IRA Terrorism

If the "shot heard around the world" was fired at Concord, Mass., in 1775, then an explosion heard around the world was triggered at Mullaghmore harbor Aug. 27, 1979, taking the life of Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Afterwards, reporters from print and TV media worldwide streamed into the Sligo village, whose year-round population only numbers 70 or so.

Masked Provisional IRA volunteers at a rally in August 1979

The 50-pound bomb, planted by the terrorists, ripped Mountbatten's yacht, Shadow V, into shreds, killing him and three others, and wounding three.

Who are these terrorists and why are they so desperate to kill?


The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a United Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion. It emerged out of the December 1969 split of the Irish Republican Army over differences of ideology and how to respond to violence against the nationalist community. This violence had followed the community's demands for civil rights in 1968 and 1969, which met with resistance from some of the unionist community and from the authorities, and culminated in the 1969 Northern Ireland riots. The IRA conducted an armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, over the course of which it was responsible for the deaths of approximately 1,800 people. The dead included around 1,100 members of the British security forces, and about 630 civilians. The IRA itself lost 275 – 300 members, of an estimated 10,000 total over the thirty-year period.

The IRA's initial strategy was to use force to cause the collapse of the Northern Ireland administration and to inflict enough casualties on the British forces that the British government would be forced by public opinion to withdraw from the region. This policy involved recruitment of volunteers, increasing after Bloody Sunday, and launching attacks against British military and economic targets. The campaign was supported by arms and funding from Libya^, and from some groups in the United States. The IRA agreed to a ceasefire in February 1975, which lasted nearly a year before the IRA concluded that the British were drawing them into politics without offering any guarantees in relation to the IRA's goals, and hopes of a quick victory receded. As a result, the IRA launched a new strategy known as "the Long War". This saw them conduct a war of attrition against the British and increase emphasis on political activity, via the political party Sinn Féin.
The success of the 1981 Irish hunger strike in mobilising support and winning elections led to the Armalite and ballot box strategy with more time and resources devoted to political activity. The abortive attempt at an escalation of the military part of that strategy led republican leaders increasingly to look for a political compromise to end the conflict, with a broadening dissociation of Sinn Féin from the IRA. Following negotiations with the SDLP and secret talks with British civil servants, the IRA ultimately called a ceasefire in 1994 on the understanding that Sinn Féin would be included in political talks for a settlement. When the British government then demanded the disarmament of the IRA before it allowed Sinn Féin into multiparty talks, the organisation called off its ceasefire in February 1996. Until July 1997, the IRA carried out several bombing and shooting attacks. These included the Docklands bombing and the Manchester bombing, which together caused around £500 million in damage. After the ceasefire was reinstated, Sinn Féin was admitted into all-party talks, which produced the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
On 28 July 2005, the IRA Army Council announced an end to its armed campaign, stating that it would work to achieve its aims using "purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means", and shortly afterwards completed decommissioning. In September 2008, the nineteenth report of the Independent Monitoring Commission stated that the IRA was "committed to the political path" and no longer represented "a threat to peace or to democratic politics", and that the IRA's Army Council was "no longer operational or functional".The organisation remains classified as a proscribed terrorist group in the UK and as an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland.^] Two small groups split from the Provisional IRA, first in 1986 (Continuity IRA) and then in 1997 (Real IRA). Both reject the Belfast Agreement and continue to engage in direct military action.

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 early 1970s were 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. 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.RUC police and UDR soldiers when on and 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.

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 RUC police and UDR soldiers when on and 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.

         List of terrorist incidents:

• 1939 January to 1940 February: A sustained campaign of bombing in London, Birmingham and other parts of the country, known as the S-Plan, organized by the IRA

• 1971 12 January: Two bombs explode at the house of government minister Robert Carr. This attack was one of 25 carried out by the Angry Brigade between August 1970 and August 1971. The Bomb Squad was established at Scotland Yard in January 1971 to target the group, and they were apprehended in August of that year.
• 1971 31 October: A bomb explodes in the Post Office Tower in London causing extensive damage but no injuries. The "Kilburn Battalion" of the IRA claimed responsibility for the explosion.
• 1972 22 February: The Official Irish Republican Army kills seven civilians in the Aldershot bombing.
• 1973 10 September: The Provisional IRA set off bombs at London's King's Cross Station and Euston Station injuring 21 people.
• 1974 4 February: Eight Soldiers and 4 civilians are killed by the Provisional IRA in the M62 Coach Bombing.
• 1974 17 June: The Provisional IRA plant a bomb which explodes at the Houses of Parliament, causing extensive damage and injuring 11 people.
• 1974 5 October: Guildford pub bombing by the Provisional IRA leaves 4 off duty soldiers and a civilian dead and 44 injured.
• 1974 22 October: A bomb planted by the Provisional IRA explodes in London injuring 3 people.
• 1974 21 November: The Birmingham pub bombings, 21 killed and 182 injured.
• 1974 18 December: Bomb planted by IRA in the run up to Christmas in one of Bristol's most popular shopping districts explodes injuring 17 people.
• 1975 November 27: IRA gunmen assassinate political activist and television personality Ross McWhirter.
• 1978 December 17: Another bomb planted by the IRA aimed at the Christmas shoppers in Bristol takes out the department store Maggs injuring seven people.

Lord Mountbatten reviews Indian troops during World War II.

• 1979 30 March: Airey Neave killed when a car bomb exploded under his car as he drove out of the Palace of Westminster car park. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) claimed responsibility for the killing.
  27 August 1979: Mountbatten usually holidayed at his summer home in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, a small seaside village between Bundoran, County Donegal and Sligo, County Sligo, on the northwest coast of Ireland. The village was only 12 miles from the Northern Ireland border and near an area known as a cross-border refuge by IRA members.
  Despite security advice and warnings from the Garda Síochána, on 27 August 1979, Mountbatten went lobster-potting and tuna fishing in a thirty-foot (10 m) wooden boat, the Shadow V, which had been moored in the harbour at Mullaghmore. IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped on to the unguarded boat that night and attached a radio-controlled fifty-pound (23 kg) bomb. When Mountbatten was aboard en route to Donegal Bay, just a few hundred yards from the shore, the bomb was detonated. Who activated the radio-controlled bomb is not known: McMahon had been arrested earlier at a Garda checkpoint between Longford and Granard.
  The boat was blown to pieces by the force of the blast. Mountbatten, then aged 79, was fatally wounded. He was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen, but died from his injuries before being brought to the shore.
  Others killed by the blast were Nicholas Knatchbull, his elder daughter's 14-year-old son; Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old youth from County Fermanagh who was a crew member. The Dowager Lady Brabourne, his elder daughter's 83-year-old mother-in-law, was seriously injured in the explosion, and died from her injuries the following day. Nicholas Knatchbull's mother and father, along with his twin brother Timothy, survived the explosion but were seriously injured.
  The provisional wing of the IRA issued a statement, saying:
  

  The IRA claim responsibility for the execution of Lord Louis Mountbatten. This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country.
  

  Sinn Féin vice-president Gerry Adams said of Mountbatten's death:
  

  The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution. I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed, but the furore created by Mountbatten's death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment. As a member of the House of Lords, Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics. What the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation. He knew the danger involved in coming to this country. In my opinion, the IRA achieved its objective: people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland.
  

  On the day Mountbatten was assassinated, the IRA ambushed and killed eighteen British ArmyParachute Regiment at Warrenpoint, County Down, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush. soldiers, sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment at Warrenpoint, County Down, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush.
  Prince Charles took Mountbatten's death particularly hard, remarking to friends that things were never the same after losing his mentor. It has since been revealed that Mountbatten had been favourable towards the eventual reunification of Ireland.

• 1982 20 July: The Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings in London by the IRA kill eleven members of the Household Cavalry and the Royal Green Jackets.
• 1982 30 November: A group called the Animal Rights Militia sent a letter bomb to Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street, the device exploded injuring one person.
• 1983 17 December: Harrods was bombed by the IRA. Six are killed (including three police officers) and 90 wounded during Christmas shopping at the West London department store.
• 1984 12 October: Brighton hotel bombing, 5 killed and several injured in an attempt by the IRA to kill Margaret Thatcher.

• 1989 22 September: Deal barracks bombing: Eleven Royal Marines bandsmen are killed       and   22 others are injured.

This picture shows an IRA unit loading an improvised mortar in 1992

• 1990 16 May: Wembley IRA detonate a bomb underneath a minibus killing Sgt Charles Chapman (The Queen's Regiment) and injuring another soldier.
• 1990 1 June: Lichfield City railway station 1 soldier is killed and 2 are injured in a shooting by the Provisional Irish Republican Army
• 1990 20 July: The IRA detonate a bomb at the London Stock Exchange causing damage to the building. Nobody was injured in the blast.
• 1990 30 July: Ian Gow MP killed by a car bomb planted by the IRA while at his home in Sussex.
• 1991 7 February: The IRA launched three mortar shells at the rear garden of 10 Downing Street.
• 1991 18 February: A bomb explodes at Victoria Station. One man is killed and 38 people injured.
  
• 1992 28 February 1992: A bomb explodes at London Bridge station injuring 29 people.
• 1992 10 April: Baltic Exchange bombing: A large bomb explodes in St Mary Axe in the City of London. The bomb was contained in a large white truck and consisted of a fertilizer device wrapped with a detonation cord made from Semtex. It killed three people: Paul Butt, 29, Baltic Exchange employee Thomas Casey, 49, and 15-year old Danielle Carter. The bomb also caused damage to surrounding buildings, many of which were also badly damaged by the Bishopsgate bombing the following year. The bomb caused £800 million worth of damage, £200 million more than the total damaged caused by the 10,000 explosions that had occurred during the Troubles in Northern Ireland up to that point.
• 1992 25 August: The IRA plant three fire bombs in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Bombs were placed in Shoplatch, The Charles Darwin Centre and Shrewsbury Castle. The latter causing the most damage as the castle housed the Shropshire Regimental Museum and many priceless historical aritifacts were lost and damaged by fire and smoke. No fatalities or injuries were recorded.
• 1992 12 October: A device explodes in the gents' toilet of the Sussex Arms public house in Covent Garden killing one person and injuring four others.
• 1992 16 November: IRA plants a bomb at the Canary Wharf, but is spotted by security guards. The bomb is deactivated safely.
• 1992 3 December: The IRA exploded two bombs in central Manchester, injuring 65 people.
• 1993 20 March: Warrington bomb attacks. The first attack, on a gasworks, created a huge fireball but no casualties, but the second attack on Bridge Street killed two children and injured many other people. The attacks were conducted by the IRA.
• 1993 24 April: IRA detonate a huge truck bomb in the City of London at Bishopsgate, It killed journalist Ed Henty, injured over 40 people, and causing approximately £1 billion worth of damage, including the destruction of St Ethelburga's church, and serious damage to Liverpool St. Tube Station. Police had received a coded warning, but were still evacuating the area at the time of the explosion. The insurance payments required were so enormous, that Lloyd's of London almost went bankrupt under the strain, and there was a crisis in the London insurance market. The area had already suffered damage from the Baltic Exchange bombing the year before.
• 1996 9 February 1996: The IRA bombs the South Quay area of London, killing two people.
• 1996 15 June: The Manchester bombing when the IRA detonated a 1500 kg bomb which heavily damaged the Arndale shopping centre and injured 206 people.
• 1996 15 February: A 5 lb bomb placed in a telephone box is disarmed by Police on the Charing Cross Road.
• 1996 18 February: An improvised high explosive device detonates prematurely on a bus travelling along Aldwych in central London, killing Edward O'Brien, the IRA operative transporting the device and injuring eight others.
• 1997 March: The IRA exploded two bombs in relay boxes near Wilmslow railway station, thereby causing great disruption to rail and road services, in Wilmslow and the surrounding area.

• 2000 1 June: Real IRA bomb explodes on Hammersmith Bridge, London

•  2000 20 September: Real IRA fired a RPG at the MI6 HQ in London SIS Building

• 2001 4 March: The Real IRA detonate a car bomb outside the BBC's main news centre in London. One London Underground worker suffered deep cuts to his eye from flying glass and some damage was caused to the front of the building.

• 2001 16 April: Hendon post office bombed by the Real IRA.

• 2001 6 May: The Real IRA detonate a bomb in a London postal sorting office. One person was injured.

• 2001 3 August: A Real IRA Bomb in Britain explodes in Ealing, West London,injuring seven.

• 2001 4 November: Real IRA car bomb explodes in Birmingham.

<sup>Source:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mountbatten,_1st_Earl_Mountbatten_of_Burma

2. http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/mountbat.html

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain</sup>