Mountbatten, assassinated along with two teenagers (aged 14 and 15) and The Dowager Baroness Brabourne in County Sligo , by a bomb placed in his boat. Another effective IRA tactic devised in the 1970s was the use of home-made mortar mounted on the back of trucks which were fired at police and army bases. These mortars were first tested in 1974 but did not kill anyone until 1979. The most lethal of these attacks came in February 1985 in the Newry mortar attack, when 9 RUC officers were killed by mortar rounds fired at a police station. As at Warrenpoint, the South Armagh IRA unit was responsible.
Overall, the years 1976 to 1979 that mark the stewardship of Northern Ireland by Roy Mason, Merlyn Rees' replacement as the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, are characterised by a falling death rate as he developed a policy that rejected a political or military solution in favour of treating paramilitary violence 'as a security problem'. In 1976 there were 297 deaths in Northern Ireland; in the next three years the figures were 112, 81, 113 and it was an IRA man who acknowledged that "we were almost beaten by Mason". Martin McGuinness commented, "Mason beat the shit out of us".
Ceasefires - 1972 and 1975
Mural in Derry depicting IRA weapons, 1986
The Provisional IRA declared two ceasefires in the 1970s, temporarily suspending its armed operations. In 1972, the IRA leadership thought that Britain was on the verge of leaving Northern Ireland. The British Government held secret talks with the Provisional IRA leadership in 1972 to try and secure a ceasefire based on a compromise settlement within Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA agreed to a temporary ceasefire from 26 June to 9 July. In July 1972, Provisional leaders, Seán Mac Stíofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Ivor Bell, Seamus Twomey, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness met a British delegation led by William Whitelaw. The IRA leaders refused to consider a peace settlement that did not include a commitment to British withdrawal, a retreat of the British Army to barracks and a release of republican prisoners. The British refused and the talks broke up.
By the mid 1970s, it was clear that the hopes of the Provisional IRA leadership for a quick military victory were receding. Secret meetings between IRA leaders Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Billy McKee with British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees secured an IRA ceasefire from February 1975 until January of the next year. The republicans believed that this was the start of a long term process of British withdrawal. However, the IRA felt that Rees was trying to bring the Provisionals into peaceful politics without giving them any guarantees. Critics of the IRA leadership, most notably Gerry Adams, felt that the ceasefire was disastrous for the IRA, leading to infiltration by British informers, the arrest of many activists and a breakdown in IRA discipline - leading to sectarian killings (see next section) and a feud with fellow republicans in the Official IRA. The ceasefire broke down in January 1976.
In response to the 1975 ceasefire and the arrest of many IRA volunteers in its aftermath, the Provisionals re-organised their structures in the late 1970s into small cell based units that were thought to be harder to infiltrate. They also embarked on a strategy known as the "Long War" - a process of attrition based on the indefinite continuation of an armed campaign until the British government grew tired of the political, military and financial costs involved in staying in Northern Ireland .
Accusations of sectarian attacks
The IRA has always argued that its campaign was aimed not at the Protestant/Unionist community, but at the British presence in Ireland, manifested in the British Army and the Northern Ireland security forces. However, many Unionists believe that the IRA's campaign was sectarian and there are many incidents where the organisation targeted Protestant civilians.
The 1970s were the most violent years of the Troubles. As well as its campaign against the security forces, the IRA became involved, in the middle of the decade, in a "tit for tat" cycle of sectarian killings with loyalist paramilitaries. The worst examples of this occurred in 1975 and 1976. In September 1975, for example, IRA members machine-gunned an Orange Hall in Newtownhamilton , killing five Protestants. On 5 January 1976, an IRA unit in Armagh shot dead ten Protestant building workers at Kingsmills, in reprisal for Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) killings of six Roman Catholics the previous day. In similar incidents, the IRA deliberately killed 91 Protestant civilians in 1974-76 (CAIN). The IRA did not officially claim the killings, but justified them in a statement on 17 January 1976, "The Irish Republican Army has never initiated sectarian killings ...[but] if loyalist elements responsible for over 300 sectarian assassinations in the past four years stop such killing now, then the question of retaliation from whatever source does not arise". In late 1976, the IRA leadership met with representatives of the loyalist paramilitary groups and agreed to halt random sectarian killings and car bombings of civilian targets. The loyalists revoked the agreement in 1979, after the IRA killing of Lord Mountbatten but the pact nevertheless halted the cycle of sectarian revenge killings until the late 1980s, when the loyalist groups began killing Catholics again in large numbers.
As the IRA campaign continued through the 1970s and 1980s, the organisation increasingly targeted RUC officers and Ulster Defence Regiment servicemen—including when they were off duty. Because these men were largely Protestant and unionist, these killings were also widely portrayed (and perceived in unionist circles) as a campaign of sectarian assassination. Historian Henry Patterson has claimed that Jim Lynagh's military tactics of creating "sanitised zones"—expelling members of the UDR from their farms to gain territory "a field at a time"—was "sectarian" while DUP leader Ian Paisley claimed that the IRA campaign in Fermanagh was "genocidal." Former Unionist MP and a major in the UDR, Ken Maginnis, compiled a record of IRA attacks on the UDR and claimed from this that the IRA's campaign was sectarian and genocidal in that the eldest sons and breadwinners were especially targeted in order to ethnically cleanse Protestants from their farms and jobs west of the River Bann. These views have been challenged. Boyle and Hadden argued that the allegations do not stand up to serious scrutiny while Nationalists object to the term on the grounds that it is not used by Unionists to describe similar killings or expulsions of Catholics in areas where they form a minority.
Despite the fact that most of the IRA's security force victims by the late 1980s were locally recruited RUC or UDR personnel, the Provisional leadership maintained that the British Army was their preferred target. Gerry Adams in an interview given in 1988, said it was, "vastly preferable" to target the British Army as it "removes the worst of the agony from Ireland" and "diffuses the sectarian aspects of the conflict because loyalists do not see it as an attack on their community".
Towards the end of the troubles, the Provisionals widened their campaign even further, to include the killing of people who worked in a civilian capacity with the RUC and British Army. The bloodiest example of this came in 1992, when an IRA bomb killed eight Protestant building workers who were working on a British Army base at Teebane.
Attacks outside Northern Ireland
The Provisional IRA was chiefly active in Northern Ireland, but from the early 1970s, it also took its bombing campaign to England . At a meeting of the Provisional IRA Army Council in June 1972, Sean MacStiofain proposed bombing targets in England to, "take the heat off Belfast and Derry". However, the Army Council did not consent to a bombing campaign in England until early 1973, when talks they had held with the British government in the previous year had broken down. They believed that such bombing would create a demand among the British public for their government to withdraw from Northern Ireland.
The first IRA team sent to England included eleven members of the Belfast Brigade, who hijacked four cars in Belfast, fitted them with explosives and drove them to London via Dublin and Liverpool . The team were betrayed to the London Metropolitan Police by an informer and all but one of them were arrested. Nevertheless, two of the bombs exploded, killing one man and injuring 180 people.
Thereafter, control over IRA bombings in England was given to Brian Keenan, a member of the Army Council from Belfast. Keenan, along with Peter McMullen, a former member of the British Parachute regiment, conducted a series of bombings in 1973. A bomb, planted by McMullen, exploded at a barracks in Yorkshire , injuring a female canteen worker.
Some of the most indiscriminate bombing attacks of the IRA's bombing campaign were carried out by the so-called "Balcombe Street Gang", a unit of IRA members from Dublin, who were sent to London in early 1974. They avoided contact with the Irish community there in order to remain inconspicuous and aimed to carry out one attack a week. In addition to bombings, they carried out several assassination attempts. Ross McWhirter, a right wing politician who had offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the bombers, was shot dead at his home and the group made an assassination attempt on Edward Heath. They were eventually arrested after a machine gun attack on an exclusive restaurant on Mayfair . Pursued by police, they took hostages and barricaded themselves for six days in a flat on Balcombe Street before they surrendered, an incident known as the Balcombe Street Siege . They were sentenced to thirty years each for a total of six murders. The Balcombe group later admitted responsibility also for the Guildford pub bombing of 5 October 1974, which killed 5 people (4 of them soldiers) and injured 54 and the bombing of a pub in Woolwich , which killed another 2 people and injured 28.
On 21 November 1974, two pubs were bombed in the Birmingham pub bombings, an act widely attributed to the IRA, but not claimed by them, that killed 21 civilians and injured 162. An inadequate warning was given for one bomb and no warning for the other. There were no military targets associated with either of the pubs.
Two groups of people, the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, were imprisoned were for the Guildford and Birmingham bombings respectively, but each group protested their innocence. They were eventually released and pardoned after serving lengthy prison sentences.
Many British civilians were killed during the IRA bombing campaign in England, which was occasionally directed against civilian targets such as pubs and public transport such as the London Underground.
After the campaign of the mid 1970s, the IRA did not undertake a major bombing campaign again in England until the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, throughout the intervening period, they did carry out a number of high profile bombing attacks in England.
In 1982, they exploded two bombs at a British Army ceremonial parade at Hyde Park and Regents Park in London, killing 11 soldiers and wounding 50 soldiers and civilians (see Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings ).
In 1984, in the Brighton hotel bombing , the IRA tried to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet. She survived, but five people including Sir Anthony Berry, a Conservative Party Member of Parliament, Eric Taylor, the north-west party chairman and three wives of party officials were killed. Several others including Margaret Tebbit, wife of Norman Tebbit, were left permanently disabled.
On several occasions, the Provisional IRA attacked British troops stationed in Britain, the most lethal of which was the 1989 Deal barracks bombing , where 11 Royal Marines Band Service bandsmen were killed.
Republicans argued that these bombings "concentrated minds" in the British government far more than the violence in Northern Ireland. The IRA only struck at targets in England (not the Celtic countries of Scotland and Wales ), although they detonated a bomb at an oil terminal in the Shetland Isles in May 1981 while Queen Elizabeth II was performing the official opening of the terminal. During the IRA's twenty-five year campaign in England 115 deaths and 2,134 injuries were reported, from a total of almost 500 attacks.
The Provisional IRA also carried out pinpointed attacks in other countries such as West Germany , Belgium , and the Netherlands , where British soldiers were based. Between 1979 and 1990, eight soldiers and six civilians died in these attacks, including the British Ambassador to the Netherlands Sir Richard Sykes. On one occasion, the IRA shot and killed two Australian tourists mistaken for off duty British soldiers.
The IRA also sent members on arms importation, logistical support and intelligence operations at different times to continental Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, the Middle East and Latin America.
Libyan arms and the "Tet Offensive"
In the mid 1980s, the Provisional IRA received large quantities of modern weaponry, including heavy weaponry such as heavy machine guns, over 1,000 rifles, several hundred handguns, rocket propelled grenades, flamethrowers, surface to air missiles and the plastic explosive Semtex from the Libyan regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi. Reportedly, Gadaffi donated enough weapons to arm the equivalent of three infantry battalions. (See Provisional IRA arms importation).
The IRA therefore, came to be very well armed by the end of the Troubles, but this did not necessarily correlate with the intensity of its armed campaign. Most of the losses it inflicted on the British Army occurred in the early to mid 1970s, although they continued to inflict substantial casualties on the British military, the RUC and UDR throughout the Troubles. The IRA Army Council had plans for a dramatic escalation of the conflict in the late 1980s which they likened to the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War with the aid of the arms obtained from Libya. However, a third of the arms donated were intercepted aboard the ship, the Eksund by the French and Irish authorities. This brought the Provisional IRA's new capability to the attention of the authorities on either side of the Irish border. Five men were captured with the boat; three IRA members, including Gabriel Cleary, received jail sentences.
The plan had been to take and hold several areas along the border, forcing the British Army to either withdraw from border areas or use maximum force to re-take them - thus escalating the conflict beyond the point which the Provisional IRA thought that British public opinion would accept. The IRA's expectation was that the British Army would try to re-take these areas with their helicopters which could be shot down due to the SAM-7 Surface to Air missiles now in the IRAs hands. The British would then be forced to ground all of their helicopters across Northern Ireland and use heavy armoured transport which would now be vulnerable to RPG-7s, Semtex and cannons that the IRA had received from Libya. The "Tet offensive" also included plans to bombard and sink a Royal Navy vessel that patrolled the Carlingford Lough with 106 mm Cannons mounted on motorboats and plans to bomb British embassies and military bases on the continent. However this offensive failed to materialise. IRA sources quoted in The Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney say that the interception of the Eksund shipment eliminated the element of surprise which they had hoped to have for this offensive. The role of informers within the IRA seems to have also played a role in the failure of the "Tet Offensive" to get off the ground.
In the event, much of the IRA's new heavy weaponry, for instance the surface-to-air missiles and flamethrowers, were never, or very rarely, used. The only recorded use of flamethrowers took place in the Derryard attack , in County Fermanagh, when two soldiers were killed when a permanent checkpoint manned by the King's Own Scottish Borderers was the target of a multiple weapons attack on 13 December 1989. The SAMs turned out to be out of date models and were unable to shoot down British helicopters equipped with anti-missile technology. The semtex plastic explosive proved the most valuable asset to the IRA's armoury.
As it was, the numbers of members of the British and Northern Ireland military personnel killed by the IRA increased in the years 1988-1990, from 12 in 1986 to 39 in 1988, but dropped to 27 in 1989 and decreased again to 18 in 1990. The death toll by 1991 was similar to that of the mid-1980s, with 14 fatalities. Of these deaths, the numbers of the regular British Army killed by the IRA in the years 1988-1990, were as follows; 5 in 1986, 22 in 1988, 24 in 1989 10 in 1990 and five in 1991.
The failure to intensify the conflict in the mid 1980s meant that while the Provisional IRA, in the judgement of journalist and author Brendan O'Brien, "could not be beaten, it could be contained". Politically and militarily, that was the most significant factor. It was why the IRA had to decide whether to put away their guns for another day as they had done in previous decades, or continue with a long and 'sickening' war". By the late 1980s and early 1990s, roughly 9 out of every 10 IRA attacks were aborted or failed to cause casualties.O'Brien, p. 157 Republican sources such as Mitchel McLaughlin and Danny Morrison argued by the early 1990s the Provisional IRA could not attain their objectives by military means.
War with British special forces
Despite the "Tet offensive" being aborted, the IRA campaign continued up to 1994. However, the costs of this campaign for both the Provisional IRA and the community which supported the Provisional IRA were increased by the actions of British special forces units and the loyalist paramilitaries.
The IRA suffered some heavy losses at the hands of British special forces like the Special Air Service (SAS), the heaviest being the ambush and killing of eight armed IRA members at Loughgall in 1987 as the IRA gunmen attempted to destroy Loughgall police station. The East Tyrone Brigade was hit particularly hard by British killings of their members in this period, losing 28 members killed by British forces in the period 1987-1992, out of 53 dead in the whole Troubles. In many of these cases, Provisional IRA members were killed after being ambushed by British special forces. Republicans alleged that this amounted to a campaign of targeted assassination on the part of state forces (see shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland).
Another high profile incident took place in Gibraltar in March 1988, when three unarmed IRA members were shot dead by an SAS unit while scouting out a bombing target (see Operation Flavius ). The subsequent funerals of these IRA members in Belfast were attacked by loyalist gunman Michael Stone. At a funeral of one of Stone's victims, two un-uniformed British Army corporals were lynched after intruding on the crowd (see Corporals killings). These kind of reactions, both in the increasing level of violence and on the propaganda front, showed that the use of preventive killings of republicans were counterproductive to both the British and Unionist interests.
Loyalists and the IRA - killing and reprisals
The IRA and also its political wing, Sinn Féin also suffered from a campaign of assassination launched against their members by Loyalist paramilitaries from the late 1980s. These latter attacks killed about 12 IRA and 15 Sinn Féin members between 1987 and 1995. In addition, the loyalists killed family members of known republicans. However, the vast majority of loyalist victims were innocent Catholic civilians. According to recently released documents the British Government knew since 1973 that British Army units such as the Ulster Defence Regiment were partisan and actively helping loyalist paramilitaries with arms and membership. Despite knowing this the British Government stepped up the role of the UDR in "maintaining order" within Northern Ireland.
It has also been confirmed that the loyalists were aided in this campaign by elements of the security forces including the British Army and RUC Special Branch (see Stevens Report). Loyalist sources have since confirmed that they received intelligence files on republicans from Army and Police intelligence in this period and an Army agent within the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), Brian Nelson, was convicted in 1992 of the killings of Catholic civilians. It was later revealed that Nelson, while working as a British Army agent, was also involved in the importation of arms for loyalists from South Africa in 1988. In 1993, for the first time, Loyalist paramilitaries killed more people than Republican paramilitaries. While the difference was only two, in the following year, Loyalists killed eleven more people than Republicans, and in 1995, they killed twelve more.
In response to these attacks, the IRA began a reactive assassination campaign against leading members of the UDA and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). In the mid-1970s, from 1974, the IRA had a policy of retaliating to loyalist attacks on Catholics with attacks on Protestants such as the Kingsmill massacre of 1976 (see section above). However, by the late 1980s, the IRA Army Council would not sanction attacks on Protestant civilians, but only at named, identified loyalist targets. The main reason for this was the negative impact of attacks on civilians on the Republican movement's electoral appeal. The IRA issued a statement in 1986 saying: "At no time will we involve ourselves in the execution of ordinary Protestants, but at all times we reserve the right to take armed action against those who attempt to terrorise or intimidate our people into accepting British/unionist rule". Gerry Adams reiterated the point in 1989; "Sinn Féin does not condone the deaths of people who are non combatants".
To maximise the impact of such killings, the IRA targeted senior loyalist figures. Among such leading loyalists killed were John McMichael, Joe Bratty, Raymond Elder and Ray Smallwoods of the UDA and John Bingham, Robert Seymore, Leslie Dallas and Trevor King of the UVF. One IRA attempt to kill the entire leadership of the UDA on 23 October 1993 caused civilian casualties, when a bomb was planted at a Shankill Road fish shop. The bomb was intended to kill the entire senior leadership of the UDA, including Johnny Adair, who they wrongly thought were meeting in a room above the shop. Instead, the bomb ended up killing nine Protestant civilians and also the bomber, Thomas Begley, when the device exploded prematurely. In addition, 58 more people were injured. This provoked a series of retaliatory killings by the UVF and UDA of Catholic civilians with no political or paramilitary connections.
According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), University of Ulster statistics, the Provisional IRA killed 30 loyalist paramilitaries in total. Lost Lives gives a figure of 28 out of a total number of loyalists killed in the Troubles of 126. According to The Irish War by Tony Geraghty, the IRA killed 45 loyalists. Such killings intensified just before the IRA ceasefire of 1994 and it has been speculated that this assassination programme against Loyalist leaders helped convince the leadership of both the UDA and UVF, to call ceasefires at this point. However the Loyalists called their ceasefire six weeks after the IRA ceasefire of that year and indeed argued that it was their killing of Catholic civilians in general that had forced the IRA ceasefire by placing intolerable pressure on the nationalist community. Republicans deny this - citing how few of the loyalist victims were republican paramilitaries. They argue that the republican political strategy was unaffected by loyalist actions.
Campaign up to and after the 1994 ceasefire
See also Northern Ireland peace process
By the early to mid 1990s, the IRA found it more difficult to kill British military personnel in Northern Ireland, who were by now familiar with operating there and well protected by body armour and anti-bomb electronic counter measures. One of several methods the IRA used to counter this, was the use of high velocity Barrett Light 50 and Belgian FN sniper rifles, several of which the Provisionals imported from the USA. Two snipers teams of the South Armagh Brigade killed nine members of the security forces in this way. To avoid the jamming of wireless-triggered detonators, the organisation began to employ radar beacons to prime their explosive devices, improving dramatically the effectiveness of the attacks.
An IRA technique used in the early 1990s was the "proxy bomb", a type of involuntary suicide bomb where a victim was kidnapped and forced to drive a car bomb to its target. In one operation in Derry in October 1990, the Provisional IRA chained a British Army cook to a car laden with explosives, held his family hostage and forced him to drive to an Army checkpoint where the bomb exploded, killing himself and five soldiers. Another "human bomb" killed one soldier the same day, but the driver saved his own life by jumping from the moving car. This practice was stopped due to the revulsion it caused among the nationalist community.
The improvised mortar was the weapon of choice for the Provisional IRA during the 1990s
The number of British soldiers killed had dropped significantly from the worst years of the 1970s. Nevertheless, the IRA campaign, while not as lethal as previously, continued to severely disrupt normal life in Northern Ireland. In 1987, for instance, the IRA carried out 140 shooting attacks and 154 bombings, killing 31 RUC, UDR and British Army personnel and injuring over 100 more. It also killed 20 civilians and injured roughly 150. In 1990, in 193 shootings and 187 bombings, IRA attacks killed 10 British Army soldiers, 8 UDR members, 12 RUC members and injured 190 soldiers and 150 police, along with more civilians.By 1992, the figure for IRA gun attacks was 144 and the number of bombings had increased to 282. Even the presence of the British Army in the region increased from its lowest ebb of 9,000 men in 1985 to 10,500 by 1992 after an escalation of the IRA's mortar attacks. The evidence suggests, therefore, that the IRA was capable of carrying on a significant level of violence for the foreseeable future. Moreover, it can be argued that the real attrition for the UK was not in the number of soldiers or RUC members killed, but in the enormous budget needed to keep their huge security system in Northern Ireland working indefinitely.
One of the bombings carried out in 1990 shattered and flooded the engine room of an RFA ship, the Fort Victoria, recently built in Harland and Wolff 's shipyards, and at anchor in Belfast harbour at the time. This action delayed her commissioning for almost three years.
The attacks and bombings in the early 1990s forced the UK government to dismantle several bases and security posts, whose maintenance or reconstruction was not affordable.
In South Armagh, in contrast to other brigade areas, IRA activity increased in the early 1990s. The IRA there shot down three helicopters (one of them in 1988) and damaged at least another three in this period, using DShK heavy machine guns and improvised mortars. Another one was brought down in early 1990 in County Tyrone,by the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade wounding three of the crew.
On 22 April 1993, the South Armagh IRA unit took control of the village of Cullaville near the border with the Republic, for two hours. The fact that the IRA executed the action despite the presence of a British Army watchtower nearby, caused outrage among the British security and the Unionist public opinion. The parliamentary debates of the time also reflect a mounting pressure on the UK government to find a negotiated solution to the 25 years old conflict.
During this period, the IRA also established a highly damaging economic bombing campaign in England, particularly London , and other major cities, which caused a huge amount of physical and economic damage to property. Among their targets were the City of London , Bishopsgate and Baltic Exchange in London, with the Bishopsgate bombing causing damage initially estimated at £1 billion. There was also a propaganda boost for the Republicans when three mortar rounds were fired at the British Prime minister's office in Downing Street in London during a Cabinet meeting in February 1991. A particularly notorious bombing was the Warrington bomb attack in 1993, which killed two young children. In early March 1994 there were three mortar attacks on Heathrow Airport in London, which forced the authorities to shut down the facility. It has been argued that this bombing campaign was decisive to convince the British government (who had hoped to contain the conflict to Northern Ireland with its Ulsterisation policy) to negotiate with Sinn Féin after the IRA ceasefires of August 1994 and July 1997.
The ceasefires
In August 1994, the Provisional IRA announced a "complete cessation of military operations". This was the culmination of several years of negotiations between the Republican leadership, led by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness, various figures in the local political parties, the Irish government and British government. It was informed by the view that neither the UK forces, nor the IRA could win the war and that greater progress towards Republican objectives might be achieved by negotiation.
The devastation on Corporation Street in Manchester after the IRA bombing of 1996
While many Provisional IRA volunteers were (and are) reportedly unhappy with the end of armed struggle short of the achievement of a united Ireland, the peace strategy has since resulted in substantial electoral and political gains for Sinn Féin, the movement's political wing. It may now be argued that the Sinn Féin political party has eclipsed the Provisional IRA as the most important part of the republican movement. The ceasefire of 1994 therefore, while not a definitive end to Provisional IRA operations, marked the effective end of its full scale armed campaign.The Provisional IRA called off its 1994 ceasefire on 9 February 1996 because of its dissatisfaction with the state of negotiations. They signalled the end of the ceasefire by detonating a truck bomb at Canary Wharf in London, which caused the deaths of two civilians and massive damage to property. In the summer of 1996, another truck bomb devastated Manchester city centre . However the Provisional IRA campaign after the ceasefire was suspended during this period never reached the intensity of previous years. In total the IRA killed 2 British soldiers, 2 RUC officers, 2 British civilians, and 1 Garda in 1996-1997 according to the CAIN project. They resumed their ceasefire on 20 July 1997. These Provisional IRA military activities of 1996-97 were widely believed to have been used to gain leverage in negotiations with the British government during the period. Whereas in 1994-95, the British Conservative Party government had refused to enter public talks with Sinn Féin until the IRA had given up its weapons, the Labour Party government in power by 1997 was prepared to include Sinn Féin in peace talks before IRA decommissioning. This precondition was officially dropped in June 1997. Another widespread interpretation of the temporary breakdown in the first IRA ceasefire is that the leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness tolerated a limited return to violence in order to avoid a split between hardliners and moderates in the IRA Army Council. Nevertheless, they emphasized in every public statement since the fall of 1996 the convenience, if not the need for a second truce. Once they had won over or removed the militarists from the Council, they re-instated the ceasefire.
According to the CAIN research project at the University of Ulster, the Provisional IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,824 people during the Troubles up to 2001. This figure represents 48.4 percent of the total fatalities in the conflict.
621 of these casualties were civilians.
A total of 656 were British armed forces: 456 from the British Army, 183 were from the Ulster Defence Regiment (a part time local British Army reserve unit), 5 were from the Territorial Army (a British Army reserve force) 7 were from the Royal Irish Regiment (a amalgamation of the Royal Irish Rangers and the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) formed in 1992), 1 from the Royal Navy and 4 from the Royal Air Force (in attacks in Germany and the Netherlands). In addition the Provisional IRA killed 5 former British Army soldiers.
272 were members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, 14 were former Royal Ulster Constabulary members, six were British Police, 20 were Northern Ireland Prison Service officers, two were former prison officers.
A further 35 were loyalist paramilitaries (21 Ulster Defence Association (UDA), three former UDA, 11 Ulster Volunteer Force).
Six were Gardaí and one was Irish Army.
About 80 were republican paramilitaries, including 4 Official IRA members, one Irish People's Liberation Organisation member and 63 alleged informers.
Another detailed study Lost Lives, states the Provisional IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,781 people up to 2004:
644 civilians,
456 British military (including British Army, RAF, Royal Irish Regiment, Royal Navy, and Territorial Army), 273 Royal Ulster Constabulary (including RUC reserve), 182 Ulster Defence Regiment and 5 former British Army.
23 Northern Ireland Prison Service officers and five British police officers.
163 Republican paramilitary members (including IRA members, most caused their own deaths when bombs they were transporting exploded prematurely).
28 loyalist paramilitary members.
Far more common than the killing of IRA volunteers however, was their imprisonment. Journalists Eamonn Mallie and Patrick Bishop estimate in The Provisional IRA (1988), that between 8-10,000 Provisional IRA members were, up until that point, imprisoned during the course of the conflict, a number they also give as the total number of IRA members during the Troubles. The total number of Provisional IRA members imprisoned must be higher, once the figures from 1988 onwards are included. The IRA lost 276 members during the Troubles according to the CAIN figures around 150 Provisional IRA members were killed by the British Army, loyalist paramilitaries, the RUC then the UDR.
About 120 Provisional IRA members caused their own deaths. Nine IRA members died on hunger strike. Another hundred or so were killed by their own explosives in premature bombing accidents - 103 deaths according to CAIN, 105 according to an RUC report of 1993. Lost Lives gives a figure of 163 killings of republican paramilitary members (this includes bombing accidents and feuds with republicans from other organisations). Most of the remaining 200 or so IRA killed were by the British Army, followed by loyalist paramilitaries and then the RUC.
Lost Lives states that 294 Provisional IRA members died in the Troubles. In addition, many members of Sinn Féin were killed, some of whom were also IRA members, but this was not publicly acknowledged. An Phoblacht gives a figure of 341 IRA and Sinn Féin members killed in the Troubles, indicating between 50-60 Sinn Féin deaths if the IRA deaths are subtracted.
British Army assessment
IRA propaganda poster
An internal British Army document released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in 2007 stated an expert opinion that the British Army had failed to defeat the IRA by force of arms but also claims to have shown the IRA that it could not achieve its ends through violence. The document examined 37 years of British troop deployment and was compiled following a six month study by a team of three officers carried out in early 2006 for General Sir Mike Jackson, the British Army's Chief of the General Staff. The military assessment describes the IRA as professional, dedicated, highly skilled and resilient.
The paper divides the IRA activity and tactics in two main periods: The so called insurgency phase (1971-1972), and the terrorist phase (1972-1997). The British Army claims to have curbed the IRA insurgency by 1972, but suggests that their efforts since the 1980s aimed to destroy the cell-structured organisation produced no final success in any recognisable way.
The Bogside, Derry
Apart from its armed campaign, the Provisional IRA was also involved in many other activities, including "policing" of nationalist communities, robberies and kidnapping for the purposes of raising funds, fund raising in other countries, involvement in community events and parades, and intelligence gathering. The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), a body supervising the ceasefire and activities of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland has judged the Provisional IRA to have ceased all of the above activities.
The Provisional IRA considered itself the policing force and defender of nationalist communities in Northern Ireland. This was generally accepted by the communities involved who expressed little confidence in the neutrality of the RUC and British Army. The Provisional IRA was often turned to first for help in solving problems of crime and disorder. The role of protector which the Provisional IRA assumed often saw members of those communities physically harmed, forced out of the areas (being "put out" or exiling), otherwise threatened and in extreme cases killed by the Provisional IRA.
Activities deemed punishable by the Provisional IRA (often described as "anti-social activities"), included collaboration with the RUC and/or British Army ie. informing, drug dealing, criminal activity outside of the Provisional IRA, joy riding, spreading of dissent, and any other activities which might either damage the Provisional IRA or interests of the community as defined by the Provisional IRA. For the most part the list of activities deemed punishable by the Provisional IRA coincided with those deemed punishable by the community at large. Punishments ranged in severity from verbal warnings to physical attacks, through to wounding by gunshot, progressing to forcing the suspect to flee Ireland for their lives and execution. This process was often described as "summary justice" by the political establishment and media. In the majority of cases the Provisional IRA claimed that a full investigation had been carried out and that guilt had been established before their sentence was carried out. The process, which was widely known of in nationalist communities, worked on a sliding scale of severity- in the case of a petty thief a warning to stop may initially be issued, escalating to a physical attack known as a "punishment beating" usually with baseball bats or similar tools. If the behaviour continued then a more serious physical assault known as a "knee-capping" (gunshot wounds to limbs, hands, joints) would occur. The final level would be a threat of death against the suspect if they did not leave the island of Ireland, and if this order was not adhered to, death. The IMC has noted that the Provisional IRA has repeatedly come under pressure from nationalist community members since its cessation of violence to resume such policing but has resisted such requests.
Suspected informers and those who cooperated with the RUC and British Army (sometimes referred to as collaborators) were generally dealt with by a counter-intelligence unit titled the Internal Security Unit (ISU) sometimes referred to as the "nutting squad". Typically the ISU would abduct and interrogate suspects frequently using torture to extract confessions. The interrogations would often be recorded and played back to senior Provisional IRA members at a secretly held board of inquiry. This board would then pronounce judgement, usually a fatal gunshot to the head. A judgement as severe as execution was frequently made public in the form of a communique released to the media but in some cases, for reasons of political expediency, the Provisional IRA did not announce responsibility. The bodies of executed informers were usually found shot dead by roadsides in isolated areas. On occasion recordings of their confessions were released to the media.
This style of summary justice, often meted out based on evidence of dubious quality, by untrained investigators and self appointed judges frequently lead to what the Provisional IRA has acknowledged as horrific mistakes. The killings of Jean McConville and other "disappeared" are the most prominent examples. Members of the Provisional IRA have also often been linked to killings and crimes which the Provisional IRA denies it authorised, the murder of Robert McCartney, being the last known example. As of February 2007 the IMC has stated that the Provisional IRA has issued "instructions to members not to use physical force" and noted what it describes as "the leadership's maintenance of a firm stance against the involvement of members in criminality." Where criminality has been engaged in by Provisional IRA members the IMC note that "we were satisfied these individual activities werecontrary to the express injunctions of the leadership".
Internal Republican Feuds
The Provisional IRA has also targeted other republican paramilitary groups and dissenting members of the Provisional IRA who refuse or disregard orders. In 1972, 1975 and 1977, the Official IRA and Provisional IRA engaged in attacks on the opposing organisation leaving several dead on either side. In 1992, The Provisional IRA attacked and eliminated the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO), which was widely perceived as being involved in drug dealing and other criminality in West Belfast. One IPLO member was killed, several knee-capped and more ordered to disband. The last known example of this practise as of February 2007 took place in 2000 and involved the shooting dead of a Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) member for his opposition to the Provisionals' political strategy.
Activities in Republic of Ireland
Although the Provisional IRA's General Order No.8 forbids military action "against 26 County forces under any circumstances whatsoever", members of the Garda Síochána (the Republic of Ireland's police force) have also been killed. Perhaps the most notorious was the killing of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe. McCabe was killed by machine-gun fire as he sat in his patrol car in Adare County Limerick during the escort of a post office delivery in 1996. Sinn Féin has called for the release of his killers under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. In total the Provisional IRA killed six Gardaí and one Irish Army soldier, mostly during robberies. These killings as well as sectarian attacks against Protestant civilians, and punishment attacks on the nationalist community lost the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin political, financial and moral support in the Republic.
Robberies and criminal enterprise
The Provisional IRA has carried out numerous bank and post office robberies across Ireland throughout its existence. An RUC estimate from 1982-83, puts the amount stolen in such raids by the Provisional IRA at around £700,000 (sterling 1982-83 rate). In the 1980s, Provisional IRA members were suspected of kidnapping the racehorse Shergar in an attempt to ransom the animal. Also in the 1980s the Provisional IRA were involved in in the kidnapping and ransom of businessmen Gael Weston, Ben Dunne and Don Tidey. Activities such as these were linked to the IRA's fund-raising. Gardaí estimate that the Provisional IRA got up to £1.5 million from these activities. Activities such as smuggling, sale of stolen items and contraband including cigarettes and red diesel, extortion and protection rackets, and money laundering. Most recently the Provisional IRA have been blamed for carrying out the Northern Bank Robbery in December 2004, although no proof was ever forwarded and this crime remains unsolved. The proceeds of the Provisional IRA's past criminal enterprises are largely thought to have been invested in property and business ventures. Such investments are an ongoing matter of investigation for the British and Irish authorities under proceeds of crime legislation. The IMC note that in their view the Provisional IRA has not had any "organisational involvement in robbery or other such organised crime".
Moloney, p. 472
War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History Volume 2 by Robert B. Asprey (ISBN 978-0595225941), page 1125
Global Geopolitics: A Critical Introduction by Klaus Dodds (ISBN 978-0273686095), page 205
British Civilization by John Oakland (ISBN 978-0415261500), page 108
Northern Ireland by Jonathan Tonge (ISBN 978-0745631417), page 2
Mallie, Bishop, The Provisional IRA p157-158
Taylor, pp. 56-59
Taylor, p. 88
The IRA, 1968-2000 By J. Bowyer Bell
An atlas of Irish history By Ruth Dudley Edwards p. 256
CAIN: Sutton index of deaths
O'Brien, p. 119
From War to Peace, The Future of the Army in Northern Ireland
Operation Banner – An analysis of military operations in Northern Ireland, Chapter I, page 2 [1]
Mallie Bishop, p. 215, p. 337
Sinn Fein welcomes end of British Army occupation in South Armagh (6 March 2007)
Mallie Bishop, p. 420
Taylor, p. 139
Moloney, pp. 149-162
English, p. 172
Border Killings – Liberation Struggle or Ethnic Cleansing? 29 May 2006
[Terror: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism, Brett Bowden and Michael T. Davis, p239]
[Kevin Boyle and Tom Hadden, Northern Ireland : The Choice, Harmondsworth : Penguin Books, 1994, p7]
Bowden and Davis, p239
English, pp. 163-164
The Enemy Within by Martin Dillon (ISBN 0-385-40506-5), page 141
The Road To Balcombe Street: The IRA Reign of Terror in London by Steven Moysey (ISBN 978-0-7890-2913-3), pages 116 to 117
CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths - menu page
Moloney, pp. 18-23
Moloney, pages 20 to 22
Taylor, pp. 277-278
Sutton, Malcom: Bear in mind these dead...An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications.( main page). Use this link for details of fatalities between 1986 and 1990. Produce tabulation by introducing Status and Year: *http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/crosstabs.html
(Moloney p338)
O'Brien, p. 158. 'Sickening' is derived from a speech Martin McGuinness made in 1988, when he said, "I believe the...Irish Republican Army has got the capability, the ways and the means of bringing about the defeat of the British forces, both militarily and politically in the Six Counties. But in saying that I am not saying that the IRA have the ability to drive every last British soldier out of Belfast, Derry...or anywhere else. But they have the ability to sicken the British forces of occupation", cited in O'Brien, p152
In 1995, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that there has been a violation of Article 2 of the Convention but rejected claims for compensation as the three had been engaged in terrorism under domestic UK laws: *http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/009.html
Geraghty, p. 320
Recently released (3 May 2006) British Government documents show that overlapping membership between British Army units like the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and loyalist paramilitary groups was a wider problem than a "few bad apples" as was often claimed. The documents include a report titled "Subversion in the UDR" which details the problem. In 1973; an estimated 5-15% of UDR soldiers were directly linked to loyalist paramilitary groups, it was believed that the "best single source of weapons, and the only significant source of modern weapons, for Protestant extremist groups was the UDR", it was feared UDR troops were loyal to "Ulster" alone rather than to "Her Majesty's Government", the British Government knew that UDR weapons were being used in the assassination and attempted assassination of Roman Catholic civilians by loyalist paramilitaries. May 2, 2006 edition of the Irish News available here.
In the latter case (1995 period), it should be note that the Provisional IRA 1994's cease-fire was still in place: * CAIN
Coogan, p. 437
Irish Echo
Lost Lives, p. 1536
Harnden, p. 265.
Geraghty. p. 209.
Sutton index. Once again, see the following link for the 1990 fatalities and produce tabulation by introducing Status and Year: *http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/crosstabs.html
Ripley, Tim and Chappel, Mike: Security forces in Northern Ireland (1969-92). Osprey, 1993, p. 20. ISBN 1855322781
"These statistics [about the declining violence] do not trivialize the seriousness of the problem, but instead indicate that terrorist violence was contained at manageble levels. What these statistics fail to indicate was the expense of the conflict. Perpetually deploying large, well-trained security forces was very expensive in simple monetary terms. As in so many other conflicts, if the money spent on security had been invested in Ulster's economy, the province would easily have had one of the highest standards of living in the world. Unfortunately, watering the plant proved to be useless when the poison was rising from its roots."
IRA bombs British Navy shipAn Phoblacht, 13 September 1990
Shipbuilder with Midas touch for making deals The Times. 13 March 2006
The list included: * Three permanent checkpoints at Boa Island, Derryard The Irish Immigrant, March 1991 issue and Cloghogue (Harnden, p. 263-264). * The UDR base at Glenane.
Harnden, p. 361, p.398
See this two-pages British Commons account about the NI violence for the period of 1989-90: *http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm198990/cmhansrd/1990-07-10/Writtens-7.html *http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm198990/cmhansrd/1990-07-10/Writtens-8.html For some details on the helicopter crash-landing, go to this archive page of the New York Times: * Copter forced down in Ulster
See these transcripts of the Commons debate over the security situation in NI and the Cullaville incident (Column 196 in the first link and Column 184 in the second one): *http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199293/cmhansrd/1993-06-08/Debate-5.html *http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199293/cmhansrd/1993-06-08/Debate-4.html For the increasing pressure over the British government, check the following debate about the Downing Street Declaration, in particular the words of the Prime Minister : *http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199394/cmhansrd/1993-12-15/Debate-1.html
In the latter case, while the British Government remained adamant during the 1994-95 cease-fire period on its demand of the Provisional IRA decommissioning of weapons before the beginning of any meetings, just three weeks after the London Docklands Bombing (February 1996), British Prime Minister John Major and his Irish counterpart, John Bruton, made the announcement of multi-party talks for 10 June, with the only precondition of the Provisional IRA restoration of the cease-fire, omitting any mention of a previous lay down of weaponry. The IRA Army Council and Sinn Féin choose to await until the next year UK elections to accept the offer. (Taylor, pp. 406-407)
Maillot Agnès: New Sinn Féin: Irish republicanism in the twenty-first century. Routledge, 2005, p. 32. ISBN 0415321972
CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths - extracts from Sutton's book
Lost Lives (2004. Ed's David McKitrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton, David McVea, page 1536)
Mallie Bishop, p. 12
O'Brien, p. 26
Army paper says IRA not defeated
AC 71842 Operation BANNER
Chapter I, page 3
The paper asserts that Operation Motorman was key to this achievement
Chapter II, page 15: The British Government's main military objective in the 1980s was the destruction of PIRA, rather than resolving the conflict.
Chapter VII, page 5
The IMC issues a bi-yearly public report on the activities of all paramilitary groups operating and known of in Northern Ireland. Official website
On occasion policing or presence by the Provisional IRA was rejected by communities. Communities which had undergone attack by Loyalists were more likely to be supportive of the organisation eg. the Short Strand and West Belfast are two prime examples.
British Irish Rights Watch
Martin Dillon, 25 Years of Terror - the IRA's War against the British
Richard English, Armed Struggle - the History of the IRA
Peter Taylor, Provos - the IRA and Sinn Féin
Ed Moloney, The Secret History of the IRA
Eamonn Mallie and Patrick Bishop, The Provisional IRA
Toby Harnden, Bandit Country -The IRA and South Armagh
Brendan O'Brien, The Long War - The IRA and Sinn Féin
Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles
Tony Geraghty, The Irish War
Kevin Toolis, Rebel Hearts
David McKitrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton, David McVea, Lost Lives.


Authentic Trappist versions tend to be drier (Belgians would say more digestible) than Abbey versions, which can be rather sweet and full-bodied. Traditionally bottle-conditioned (or refermented in the bottle). Sometimes known as a Trappist Quadruple, most are simply known by their strength or color designation.
Pilsner malt, typically with pale sugar adjuncts. Saazer-type hops or Styrian Goldings are commonly used. Belgian yeast strains are used – those that produce fruity esters, spicy phenolics and higher alcohols – often aided by slightly warmer fermentation temperatures. Spice additions are generally not traditional, and if used, should be a background character only. Fairly soft water.
Often not labeled or available outside the monastery, or infrequently brewed. Might also be called monk's beer or Brother's beer. Highly attenuated, generally 85% or higher.
While Trappist breweries have a tradition of brewing a lower-strength beer as a monk's daily ration, the bitter, pale beer this style describes is a relatively modern invention reflecting current tastes. Westvleteren first brewed theirs in 1999, but replaced older lower-gravity products.
Pilsner malt, Belgian Trappist yeast, Saazer-type hops.
Like a top-fermented Belgian/Trappist interpretation of a German Pils – pale, hoppy, and well-attenuated, but showing prototypical Belgian yeast character. Has less sweetness, higher attenuation, less character malt, and is more hop-centered than a Belgian Pale Ale. More like a much smaller, more highly hopped tripel than a smaller Belgian Blond Ale.
Pilsner malt with substantial sugary adjuncts. Saazer-type hops or Styrian Goldings are commonly used. Belgian yeast strains are used – those that produce fruity esters, spicy phenolics and higher alcohols – often aided by slightly warmer fermentation temperatures. Fairly soft water. Spicing is not traditional; if present, should be a background character only.


Pan Asia Bank ceremonially opened its Ratnapura branch at its new location on 15 November at 37, Bandaranayake Mawatha, Ratnapura. The Director/Chief Executive Officer of Pan Asia Bank Dimantha Seneviratne was the Chief Guest at the opening, and the Senior Management of the bank, members of the business community and customers in the area were among the other distinguished guests. Chamila Pothupitiya heads the Pan Asia Bank Ratnapura branch. The branch will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays.


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Jokowi signs Job Creation Law, making it effective amid nationwide protests
Budi Sutrisno
Jakarta / Tue, November 3, 2020 / 12:15 pm
A protester runs toward police officers on motorcycles during a clash in Jakarta on Oct. 13. A series of protests took place across the country following the House of Representatives' decision to pass the job creation bill into law on Oct. 5. JP/Seto Wardhana (JP/Seto Wardhana)
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has signed the Job Creation Law, allowing it to enter into force nearly a month after it was passed by the House of Representatives and after a series of nationwide protests.
The President signed Law No. 11/2020 on Job Creation on Monday, a draft of which has been uploaded on the State Secretariat website, jdih.setneg.go.id.
The law consists of 1,187 pages, as recently confirmed by State Secretary Pratikno, following public confusions about multiple versions of the law circulating in public.
The law states that it is "expected to be able to absorb the widest possible Indonesian workforce amid increasing competition and the demands of economic globalization."
It includes chapters on the improvement of the investment ecosystem and business activities; employment; convenience, protection and empowerment of cooperatives and small and medium enterprises; ease of doing business; national fiscal policy; research and innovation support.
In response to the promulgation of the law, the Confederation of Indonesian Trade Unions (KSPI) has stated its rejection and reiterated calls for the law be repealed.
The KSPI and the All-Indonesia Workers Unions Confederation (KSPSI AGN) have filed a petition with the Constitutional Court for a judicial review of the law.
"After we studied the content of the law, [we found that] the employment cluster is almost entirely detrimental to workers," KSPI president Said Iqbal said in a statement on Tuesday.
Despite protest from workers and activists, the government insisted that the law, passed by the House on Oct. 5, was necessary to improve the business climate, as the country's economy shrank 5.32 percent year-on-year in the second quarter this year amid the pandemic.
Highlighting some controversial points in the law, opponents are concerned that the law will clash with workers' rights and environmental protection. The lack of public participation and transparency in the deliberation of the law were also strongly criticized.
A wave of mass demonstrations has swept across major cities of the country for weeks since the law was endorsed.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: If the base table underlying a view is restructured, eg. attributes are added, does the application code accessing the view need to be redone? If the base table underlying a view is restructured, eg. attributes are added, does the application code accessing the view need to be redone?

A: If you don't change any of the columns used by the view then no.
If you change a column used by the view - e.g. rename it - the view can be changed to still return the old column name, in which case you would not need to change the application code.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Full Celebrity Guest List Announced For Star Wars Weekends 2014
Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios is just a few weeks away, and now the full list of the celebrity guests who will be attending Star Wars Weekends has been revealed over at the Disney Parks Blog, along with the announcement that Ashley Eckstein will be hosting a special "Behind The Force" show for each weekend! Below is the full list and schedule for the five weekends from the Disney Parks Blog, which is set to include a great variety of actors from not only the six movies and "The Clone Wars," but this year will also include several voice actors from Star Wars Rebels!
Weekend I: May 16-18
Ahmed Best: Jar Jar Binks (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace; Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones; Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith; Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Peter Mayhew: Chewbacca (Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith; Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope; Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi; Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Vanessa Marshall: Hera Syndulla (Star Wars Rebels)
Weekend II: May 23-25
Warwick Davis: Wicket W. Warrick (Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi); Wald (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace)
Jeremy Bulloch: Boba Fett (Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi); Capt. Jeremoch Colton (Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith)
Tiya Sircar: Sabine Wren (Star Wars Rebels)
Weekend III: May 30-June 1
Ray Park: Darth Maul (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace)
John Ratzenberger: Major Bren Derlin (Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back)
Taylor Gray: Ezra Bridger (Star Wars Rebels)
Weekend IV: June 6-8
Mark Hamill: Luke Skywalker (Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope; Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi); Darth Bane (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Billy Dee Williams: Lando Calrissian (Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back; Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi)
Weekend V: June 13-15
Dee Bradley Baker: Captain Rex/the Clones, Bossk and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Cat Taber: Padmé Amidala and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Tom Kane: Yoda, the series' narrator and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Matt Lanter: Anakin Skywalker and several additional characters (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
Steve Blum: Zeb Orrelios (Star Wars Rebels)
This is definitely looking like the biggest Star Wars Weekends yet, and it's great to have so many talented actors from both the films and TV shows representing Star Wars.
Ahmed Best Ashley Eckstein Billy Dee Williams Cat Taber Dee Bradley Baker Disney Jeremy Bulloch John Ratzenberger Mark Hamill Matt Lanter Peter Mayhew Ray Park star wars Star Wars Rebels Star Wars Weekends Steve Blum Taylor Gray The Clone Wars Tiya Sircar Tom Kane Vanessa Marshall Warwick Davis
Tags: Ahmed Best / Ashley Eckstein / Billy Dee Williams / Cat Taber / Dee Bradley Baker / Disney / Jeremy Bulloch / John Ratzenberger / Mark Hamill / Matt Lanter / Peter Mayhew / Ray Park / star wars / Star Wars Rebels / Star Wars Weekends / Steve Blum / Taylor Gray / The Clone Wars / Tiya Sircar / Tom Kane / Vanessa Marshall / Warwick Davis


text:
Q: Calling one app from another app both having same package name in android
*

*hi friends i want to call one app from another app both are same package name please
suggest something.

intent is used to call an activity but if both were same package means
                                  PackageManager pm = getPackageManager();
              Intent intent = pm.getLaunchIntentForPackage("com.example.package");
                startActivity(intent);

A: This is not possible to install two apps with same package name in Android device.
If you do then it will ask you to update/replace already installed application having same package name.


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Uruguay (Montevideo)
Montevideo, founded by the Spanish in 1726 as a military stronghold, soon took advantage of its natural harbor to become an important commercial center. Claimed by Argentina but annexed by Brazil in 1821, Uruguay declared its independence four years later and secured its freedom in 1828 after a three-year struggle. The administrations of President Jose BATLLE in the early 20th century established widespread political, social, and economic reforms that established a statist tradition. A violent Marxist urban guerrilla movement named the Tupamaros, launched in the late 1960s, led Uruguay's president to cede control of the government to the military in 1973. By yearend, the rebels had been crushed, but the military continued to expand its hold over the government. Civilian rule was not restored until 1985. In 2004, the left-of-center Frente Amplio Coalition won national elections that effectively ended 170 years of political control previously held by the Colorado and Blanco parties. Uruguay's political and labor conditions are among the freest on the continent.
Administrative divisions (9,472 GPS Maps)
Lavalleja
Uruguay (general)
Uruguay (Montevideo):
GPS points from Uruguay (Montevideo)
Canada Del Sarandi Departamento De Tacuarembo
Canada Maletas Grande Departamento De Rio Negro
Arroyo San Luis Departamento De Rio Negro
Trinidad Departamento De Flores
Canada Sarandi Cerro Largo
Bella Aurora Departamento De Salto
Treinta Y Tres Departamento De Treinta Y Tres
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Board index Empire Earth EE General Discussion
Best EE Player Of All Time!?!
Talk about anything EE related and doesn't belong in another forum. Gameplay, chit-chat, or any questions you have -- it all belongs here.
Best EE'er of all time?
Wolvy
Phobia/Zeke
lion_
Elfanor
Lavanger
Twisted Bum
Captain Nemo
Re: Best EE Player Of All Time!?!
Post by Arntzen » Mon May 18, 2020 12:22 pm
Ghost wrote: Hilarious this is still going. Love seeing the endless banter here, over shit that happened ages ago.
Part of the reason it's endless is because everyone talks passed each other.
Ghost wrote: I hardly consider any of these people "all setts" players, except maybe Goldeneye. The rest played some of the other popular setts maybe occasionally, but not at a high level. I can't say I saw any of them play Pre, and I played a lot of Pre. Later on maybe we dragged Arntzen into some random ass setts...
You didn't see Krass/Me play pre so we're not pre players in your eyes.
One of the ways we talk passed each other, and it's also clear from your post, is that we compare people from different years in EE. I'll use me as an example. When you were last active I was absolute trash at the game, no doubt about that. When you then see me mentioned in anyone's post and you remember how I played back then it's very understandable you think it's bullshit. But things have changed since 2010, and it's a shame so many people just assume everyone stayed the same level.
Ghost wrote: Pick any one sett, other than liga -- can you name one that all of those players played regularly?
This demonstrates that you're comparing us from a different era. I could write a list of the settings we play, but I'm sure it would fall on deaf ears.
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2008 12:25 am
Lobby Username: [-Ts-] Ghost
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Post by Ghost » Mon May 18, 2020 7:23 pm
Sure, everyone compared everyone from different eras. And clearly you're better than when I played regularly. I did play some rounds last year after all, so I'm not totally tone deaf. You and Krass might still play together, but did you play as much of the same stuff as the other two?
I can make concessions. But as you noted, I'm making statements based on my observations, just like everyone else did. DavE made his observations, and I disagreed.
My point was mostly this: In a different era, there were few all-setts players when there was a larger variety of setts with their own communities. Each individual community had perfected their craft to some degree, and it was difficult for an all-setts player to learn all of them and also make a name for themselves playing against those people. I think DavE's list represents folks who played mostly Liga, and then got into what popular setts remained when the game had already died. My statement "the list isn't that simple" still stands.
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Post by Arntzen » Wed May 20, 2020 3:30 pm
I'm surprised by your statements, mainly because it's so far from my own perception.
Again: If you're talking about before 2006 or something I can understand how you can say: "The rest played some of the other popular setts maybe occasionally, but not at a high level." But as I've already stated nobody is talking about 2004 krass or 2010 me.
If you're claiming that me and krass at our peak can't compete against the best in P2N TL/SH, P2N Island, Mid TL/SH/DM, Indy TL/SH/DM, Mod TL/SH/DM and of course liga, then I would love to know who those people are that we haven't met.
If that list isn't sufficient to be an all set player then I wonder what settings we're missing.
Ghost wrote: ↑
it was difficult for an all-setts player to learn all of them and also make a name for themselves playing against those people.
Who are these all-setts players?
seizmic
Lobby Username: seizmic
Post by seizmic » Wed May 20, 2020 7:20 pm
@Arntzen
2004 Krass?
Krass was a legit newb in 2006, as was Assys, I think they would admit that themselves.
I don't even remember you before 2012, either but I'll take your word for it.
You'd do well to stick to talking about the eras you were actually present in and not ones you have no personal experience in except second hand stories from the rejects still taking the game seriously a decade later.
I can't be bothered to go back and check but your lack of knowledge was so ignorant you simply assumed I never played Liga, which I did, on EEC, with lion and ras.
If I'm wrong on that I apologise but it's relevant to the point.
I have no doubt you've established yourself as a top level player in the last eight years here but you really missed the boat on this one. You'd be better off putting those eight years into a more relevant game if you're concerned with competitively being considered the best at something.
I don't think I ever put myself forward as the best player of all time by the way, I just protested the fact I definitely deserve to be on the poll looking at the names currently on there.
You might find this hard to believe, too but I challenge anyone to refute what I'm about to say, several people who were around in this era will corroborate this, too but in 2006, I outright challenged the whole community to Mid SH 1v1s, I talked an extreme amount of shit to everyone too, to raise the stakes as if someone did best me, the humiliation was that much worse.
In a series game nobody came out on top. Not one player. This was strictly 1v1s @ mid sh from March 06-September 06 and imo, I've only heard stories of other players being that consistently dominant, even if it was just one setting, it was THE most popular setting of the era.
Goldeneye*
Assys
Zealot*
Buttfreek
Pyro*
Texas Ranger
All tried, all failed.
* These gave me the toughest 1v1s.
Also I'd like to note, some of those players were easily as good as me in 4v4s/Team games so in the end did my dominance at 1v1s mean much in the grand scheme? It's debatable for sure but I've no reason to lie about my "achievements" on this game.
Those are my genuine, honest assessments/account of the game, 1v1s and the like.
I'm in agreement with Ghost, there's so many facets, settings and modes to the game there's no real objective way of deciding who the best of all time was over 18 years of different populations, eras and metas.
I consider Icestorm the authority on AoC history, lore and informaton. He played all eras at the top level, is an actual historian and the best 4v4 player mid sh ever seen.
I learned all of my info and knowledge in 2006 of the previous best players off Icestorm and he will tell you, as dominant as I was in 1v1s, I never disrespected the previous best players who weren't around anymore by claiming I could beat them or my era is more competitive...which is in direct contrast to you and Witchking (who I fucking trained, by the way) who sit here disrespecting the games lineage and prominent players in an attempt to bolster your claims of superiority. It's not how the truly best players of present eras conduct themselves.
That shit speaks volumes to me.
As usual you're way off Seizmic lmfao. I'm saying we're not speaking about krass in terms of his skill in 2004 or me in terms of my skill in 2010, but when we were at our peak which is recent. I dno if you're trolling at this point or just plain stupid. How you're able to read the exact opposite if what I'm saying is baffling.
Arntzen wrote: ↑
Lol this is why I don't make serious replies here, I get retard euro shit like this in response.
I understood your point was "we're not talking about 2004 Krass or 2010 me" my point was simple, we are definitely not talking about 2006 Krass, either because he was shit then, too and I didn't even know you played in 2010.
Now would you like an honest discussion or you just going to shitpost like a cunty fucking euro pussy?
Your choice, I've trolled on levels you can't comprehend lad, it's my forte.
I do not understand you at all. What was the point of saying this:
"You'd do well to stick to talking about the eras you were actually present in and not ones you have no personal experience in except second hand stories from the rejects still taking the game seriously a decade later."
When that's all I've ever done?
Maybe better to login to NeoEE and talk there, or through discord if you want proper discussion.
If you read my post in its entirety, I actually asked you to correct me if I'm wrong on this but didn't you assume I never played liga, for instance? You could only have made a false assumption by believing false information unless you just made a claim without any proof at all. In which case that's stupid so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming you're not dumb and simply got told wrong information?
I've seen you make other false assumptions about information from the lobby era, too. So you're getting this from somewhere.
In fact, assuming Krass was bad in 2004 but not 2006, for instance, is a perfect example of what I'm saying.
I'll have my PC and EE up and running by Friday/Saturday so you can have fun satisfying your ego by beating me at EE, that'll satisfy you more than honest discussions will, IMO.
Icestorm2
Post by Icestorm2 » Wed May 20, 2020 8:12 pm
What Seizmic is saying, which is elucidated later in his post, is that in 2006 and for a good chunk of 2008 he was a top player in a wide variety of settings on EE and AoC played against the best players of the time. Almost unanimously considered the best in a particular setting, too. Given that, on what basis would you compare him to the people who played throughout the next decade and decide they played to a higher standard? How would you establish lineality?
I'll say for the record, that I observed a lot of Seizmic's games on EE and AoC and consider him one of the best overall players I saw play the game. I would add that when judging him I considered not only how well he played at the time but the potential he showed too. He was a fast learner and good at translating skills and tactics he picked up in other setts to new ones he was trying.
From what I remember I said I never heard you mentioned in any discussion about the best liga players.
Here is another problem:
seizmic wrote: ↑
Did I say otherwise?
Your way of honest conversation includes a hell of a lot of patronizing comments and ridicule.
Here is my argument and it's very simple:
From my POV returning experts have not been able to keep up with the current best (say since 2014-present) except for very few. The vast majority however, of old school experts returning get stomped. Even the ones that stay for months. This, coupled with the fact that everyone from eC who played longer than I did, are saying the level today is higher leads me to believe it is so.
I am not:
Saying achievements by people before 2014 doesn't matter.
Saying if an older player came back and practiced he wouldn't be able to catch up.
Icestorm2 wrote: ↑
Krass surpassed Goldeneye before Goldeneye left. Krass has gotten better since then. Goldeneye who has been inactive obviously has not. That's one example of where the linearity comes from.
Another example being:
The vast majority however, of old school experts returning get stomped. Even the ones that stay for months.
It's not like everyone from the one era played completely isolated from players from other eras. Most names mentioned here are familiar, even to me who came late to the party.
Let me flip the question you gave to you or seizmic:
How would you compare Seizmic to whoever was considered the best in 2003?
Lol @ I'm too lazy to go check so I'll take your word for it.
I mean you expect me to be cordial and non patronizing after replying to 1/10th of my post to laugh at me, call me stupid and accuse me of trolling? Pot kettle black, no?
You didn't outright say otherwise in reference to 04 krass vs 06 krass but it's heavily implied, yes. You talk about "prior to 06" and "04 Krass" which are specific time frames.
I'll stop the insults now, okay?
@returning experts...how long did it take you consistently playing to become as good as you are now? You think an expert coming back after 6-14 years is going to be anywhere close to what they were? So many things could have happened in that time frame too, people actually age in that timespan, you lose a % of brain cells every single year, reaction speed drops, motivation, emotional aspects etc etc
You simply can't use that as accurate proof of anything.
In fact, I think I played for two days in 2014 after not playing competitively since 06 and only having a handful of games in 2012. I lost 3-2 to Krass in mid sh 1v1s. I 1v1'd out of pure boredom, Krass had legitimate motivation to beat me. By all rights he should have utterly crushed me, don't you agree?
Then again, me pointing that out holds as much weight against your argument as you pointing out returning experts get dominated does against mine. So it's simply all moot.
I understand your point but I disagree with it and I think my reasoning holds legitimate weight.
Either way, can we agree with this:
Even IF the era is of higher calibre today, deciding who the undisputed best player of EE history is an exercise in futility and the effort spent would be better put into actually discussing many different players and what made them stand out above their peers? Along with the games rich online competitive history.
For me, Icestorm is the the best of all time and he stopped his dominant 1v1 reign in early 05 in order to strengthen the community and build a great culture of competitive 4v4 games, which he did, brilliantly and we all owe him our thanks for keeping the game going as long as it has, I promise you without him there would be even less players than there currently are. That transcends 1v1s, for me, which he paid his dues in any way.
You haven't addressed my issue with how people like you and Witchking conduct yourselves in relation to EEs player lineage either, compared to other players that were at the top echelon of the games competitive scene and never once felt the need to claim their era is superior to the previous experts of the past who played and dominated but are no longer active.
If I come across like a prick, it's not personal, it's just me but I'm not trying to troll/insult you.
The 1v1 scene and community died after 06 (purely talking about aoc mid sh), it's very likely Goldeneye got worse but the difference in skill between me and Goldeneye in our final 1v1s was absolutely massive.
I beat him 5-0 in under 90 minutes by just mindlessly going swords every time, regardless of resource placement. At my peak, nobody came close in 1v1s in mid*, call it bragging but if it's the truth, it's the truth.
Like I said, my dominance in 1v1s didn't translate to 4v4s. Which is the most important game mode of the game, imo.
I'm not saying I was bad in 4v4s but a fantastic 1v1er can be beaten, handily in 4v4s, is my point.
Zealot was better than Goldeneye, too. I watched Goldeneye lose to a couple players I utterly stomped, as well. Goldeneye was the first person to take a lead against me after 5 1v1s at 3-2 but between then and the 20 other 1v1s we had, I had skill improvement spikes several times over, he never became any better than those first five games.
Goldeneye losing to Krass doesn't establish anything when you consider all that.
Post by Icestorm2 » Wed May 20, 2020 10:10 pm
I'd say we have a difference of opinion when it comes to the best players of that time frame, I knew the eec players mostly from team games and AoC. Some were top players in 1v1s (though never the best), but like Lion they weren't nearly as strong in team games. Buttfreek came close to beating Goldeneye and Nevermind by himself in a 2v2 tournament when his ally had intentionally trolled him, in a full 4v4 he was much more valuable to a team than either.
Being an all-sett player on AoC essentially meant Indy TL, Mid SH and Mod TL too. Indy TL effectively died once people started getting banned for the resource glitch over the summer in 2004, leaving really just Mid and Mod as the too settings. No one after 2003 tried to create a serious liga scene on AoC because the civ powers ruined it.
As far as how Seizmic measures up to the best player of 2003, I can only speak for mid that far back(I could speak for Indy too, but I'd be comparing him to a glitcher): I think his expan cav/ballistas could beat him fairly often, I had beaten him with a similar setup during one of the last games I played with him. How motivated he was to play at the time I don't know, he seemed a step behind his usual self and was more concerned with chatting during the game, or how he'd adapted to that combination over a series of games I don't know either--it was something fairly new and for a while unique to me. However, I think the game would be decided by the strength of their style of play rather than one being clearly superior to the other.
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