IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (THE I.R.A.)
1.0 Background and History
The I.R.A. has been around for some time. Activist militant Irishmen joined Feniean brotherhoods, organization that evolved into the Sinn Fein and it militant wing, the Irish Republican Army, which was founded in 1858. Money to support these movements came from Irishmen abroad, many of them having worked their way to influential positions in American trade unions.
In 1867, anti-English sentiments were inflamed when a mob in Manchester, England attacked a police van in an attempt to free two Irish-American members of the pro-Irish-separatist Fenian Brotherhood. A policeman was killed and three members of group were executed after a controversial trial. The armed Fenian rebellion of 1867 was quickly put down by the British and turned out to be a dismal failure.
Most of Ireland's revolutionaries were not from the embittered working classes or rural poor. Rather they were landowners, members of Parliament, and middle class professionals. Some were educated at Cambridge and Oxford.
Belfast mural The Irish Republican Army (the I.R.A.) is Catholic-based paramilitary group whose objectives were to drive the British out of Northern Ireland and reunify Northern Ireland with Ireland. The I.R.A. was committed to the use of the violence to achieve these goals. The logic seemed to be that if they blow up enough buildings and killed enough people, the British and the their supporters would give up and leave Northern Ireland.
I.R.A. was led by a seven-member military council. At its peak it only had 400 or so armed members who were supported by a network of runners, financiers, bombmakers and thousands of sympathizers. For obvious reasons, the I.R.A. was highly secretive. No one on the outside ever saw them at work and no outsider ever knew where or when they worked. "When you have been elevated to the leadership of a paramilitary organization," one former gunman told National Geographic “it has an aura within society. Whether it's fear or respect, who can say?"
Sinn Fein is the political arm of the IRA. It means "Ourselves Alone." It long claimed to have nothing to with violence. A number of American organizations provided financial and political support for Sinn Fein.
Bloody Sunday
IRA funeral On the morning of "Bloody Sunday," November 21, 1920, young killers known as "the Squad." shot 19 men suspected of being part of British team of spies and hit men, many of them while they were sleeping. The massacre was made possible by the infiltration of Dublin Castle by an activist named Christopher Blake. The British police retaliated that afternoon by firing into a crowd and onto the field during a football match between Dublin and Tipperary. Fourteen people were killed and hundreds were wounded.
After Bloody Sunday, many of the remaining British police in Ireland either resigned or were shot down. Maintaining order was turned over to the Black and Tans (named after their mismatched uniforms), a group of thugs thought of as Sinn Fein sympathizers, who sometimes shot people dead and asked questions later.
After Bloody Sunday The Irish public began to view IRA killers as freedom fighters who were avenging the injustices committed by the British. Irish prisoners went on hunger strikes, the most well known of which was by Terrence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, who lasted 74 days without food before finally dying in a London jail. These events made the world look at the British as bunch of ruthless killers.

2.0 Geographical location
3.0 Recruitment/age bracket

4.0 Training and financing
Their cause has always been a united Ireland, but much of the cash that funds republican groups comes from the United States. So how will they fare amid the new crackdown on terrorism?
It took the attacks on 11 September to bring the full horror of terror attacks home to many Americans. And their sense of outrage is compounded by a feeling that this is a war on terror that cannot be won easily.

Since then, the Bush administration has vowed to come down hard on terrorists operating in the US.
The president has enacted executive powers that allow for the freezing of all assets in the US of suspected Islamic terror groups.
While all American eyes are currently fixed on Muslim extremists, politicians in Northern Ireland have urged President Bush to extend the clampdown to those who raise funds for Irish paramilitary groups.
While Libya's donation of arms to the IRA in the 1980s has been the most public sign of where the republican movement has previously turned for support, the reality is that North America has been the most important link of all.
Following the emergence of the modern republican movement in 1969, the Provisional IRA quickly turned to its Irish-American supporters for funds and guns.
More than 30 years later, those support networks still exist, although the nature of the relationship has changed during the long road of the peace process.
Follow the money
Ulster Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson wants to see the strong measures extended to Noraid, which raises money for the republican party Sinn Fein, which itself has links with the Provisional IRA.

"Without their funding, the IRA would not have nearly the same potential for violence that it currently has," he says.
Noraid has openly expressed support for the IRA but says it gives money for humanitarian aid, and denies its donations are used for the purchase of arms.
Sinn Fein has, of course, come in from the cold in recent years. It was de-designated as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US State Department in 1994 after the start of peace efforts in Northern Ireland - a move which allowed its leader, Gerry Adams, to travel to the US.
Without the funding, the IRA would not have nearly the same potential for violence – Jeffrey Donaldson Unionist MP

5.0 Type and terrorist strategies

Ballymurphy I.R.A. kidnap victims were sometimes tortured, tarred and feathered. One 16-year-old who was attacked by the I.R.A. was pinned down and his legs were beaten for 10 minutes with an iron bar. His attackers made sure to turn him over there times to make sure all sides were hit.
In 1972 the I.R.A. led a one-day series of car bombings in Belfast that left 11 people dead. On October 23, 1993, an I.R.A. bomb explosion at a Belfast fish and chips shop killed 10 people. The attack was in retaliation for a series of attacks on Catholic workmen in a bus. Several days after the bombing seven people are killed at an Irish Halloween party by Protestant extremists.
Between 1985 and September 1993, the I.R.A. killed a number of people---fruit vendors, wood sellers, catering workers, wood sellers, building supply contractors---in Northern Ireland simply because they worked for the British security forces. A typical victim was a building supplier killed from a car stolen from the victim's friend and driven into his driveway so the killers could get close without arousing suspicion.
IRA committed 1,125 acts of terrorism between 1988 and 1998 according to the U.S. State Department. The I.R.A. usually directed their attacks at the British, with the understanding that the people in Northern Ireland could settle their own affairs. Bombs went off at Harrods department store and mortar shells were fired at Heathrow airport three times in five days. As a result of those attacks airports in Britain were shut and thousands of travelers were affected. The I.R.A. took responsibility for the attacks.
Docklands bombing On March 20, 1993, an I.R.A. bomb set off in Warrington, northwest England killed 2 children and injured 65 people. On April 24, 1993, an I.R.A. bomb set off in the heart of London's financial district killed one and injured 45 and caused $750 million worth of damage. An I.R.A. bomb planted under a bandstand in Hyde park killed 11 members of a military band.
On February 9th, 1996, the I.R.A. announced the end of a cease fire. Less than an hour and half later a truck bomb with a half ton of explosives was set off at Canary Wharf in East London, killing two and injuring 100 (at least 39 of whom were hospitalized). The bomb damaged a new subway station and badly damaged five nearby buildings. The carnage could have been much worse: the railway station had been evacuated after Scotland Yard received a coded message. On June 15, 1996, Manchester city center was destroyed by a large bomb planted by the I.R.A.
I.R.A. Attacks on British Government and Royal Targets
Grand Hotel, 1984 The I.R.A. fired missiles at 29 East Downing Street, the residence of the prime minister. In 1984, an I.R.A. bomb came very close to wiping out the entire British Cabinet which had gathered in Brighton for a Conservative Party conference. In 1986, three I.R.A. terrorists were shot dead on the orders of Margaret Thatcher on the streets of Gibraltar by the British SAS. The British government said the three were going to plant a bomb in the Gibraltar Governor's House.
In 1980, two bombs exploded on a single day: with one killing Lord Louis Mountabatten, a 15-year-old boy and two others on a boating cruise; and other killing 18 British soldiers a few yards from the Irish border at Warrenpoint in eastern Northern Ireland Mountbatten, was killed on a boat by an explosion from a 50 pound bomb on the boat detonated from the Irish coast at 11:45am in full view of the police patrol watching the boat. It also killed his 14-year-old grandson and two other people.
According tone I.R.A. informer, the I.R.A. also reportedly made plans to kill prince Charles and Princess Diana while they say in the Royal Box at London’s Dominion Theater in 1983. Mountbatten was Queen Elizabeth's cousin and Prince Charles godfather and mentor. He also introduced o Elizabeth to Prince Philip. In 1998, one the terrorist's involved in the Mountbatten incident was released as part of the Good Friday agreement.
Good Friday Agreement and the 1998 Omagh Bombing
Barrack buster, 2010 The violence ended when a peace accord known as the Good Friday Agreement was hammered on Good Friday, April 10, 1998, and signed by Sinn Fein and the British government. Prisoners who were e put away on terrorist charges and expected to rot in prison were released from prison. Many released former terrorists became active in efforts to encourage young people to stay away from violence.
The 1998 Omagh bombing, which claimed 29 lives, took place after the Good Friday Agreement was signed. In August 1998, a car bomb set off in a busy market in the charming town of Omagh in Northern Ireland killed 29 people, including a baby and a pregnant woman, and injured 220. It was the single worst terrorist incident in 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.
An I.R.A. splinter group called the Real I.R.A. was responsible for the disaster. What was particularly awful was that someone called in to say a bomb was going to be set off in a different place and people were told to head to the place where the real bomb was set off. Among the dead were a 65-year-old women, hr 30-year-old daughter, who was pregnant with twins, and her 18-month-old granddaughter. In all nine children were killed. Another pregnant woman lost her legs.

6.0 Affiliates 7.0 Counter-terrorist

The I.R.A., Provos and Their Protestant Rivals
Sniper at work sign In 1921 the I.R.A accused Irish leaders of being traitors when they signed a treaty with the English, granting independence to the southern 26 Irish counties but not the six northern Protestant-dominated counties. The first battles fought by the I.R.A. were fought against their fellow Catholic Irishmen. [Source: Bryan Hodgson, National Geographic, April 1981]
In 1956, the I.R.A. began an armed campaign to reunify the north and south. In reasons internments without trial were instituted in Ireland and Northern Ireland. In 1962, the I.R.A. campaign was called a failures and called off. After the British military arrived Northern Ireland in 1969, the I.R.A. was energized.In 1972 the I.R.A. led a one-day series of car bombings in Belfast that left 11 people dead.
Provos, the Provisional Irish Republican Army as opposed to Official I.R.A., was founded in January 1970 to protect Catholic neighborhoods. In 1980, 16-year-old Michael MacCartan was shot and killed while painting "PROVO'S" on a billboard in 1980. His father survived a beating in 1976 and the bombing of a local pub in 1974. His uncle was assassinated on a street corner.
Protestant terrorist groups that battled the I.R.A. and carried out attacks of their own in Northern Ireland included the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVA), Ulster Defense Association (UDA), Ulster Defense Regiment, Royal Ulster Constabulary, UFF, the Tartan Army, and Paisley's Third Force. In addition to go after Catholics, members of the UDA also extorted protection money from construction companies, small businesses and shop owners to financed their terrorist activities. They and the I.R.A. were also accused of smuggling drugs while making a show of beating up drug dealers and even selling weapons and explosives to other terrorist groups.