Who are the Irish Republic Army?

Answer 1

u must mean the Irish Republican Army known as the IRA or Oghláigh na hÉireann the IRA have been around in Ireland since 1919 they are a guerrilla army which originally fought for the freedom of Ireland and succesfully created an Irish republic after a bloody war in 1919-1921 but there was a treaty that the Irish had to sign to end the war. the Dail Éireann signed it against the whishes of two thirds of the Irish population and this led to the Irish civil war of 1921-1923. In this war the IRA were beaten by the Free state army who had superior british army weaponry. This caused the partition of Ireland into the Irish free state and into the Protestant pro british Northern Ireland. There were many minor campaigns by the IRA like the border campaign. But when NICRA(the northern Irish civil rights association)was established in the late 1960s the Unionists feared the Catholics and so in august 1969 after the battle of the Bogside and a whole week of rioting across the whole country of Northern Ireland an element of the IRA realised it needed to defend its Catholic neighbourhoods bcuz 8 catholics had been killed along with 773 injured 121 of them shot by the security forces when protestant mobs attacked their neighbourhoods and drove over 10,000 catholic families over the border into the republic of Ireland and so the army took control of Northern Ireland but after complaints that the police and security forces were completely biased against Catholics. At first the Catholics welcomed the Army as peacemakers until Bloody Sunday (30th January 1972) when the army shot dead 14 innocent peaceful protesters looking for Civil rights the period known as the troubles began to turn sour after this incident as 437 people were murdered in cold blood by both sides including 47 british soldiers after this most of the Catholic minority began to look to the IRA 2 protect and defend them from the Army,RUC,B specials,UVF,LVF,Orange Order,UDR,UDA,Red hand defenders the IRA succesfully fought against these groups but interment was brought in which really was just an excuse to annoy the Catholic popultaion of NI one the bloodiest incidents of the whole toubles was the bombing of the village of Claudy this was a village of 94 people and their were 3 car bombs planted in it which killed 9 and injured 67 but as time went by the hunger strikes of 81 which killed 10 volounteers because Maggie thatcher wudnt give in after this they tried to assasanate her with the Brighton hotel bomb after Maggie survived the IRA sent this chilling message to her " u have to be luky al the time we onli hav to b luki once"after this 2 peace agreements broke down but then their was the Good Friday agreemnt of 1994 which nearly brought peace but the troubles were dragged on til 2001 after the good Friday agreement a splinter group called th RIRA planted a car bomb in the town of omagh on 15th august 1998 which killed 29 and 2 unborn babies this was the single bloodiest incident of the 30 years before it