Republican Movement Thinking at the Beginning of 1992
Before starting this piece, we did two things. The first was watched Pop Goes Northern Ireland 1992. We cannot recommend this documentary series highly enough, and urge all those interested in the conflict to watch it. The second was reading the first edition of the Irish People – We had hoped to find a copy of the IRA’s traditional new year statement, but were unable to do so. But we did find some other articles that give an idea of where the IRA was at in 1992. The War News section detailed a number of standard IRA operations: blowing up security force bases, shooting soldiers, and also causing over £50m of damage in England. This total would be dwarfed in 1992. But the issue was fascinating for what else it contained.
Two of three cartoons were against the Free State – one seemingly condemning Garda harassment, and the other, rather cleverly it has to be said, showing the “empty suits” of Fine Gael members, with one saying “as in all the other sectarian murders of Irish nationalists the real culprits are the IRA, of course!” Later on in the issue, there’s an interview with an IRA spokesperson about the Provo’s decision to dramatically cutdown on punishment shootings/beatings. And there was also an article celebrating a “spectacular Sinn Fein election victory” and details of an IPLO murder headlined “Sinn Fein Call for IPLO to Disband.” Criticism of the Southern political establishment; a tentative move towards a form of “normalisation” of crime and punishment; political success; and calls for republican dissidents to disband. This is all a far cry from one of the IRA’s “Year of Victory” statements in the 1970s.
The IRA in the North - killing
As with 1991, the first IRA killing of the year was hard to justify. On the 13th January, 22 year old nationalist, Michael “Mickey” Logue was killed with an under-car-bomb, and died in hospital of his terrible injuries. This happened in Coalisland, and the IRA apologised for the murder, saying they had been acted on “erroneous information.” A neighbour of the dead man helped get him out of the badly damaged car, later saying he'd heard “in general conversation” that "Mickey was one of the boys working on the barracks in the town." The IRA in Tyrone were still dedicated to killing those they believed were repairing the security force bases they repeatedly bombed and mortared.
Four days after Mickey Logue’s unjustifiable killing, the IRA carried out an attack that was described as “the worst attack on Protestant workers since Kingsmill.” In one sense, this is true. But the targets were not Protestants, they were those working on security force installations. In this case, the base was Lisnakelly, and the IRA believed they were targeting employees of the Henry Brothers, a company the IRA detested, and which lost a number of men. In fact, the IRA had “erroneous information again” – the eight men killed and six injured at Teebane worked for Karl Construction. But, in the IRA’s eyes, they were as legitimate a target as Henry Brothers. The firm they worked for was Karl Construction – named after an RUC member, Karl Blackbourne (aged only 19), who, with two colleagues, was shot dead by the IRA in Newry. Karl’s father, Cedric, owned the firm. Three of the casualties were part-time members of the security forces.
Was Teebane indicative of an IRA in decline? Jonathan Trigg in his book Death in the Fields: The IRA and East Tyrone quoted someone saying that Teebane was done at the behest of the East Tyrone Brigade’s OC, who decided not to tell most of his brigade “let alone Belfast.” The IRA in Tyrone had experienced losses at the hands of the security forces. Their families and the wider nationalist community had been targeted by resurgent loyalist paramilitaries. Perhaps Tyrone IRA were keen to “return the serve” or perhaps it was simply the continuation of a brutal but effective campaign against security force contractors. Cedric Blackbourne told an American journalist that “at least 30” of his workers quit in the aftermath of Teebane, but he also said the company kept on doing security force work.
On Good Friday, the IRA killed a member of the nationalist community, Brandon McWilliams. He was employed as a storeman at a UDR barracks, and was himself a former member of the Royal Ulster Rifles, and the Territorial Army. The IRA claimed he had “passed on intelligence” to the security forces, and that he had ignored repeated warnings to stop working for the UDR. Republicans killed four RUC officers, four British soldiers, and three members of the UDR. This was a significant drop in terms of security force “kills” since 1991 (19). The IRA did kill a significant loyalist figure, but the IRA were extremely active in another area: bombing.
The IRA in the North – bombing
The numbers can be interpreted in a number of ways. Had the IRA reduced the number of lethal attacks being initiated on the security forces? Or were the security forces just getting better at not being killed? Or a bit of both? One side of the IRA’s campaign which seemed most assuredly not to be in decline was bombing commercial, economic, or security force targets.
This included the biggest bomb to be exploded by the IRA in the North. Toby Harnden’s essential book on the South Armagh, Bandit Country, described the operation:
The target had been the forensic laboratory – specifically, items of evidence being analysed which were to be used against two South Armagh volunteers. The evidence had been locked in a vault elsewhere and was not damaged in the attack. One of the homes badly damaged belonged to hapless UVF bomber Martin Snodden. He received no compensation, on account of his murder conviction. Alongside IRA evidence would have been numerous items relating to forthcoming loyalist trials. The Knockbreda attack suggests that the IRA were as unperturbed at destroying evidence that could lead to loyalists being imprisoned as they were at damaging and/or destroying hundreds of PUL houses, and the resulting fury/backlash.
The IRA carried out scores of incendiary bombings during 1992, sometimes causing millions of pounds worth of damage. They also detonated huge car bombs, often in the heart of majority Protestant towns and villages, as well as the centre of Belfast. In their book about the UDA’s Belfast Brigade C Company, Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company', Jordan & Lister described some of these bombings and the loyalist reaction:
Four days after Mickey Logue’s unjustifiable killing, the IRA carried out an attack that was described as “the worst attack on Protestant workers since Kingsmill.” In one sense, this is true. But the targets were not Protestants, they were those working on security force installations. In this case, the base was Lisnakelly, and the IRA believed they were targeting employees of the Henry Brothers, a company the IRA detested, and which lost a number of men. In fact, the IRA had “erroneous information again” – the eight men killed and six injured at Teebane worked for Karl Construction. But, in the IRA’s eyes, they were as legitimate a target as Henry Brothers. The firm they worked for was Karl Construction – named after an RUC member, Karl Blackbourne (aged only 19), who, with two colleagues, was shot dead by the IRA in Newry. Karl’s father, Cedric, owned the firm. Three of the casualties were part-time members of the security forces.
Was Teebane indicative of an IRA in decline? Jonathan Trigg in his book Death in the Fields: The IRA and East Tyrone quoted someone saying that Teebane was done at the behest of the East Tyrone Brigade’s OC, who decided not to tell most of his brigade “let alone Belfast.” The IRA in Tyrone had experienced losses at the hands of the security forces. Their families and the wider nationalist community had been targeted by resurgent loyalist paramilitaries. Perhaps Tyrone IRA were keen to “return the serve” or perhaps it was simply the continuation of a brutal but effective campaign against security force contractors. Cedric Blackbourne told an American journalist that “at least 30” of his workers quit in the aftermath of Teebane, but he also said the company kept on doing security force work.
On Good Friday, the IRA killed a member of the nationalist community, Brandon McWilliams. He was employed as a storeman at a UDR barracks, and was himself a former member of the Royal Ulster Rifles, and the Territorial Army. The IRA claimed he had “passed on intelligence” to the security forces, and that he had ignored repeated warnings to stop working for the UDR. Republicans killed four RUC officers, four British soldiers, and three members of the UDR. This was a significant drop in terms of security force “kills” since 1991 (19). The IRA did kill a significant loyalist figure, but the IRA were extremely active in another area: bombing.
The IRA in the North – bombing
The numbers can be interpreted in a number of ways. Had the IRA reduced the number of lethal attacks being initiated on the security forces? Or were the security forces just getting better at not being killed? Or a bit of both? One side of the IRA’s campaign which seemed most assuredly not to be in decline was bombing commercial, economic, or security force targets.
This included the biggest bomb to be exploded by the IRA in the North. Toby Harnden’s essential book on the South Armagh, Bandit Country, described the operation:
On 23rd September ... the South Armagh Brigade hijacked a van near Newry, packed it with 3,500 of explosives, drove it to Belfast and abandoned it outside the Forensic Science Laboratory in Newtownbreda ... after a coded warning had been issued, the device exploded, almost demolishing the laboratory and damaging 1,002 homes in the area, most of them on the loyalist Belvoir estate.
The IRA carried out scores of incendiary bombings during 1992, sometimes causing millions of pounds worth of damage. They also detonated huge car bombs, often in the heart of majority Protestant towns and villages, as well as the centre of Belfast. In their book about the UDA’s Belfast Brigade C Company, Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company', Jordan & Lister described some of these bombings and the loyalist reaction:
In November, the UFF issued a statement responding to an IRA bomb blitz that had damaged hundreds of Protestant homes in Northern Ireland. Two months earlier, as the Provisionals stepped up their campaign in Britain with a firebomb attack on the Hyde Park Hilton Hotel, a 1,000 Ib bomb had destroyed the Northern Ireland Forensic Science Laboratory in Belfast’s loyalist Belvoir estate, wrecking 1,000 homes. In October, as IRA bombs continued to explode in central London, a 200 Ib device ripped through the commercial heart of Bangor, Co. Down, while at least 100 homes were damaged when a car bomb exploded outside a police station in another Protestant town, Glengormley. In a telephoned statement to the BBC, the UFF warned that, as of midnight on 6 November, any further bombs in Protestant areas would be responded to with attacks against ‘the republican community as a whole’. Its riposte, it said, would be similar to its action after the massacre at Teebane, a grim reference to the carnage at the Ormeau Road.
The UFF “response” was murdering three politically uninvolved nationalists in a bookies, one of them a WW2 British army veteran and former prisoner-of-war. The IRA shot and killed a UFF member, Norman Truesdale, in 1993 alleging he was involved in the triple murder.
The IRA in the North – the IPLO
The IRA effected the single most complete wipeout of a paramilitary group in the whole conflict on Halloween 1992, an event which became known as The Night of the Long Knives. According to McDonald & Holland’s book INLA: Deadly Divisions, around 100 IRA volunteers were involved in a series of operations across the city which left one man, Sammy Ward, dead, and many others wounded, sometimes with devasting “kneecapping” injuries (IRA man Gerry Bradley wrote that “over 60” volunteers took part). That the IPLO ceased to exist following the assault isn’t in doubt. But interesting questions emerge about the timing of the IRA’s operation. Three key IPLO figures had died violently in the year leading up to Halloween 1992: Martin “Rook” O’Prey and Conor Maguire were killed by the UVF (Aug 91, April 92), and former French Foreign Legionnaire Patrick Sullivan was stabbed to death by criminal elements in the lower Falls (Feb 92). Sullivan’s killing has been investigated by the Police Ombudsman. Would the IRA have risked a republican feud if these three key figures were still active? It’s hard to say. But the IRA still had the personnel and equipment to launch city-wide attacks against an ostensibly armed enemy. The Night of the Long Knives was perhaps the final large scale operation the Belfast Brigade undertook.
The IRA in England
The day after (10th April) John Major’s surprise Conservative Party general election win, the IRA detonated the biggest bomb in England since World War 2 at The Baltic Exchange. It killed three civilians, wounded 91, and cost £800m (£1.73bn in today’s money) – 25% more than the cost of all of the bombs the IRA exploded in the North up until that point. A few hours later, also on 11th April, the IRA detonated a huge bomb elsewhere in London, but fortunately nobody was killed.
There were other IRA (and INLA) bombings in London in 1992. However, none were of the magnitude of the Baltic Exchange bombing. The effects of this bomb:
destabilised the market for terrorism insurance on commercial properties. Given both the potentially very high costs associated with terrorist attacks on commercial property and the high degree of uncertainty associated with predicting the frequency and severity of those attacks, many insurers had withdrawn from the terrorism insurance market. Given the damaging impact on the wider economy should commercial properties become uninsurable, government intervention was deemed necessary.
In other words, UKG was forced to become an insurer, or risk losing investment and jobs in London, because of the IRA threat.
Conclusion
It is arguable that the IRA in 1992 were less successful on their own terms than in 1991. That being said, the political and financial fallout of the bombs in London was immense.
The Chairman of the Police Federation said, in the December 1992 issue of Police Beat that “The past year has been difficult; the IRA have never been more destructive or the loyalists more murderous.” He was partially inaccurate – the IRA had never been as destructive, but loyalists had been more murderous during most of the 1970s. I couldn’t however find any calls for internment to be reintroduced. Perhaps it can be argued that the IRA was in decline in the North, but not in England.
Debate may continue as to whether that was managed decline, the result of attrition, or both.
1991 discussed here.
⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.
⏩Bleakley is an IT consultant currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history.
Nothing sped up the end of the conflict more than the Baltic Exchange. As soon as capital in the financial markets came under threat then the spooks were under severe pressure to bring it to an end fast.
ReplyDeleteThe process was well in train before that.
DeleteYeah I know, I meant that it sped everything up at the end. It's pretty clear it was directed that way since at least the 80's.
DeleteI think an interesting question arisen from the massive London bombs of the 1990s: given the size, scale, reach, and cost of these bombs, was prosecuting a war in the North actually strategically advantageous?
ReplyDeleteSmall quibble, the Lab was actually in Newtownbreda not Knockbreda though the two parishes are side by side. I was directly affected by this one, can still remember everything about that night and the utter devastation immediately after it. We checked on our neighbours in the pitchblack because it also knocked out the power supply. 100's of houses wrecked. A horrific night. I later found a piece of a beer keg laying next to our house and we lived about 600 m away. Must have been a freak of the enormous deflagration.
DeleteA few years later and I was in Manchester after that one, for the clean up. Unless you are right in it it's hard to comprehend how destructive these VBIED's are.
@Brandon
DeleteFrom the IRA's point of view, putting aside the political intentions of the leadership, keeping Northern Ireland unstable and ensuring no internal settlement was possible without them at the table was logical. The British security apparatus in the North was an enormous expense (think of the fortified RUC bases in virtually every single town and village in the six counties) and diplomatically embarrassing (conveyor belt of headlines about collusion, abuses etc). After breaking their ceasefire the IRA
(I just accidentally hit publish on an unfinished comment, hopefully it was discernible lol...)
Delete@ Steve R
That's some luck to be in the vicinity of two huge bombs, glad you weren't hurt.
@ Bleakley
DeleteTa but people had it worse than me. During the 80's there seemed to be bombs every week. Used to hear them from all over the City.
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ReplyDeleteBleakley
DeleteAt that time in the security forces it was widely accepted that the Provos were in decline. Clearly the South Armagh Brigade weren't. They were responsible for all the attacks there and helping the England dept. They were also responsible for the car bombing of unionist towns. But they were several classes above the rest of the PIRA. Belfast maintained an operational tempo as you would expect from a brigade with 3 battalions and large areas of support. East Tyrone also maintained their op tempo surprisingly well considering how many ASUs they lost. Other hot areas were Armagh City and Newry. However, large areas of the country were "normalised" because local units struggled with recruitment and were unable to maintain any sort of tempo. We knew from friends and relatives in SB that commanders were being told to get the finger out, disciplined for "cowardice" and paranoia reigned in some units which were hamstrung by touts or suspected touts. For example, if memory serves, the South Down Brigade's North Mourne Battalion didn't kill anyone from April 90 to August 94. They had 3 units, DPK, Castlewellan and Hilltown and they couldn't get recruits to man the ASUs. When they did the standard was very poor. From then on they limited their "jobs" to throwing drogues (which never detonated), throwing coffee jars (which did) and planting UCBTs. We saw this pattern repeated countrywide. Derry City and county were quite quiet, so was North Antrim and Lurgan. Why did the bombs in the centre of Bangor and N'Ards come from North Louth through South Armagh and not from DPK or Belfast? Because they couldn't sustain a campaign like that. The PIRA of the early 90s was not a patch on the one from the early 70s and 80s with the exception of South Armagh. The Provos were struggling to find good recruits and maintain operational tempo province wide. Throwing unexploding drogues and leaving incendiary bombs on buses wasn't going to get the Brits out. I understand that you might think the list you gave from Wiki is impressive, but strategically it isn't, it's mostly low level stuff, an "acceptable level of violence". Remove S.Armagh/England Dept and there wasn't much left.
@Peter
DeleteYou make some interesting observations on the tempo of IRA activity particularly outside of the Louth/Armagh/Belfast corridor. That said the list wasn't shared with some deeper intent beyond what I said; certainly not to impress anyone. I didn't knowingly scan for an impressive (in the IRA's view) two weeks of "War News".
War weariness defined this period of the conflict (not denying increased electronic surveillance and human intelligence as factors) and and contrary to Betteridge's law of headlines I do think that the IRA were actually measurably in decline in the 1990s. However in recent years a belief has taken hold that IRA by this point were totally contained and ineffectual which, if you read contemporary commentary, wasn't popular perception.
Important to remember ear weariness wasn't to be found exclusively in the nationalist/republican community either. The unionist community's creeping acceptance of power-sharing in the 1990s was a symptom of it. Unionists in the 1970s would not have believed the Troubles would see the end of Protestant state militias in Ireland (B-Specials/UDR/RIR), stringent fair employment laws, loyalist marches amenable to the law, the RUC rebranded and a mandatory coalition government with (constitutional) Sinn Féin at the head. Some republicans argue that outcome was the next phase in British pacification strategy but it in material terms it was still profound, even if a far cry from the IRA's stated ultimate objective.
Bleakley
Delete"That said the list wasn't shared with some deeper intent beyond what I said; certainly not to impress anyone. I didn't knowingly scan for an impressive (in the IRA's view) two weeks of "War News" I apologise if I came across as accusative in any way. I certainly didn't think you were. That seemed like a typical fortnight at that time.
My point was that with the exception of Belfast and Newry, the whole of the East and north of the Bann, from the Mournes to Derry, were relatively quiet, or "normalised". The Provo campaign to bomb Bangor, Banbridge, Coleraine etc was an attempt to take the "war" to those areas, but the fact that the SA Brigade had to do it, cos no-one else could, spoke volumes to the state of the PIRA at the time.
@Peter
DeleteI concur on South Armagh becoming key to sustaining the IRA's war at every level by the 1990s and the geographic spread of the IRA's campaign receding. That said, normalisation is a word that comes with caveats in Northern Ireland. It only ever seemed to refer to republican rather than loyalist violence and a "normalised" area in the early 1990s was still probably a much more dangerous situation for the security forces than nearly anywhere in the North today. The RUC and British Army weren't in a hurry to tear down their fortified bases.
The potential for revived republican insurgency was present, as can be seen in how even a relatively quiet place like Newry in the late 1970s could be considered a high-threat environment by the mid 1980s. I'll add that somewhere like north Antrim never had a reputation for sustained IRA activity anyway; after the killing of one RUC officer and wounding of two others with a landmine at Cushendall in 1989 the IRA boasted they had "ruined the idea of normality" in the area.
The IRA in Co. Down shot dead an RUC officer near the end of 1990 and that was the last killing they carried out for a few years. Local personalities were often the factor in how militant a region was and in this case you have to wonder if the killing of senior South Down figure Colm Marks in early 1991 contributed to the slump in attacks.
The latent republican threat in even an apparently pacified area was demonstrated with a resurgence of activity by the IRA in Co. Down in the weeks leading up to the 1994 ceasefire; a large landmine attack on an RUC car (occupants survived), a mortar attack and the killing of RIR soldier Trelford Withers in Crossgar, the last member of British S.F. to be killed before the ceasefire. When the IRA's brigades returned to action in 1997 Co. Down was fairly prominent in an otherwise sporadic and inglorious last gasp before the final ceasefire. In the early 2000s South Down saw a flare up of dissident republican activity.
Bleakley
Delete"It only ever seemed to refer to republican rather than loyalist violence" - true, from a security point of view only the PIRA were a threat to the state. Of course, even normalised areas were very dangerous for us. In 1990 we were involved in clearing and securing routes for the massive convoys of men and materiel going to South Armagh to re-enforce bases and build new high tech watch towers. That was great for morale. The Provos were in decline and the govt was still spending 100s of millions on security.
"The IRA in Co. Down shot dead an RUC officer near the end of 1990" - who was that?
"...you have to wonder if the killing of senior South Down figure Colm Marks in early 1991 contributed to the slump in attacks" - Yes, but not as much as the arrest of Donagh O'Kane.
On a more macro level, what exactly are you saying in these articles? Are you saying that the PIRA weren't in decline? That they were but not as much as people say? I don't get the thrust of your work. Based on my experience, conversations with informed people and reading, it seems clear that Adams/MMG had control of the Provo ship and were planning to steer it onto the beach and abandon it. The British govt were in on it and the whole situation was a carefully choreographed and managed decline. Thoughts?
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DeleteI think that the Provisionals, in one month, in their worst year, were probably more of a threat to the state than the entire plethora of dissidents since 1998 combined.
ReplyDelete@ Steve R
Would you ever consider writing about your experiences of the 1992 Forensic Lab bombing? I'd be fascinated to learn about what it was like, beyond the broad details.
Might write something down about soon Brandon, hadn't really thought about it in a long time. Can still 'hear' the noise and remember everything in flash memories. Reckon that's why I'm a bit deaf in one ear though it's hard to say whether it was that or messing around with illegal fireworks at the time lol
DeleteIt was absolutely enormous though. Two Protestant churches were close to it and destroyed (CoI and Blackmouth). The CoI church had an magnificent copper roof that over the decades had oxidised to a striking emerald colour. Such a shame. I'll have a think and put some thoughts down in awhile.
I remember the Baltic Exchange bomb but not for the same reasons as most...that night I was in Wembley watching The Highway Men....(Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson)...About 2 weeks before the bomb I walked out of Mercury Asset Management, which wasn't far from the exchange---that's when I understood how corrupt banks were and my opinion hasn't changed but hardened....
ReplyDelete@ Peter, Bleakley
ReplyDeleteDecline is an interesting word in itself. The IRA was undergoing a process of leadership led managed decline, in my opinion. That said, they could and did level towns and areas of cities across the North and in England.
By the 1990s, all parties, except militant loyalists, recognised and went to some length to minimise civilian casualties. The IRA were not as good at this as the security forces, as operations like the Shankill bomb showed. As one IRA man put it in Ed Moloney's book Secret History "you practically needed a jury trial to get an OK for an operation."
Was there a need for the IRA to be as active as in the 1970s? It's debatable.
" I understand that you might think the list you gave from Wiki is impressive, but strategically it isn't, it's mostly low level stuff, an "acceptable level of violence". Remove S.Armagh/England Dept and there wasn't much left."
Belfast was being hit by huge bombs, loyalists were being killed en masse, and politically, republican nationalist goals like scrapping the UDR and reforming the RUC were underway. It's worth also noting that the IRA had to retain enough strength to see off any emerging dissidents.
By the 90s, UKG was paying a financially massive penalty for continuing to lay claim to an area that gave them nothing except headaches and bad press. The IRA's campaign was the driving force in that.
"loyalists were being killed en masse,"
DeleteEn masse? Come again?
Brandon
Delete"Belfast was being hit by huge bombs" - and had been since the early 70s but a lot less frequently
"loyalists were being killed en masse" - the mask slips again lol
"republican nationalist goals like scrapping the UDR and reforming the RUC were underway" - in the early 90s? No they weren't
@ Steve R
ReplyDeleteRe: ""loyalists were being killed en masse,"
That was a reference to 1991, when a significant number of loyalist militants were killed by republicans. Also 1994, when some serious players were killed.
"en masse" was probably an insensitive term, I wrote it in a hurry.
Here's the part I was thinking of from my 1991 piece:
"The IRA relentlessly attacked those they claimed were involved in loyalist paramilitary attacks against nationalist/republicans in 1991. Ten men were killed, whilst others escaped the attacks, sometimes with serious injuries."
@ Peter
ReplyDelete"Belfast was being hit by huge bombs" - and had been since the early 70s but a lot less frequently
No, bombs in the centre of Belfast had fallen in the 1980s, but the Belfast Brigade detonated a number of massive devices in the early 90s. Bedford Street, Europa/Grand Opera House, among many others.
"loyalists were being killed en masse" - the mask slips again lol"
Explain what you mean?
"republican nationalist goals like scrapping the UDR and reforming the RUC were underway" - in the early 90s? No they weren't"
Yes, they were. The UDR was actually slated for disbandment in 1991, and was scrapped in 1992. From the Irish News: Tom King stressed the importance of the move: "The aims of the merger are of great political and military importance to Northern Ireland.
"We are seeking to take the present UDR out of local and Anglo-Irish politics; remove its sectarian stigma and try to recruit more Catholics... and enhance the effectiveness of the local security forces in countering terrorism".
The UDR was disbanded and within a matter of months the UDA was criminalised.
The first Stevens Inquiry was in 1989, and came with a host of recommendations at reforming the RUC. I can't find a citation, but regardless of the Good Friday Agreement, there was going to be major police reforms.
The UDR was never disbanded, it was amalgamated with the Royal Irish Rangers (due to the sizeable number of Southern Irish in the latter) into the Royal Irish Regiment. The Home Service battalions of the same were the existing UDR battalions. You can argue it still exists given the Royal Irish Regiments full title, " Royal Irish Regiment (27th (Inniskilling), 83rd, 87th and The Ulster Defence Regiment) (R IRISH)" though it's a bit of a mouthful lol
ReplyDeleteThe Baltic Exchange Bomb was the most devastating action the IRA undertook against Britain because of the massive damage to Britain's Finances and the prospect that Britain would have to cede its status in Europe to Frankfurt as Business Classes dreaded another attack.
ReplyDeleteQuite a number of interesting conversations going on here but, for all the great work that both writers have put into these pieces, I can't help but feel there is an element of wish fulfilment going on here by trying to claim the IRA were still strong (militarily speaking) and were not brought to heel by the British.
ReplyDeleteWere the IRA in decline at that time? Yes, no question about it. They were still capable of pulling off the odd 'spectacular' certainly, but the fact that these were coming solely out of South Armagh was quite telling, as well as the fact that they had to largely bypass the England department as it was well known they were riddled with informers. From Ulsterisation onwards, the IRA had allowed themselves to be boxed in, hence why they mainly relied on off duty targets throughout the early and mid-80’s, becoming complacent and leaving the innovation to South Armagh and East Tyrone (the latter, of course, becoming a target for the British and loyalists).
As Peter has pointed out, if they were not in decline, then other units around the six counties would have been mounting serious operations on a regular basis (chucking the odd coffee jar bomb doesn't count). Even the attempts around the late 80's to focus on the British Army tailed off fairly quickly and the international attacks were more disaster than success. More proof is when Kevin McKenna turned down Jim Lynagh and Padraig McKearney’s idea of a flying column which would attack British Army/RUC barracks as being impractical, fuelling the belief of some that people who were in favour of winding down the campaign were being pushed forward.
Looking at contemporary opinion and a list of actions for that year can certainly seem impressive but, once the whole picture is brought in, it’s obvious that they had been reduced to a guard dog with a muzzle on it.
Also, as pointed out:
- the UDR were not disbanded. They were amalgamated into the Royal Irish Rangers.
- the Stevens Report had nothing to do with the IRA.
- criminalising the UDA hardly made a dent in anything.
@Christopher
DeleteAs I explained to Peter, there was no intent to "impress" in sharing that list. I just thought it could be helpful in giving context to that article above (opted to delete to put the issue to bed). Indeed, I'd say compared to the early 80s it's a markedly *unimpressive* list bar the heavier weapons employed. Ten years earlier the IRA were killing or seriously wounding members of the security forces more regularly, although as you point out increasingly off-duty UDR and RUC.
The political context and the strategy of the leadership faction is of course crucial here and per declassified Irish state papers Adams had been wanting to pursue a political career and wind down the "armed struggle" since at least his 1983 election to Westminster, and British cabinet memos from the 1981 Hunger Strike assert that unnamed elements within the IRA leadership desired to bring their campaign to an end.
The contradictions between an electoral strategy (particularly in the South) and an armed terrorist/guerrilla campaign were already coming to a head in a series of articles in An Phoblacht in 1982 pushing the new Armalite n' Ballot Box strategy. The author(s) called for the IRA to conduct in a way that would not cost votes in the South; an impossible ask. No doubt many people here have read Ed Moloney's book on the subject.
I don't deny the IRA's war was in its twilight in the early 1990s, or that the organisation was increasingly constrained by British technology-driven surveillance and informers. However, I think in analysis of this period has swung perhaps a little (a little) bit too far in one direction. Did the IRA win? No. But there are worse fates than being a free man pursuing a political career in a tinpot regional assembly. ETA served lengthy gaol sentences and Basque separatism is moribund.
(On the UDR; Sinn Féin today regularly say the RUC were disbanded. They weren't they were rebranded as the PSNI. The UDR though is definitely dead and buried. The Royal Irish Rangers amalgamation was significant in that by becoming merely the Home Service component of a larger battalion the UDR's ultimate disbandment in the 2005 could be carried out with a lot less fuss.)
Firstly, your points are well-made Christopher and I concur with you about the amount of work that Brandon & Bleakley have put into this series of articles.
DeleteSecondly, I think for a more rounded understanding readers would also have to take into account the volte-face initiated in '86 by Adams & McGuiness. Though the 'man in the hat' advocated for 'an Armalite in one hand and a ballot paper in the other I can't believe the leadership was as committed to this ambidextrous strategy as Danny would've had us believe. The decision to embrace electoralism at the strategic rather than the tactical level would inevitably necessitate some curtailment of the military campaign.
Finally, I'd proffer that East Tyrone and South Armagh, though least amenable to this altered attitude, were given a freer hand because of their level of superior operational competency; they were much less likely to embarrass those with political aspirations through screwed-up and disastrous opps.
Bleakly,
DeleteI get that you were offering some extra context, but I do maintain that it such things look more impressive in isolation than in context. Were the actions listed a genuine threat to the British establishment or a minor irritant that could be easily contained? And if it was the former, how come similar actions were not happening all over the country?
I would say having the leaders of an ideologically motivated organisation turn their back on every principle they had in favour of a watered-down version of a deal rejected 20 years previously and then allowing said leaders to rewrite history and murder/malign those who dare to point this out is not only a fate worse than death, but also the greatest success the British have ever had against Irish republicanism.
As Steve R has pointed out, the full name for the RIR incorporates the name Ulster Defence Regiment so while it no longer exists in the form that it did, it was not formally disbanded, otherwise the words Ulster Defence Regiment wouldn’t appear in the name.
Henry Joy,
Agreed re. SA and ET. Both had proven themselves to be effective and central to the conflict not just down to their operational prowess but also the smuggling which helped stave off the financial problem that hampered the likes of the INLA.
Also, how and why did so many Republicans get turned?
ReplyDeletePareto principle Steve, followed on with an exponential multiplier effect.
DeleteBeat captives hard enough and at least 1 in 5 or thereabouts will break, some of that cohort will be turned and another subsection will remain true to some extent but yet reveal names of other volunteers.
Security forces then have an improved overview. They watch & exploit the vulnerable; those playing away games, those with addictions, those with excessive debt, those fiddling their tax affairs, and so forth. They recruit these people if they can or if they can't turn them they will work them for just one more snippet of info or for the name of just one more . An exponential multiplier kicks in. After twenty years of conflict, it's hardly surprising the security apparatus had such penetration.
Thanks HJ that makes brutal sense.
DeleteI read this installment when it was first published -the authors put a lot of effort into it and it is an interesting read -but that is it. It does nothing to determine the state of the IRA, certainly it does not bare fruit that the IRA was in decline. Activity or lack of activity in different areas was always fluctuating -for example Derry was always active but around the time considered Derry had suffered repeat seizures of new weapons... so between loss of the weaponry and investigations into the security breaches Derry was out of commission. Also the Hume Adams talks started in 1988 and Adams likely would have been reassuring Hume that he was serious and likely scaled back on some things to satisfy Hume. Nothing can be read into South Armagh detonating large bombs in or near Belfast -that would have merely be a logistical/convenience/security on who best to do it -just like Belfast men sometime traveled to different parts of the 6 counties to carry out operations for the same reasons. Also if you take areas like Tyrone -they lost experienced people through jail and ambushes -does any body realistically think they eventually would not recover their loses and experience? Like I say its an interesting read, I learnt a few things but it in no way achieved its stated aim. If anything, volunters outside of South Armagh were realizing the value of being prepared to operate over in England. And Armagh men were right -they were stopped as they were only getting started.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the articles do not say anything of substance. A lot of work with no real purpose. Although it is interesting to see other perspectives. I was in the UDR in the early 90s and can only offer how the security forces felt at that time, and that was the Provos were in decline. They were clearly being hamstrung by touts. There was also a feeling that generally they could be doing a lot more than they were, and after reading The Yank, it is clear many provies thought the same. Now, looking back, it is clear that they were no longer a strategic threat to the UK. Yes, they were a tactical threat; they could bomb and kill in any part of the UK and beyond. But that would not advance their goals in any way. Adams/MMG had accepted defeat and were preparing SF for constitutional politics. They could see what Hume had been seeing for decades, that militant republicanism was the biggest obstacle to a UI.
DeleteI truly appreciate all of the comments - it's basically why Bleakley and I researched and wrote these pieces.
ReplyDeleteRather than answer anyone directly, I'll through out what I think are interesting discussion point.
1 - It could just be a coincidence, but criticism of the premise of the research questions started in this piece, 1992, rather than the 1991 piece. I think 1991 was a reasonably good year for the IRA. Anyone care to offer commentary on why this might have been?
2 - I think that violent republican dynamism was sustained by British/loyalist intransigence. By the 1990s, there were a number of initiatives on the go that showed UKG (ostensibly at least) were cracking down on strength of the Orange card. For example, I'm fairly sure many in the PUL community claimed "betrayal" at changes to the UDR.
3 - This is the most pertinent point. I didn't think about this when the word "decline" was chosen for these articles. But it works - was it "managed decline" or "terminal decline" or something else. Managed decline would suggest that the powers-that-be within the republican movement were scaling things down. I think there's plenty of evidence to support that. But that means the decline was contingent on those powers-that-be remaining in power. If they went, then what? A resurgence? Perhaps. It's hard to say.
Were the IRA in terminal decline? I think AM believes so. I'm not so sure. Like I said in a previous piece, republican support was often just a British or loyalist atrocity away from spiking.
I think finally, speaking for myself here, part of the reason I enjoy this blog so much is that you can come up with a research question and have it interrogated by people with a dog in the fight and a decent amount of background knowledge. I don't think the general consensus about the roadmap of the conflict is correct - I think theories about republican containment and UKG/loyalist successes are overplayed. But I don't have all the answers, and to be honest, more and more, I'm not even sure I have the right questions.
All that being said, I think this is a very interesting subject to discuss.
Brandon,
ReplyDelete1 – I suspect the criticism has emerged on this piece because the previous one felt like it was building up to a significant case that, for some, did not emerge in this piece. Was it a successful year? You could say so, however the deaths of Sinn Fein councillors and the unit in Cappagh were dampners, to say the least.
2 – It was sustained because IRA volunteers believed that their mission was to drive Britain out of the North, thus unifying Ireland. What you mentioned had nothing to do with the IRA but emerged from the loyalist protests/violence circa the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
3 – I believe it was a natural decline due to people staying in place for far too long, thus complacency and a lack of desire to innovate led to a stranglehold.
“Were the IRA in terminal decline? I think AM believes so. I'm not so sure.
AM, plus various Provos, British Army/UDR and loyalists certainly believe so and the evidence strongly supports that claim. While I applaud your willingness to question orthodox views, some of the reasoning on display in the article isn’t a million miles away from the “stabbed in the back” outlook that permeated Germany and America post WWI and Vietnam respectively: the idea that the Provos could have carried on being a genuine threat if it wasn’t for *insert whoever*. However I know that's not your intention.
“Like I said in a previous piece, republican support was often just a British or loyalist atrocity away from spiking.”
Support and sustainability are two different things. A spike doesn’t always lead to long term growth.
Sorry to bother the good folks at the Quill, but a comment of mine from the other day seems to have gobbled up by the spam filter. Thanks!
ReplyDelete@ Christopher
ReplyDelete1 - I certainly found when writing 1992 there was evidence of year-on-year decline, let alone compared with a decade or two earlier. To circle back to a point made by Peter, 1991 was arguably a tactically successful year. But if we are talking about when the IRA was most strategically successful, well, there's an argument that not since 1972.
2 - Starting with the mid-1980s, UKG started facing down unionists and loyalists, and arguably, they never really stopped. There's a potential PhD in the IRA's role in that. And in the motivations of volunteers to do what they did.
3 - I think you're almost certainly correct.
Re "stabbed in the back theorising" - I'm going from memory, but Holland & McDonald had a few paragraphs on this subject in Deadly Divisions. It is intriguing to consider what might have happened (or still be happening) in the absence of a ceasefire.
I think debate around the IRA's move to ceasefire is pretty healthy, and generally fascinating. I first got interested in it in the late 1990s, and the analysis has moved backwards and forward on whether they jumped or were pushed to the negotiating table. There was a robust challenge to the narrative of the IRA as an "undefeated army" - that's understandable. But perhaps it went too far.
"Support and sustainability are two different things. A spike doesn’t always lead to long term growth."
True, and well put.