Just started "The Secret History of The IRA" by Ed Moloney. Anyone else researching this topic?
I'd recommend Richard English's book Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA. It's pretty comprehensive, tracing the origins of the IRA in the 20s, covering the various armed campaigns and finally dealing with The Troubles and peace process. He gives a pretty nuanced and detailed look at what drove the IRA to violence in the early 1970s, covers the split between Officials and Provisionals very well and the secret talks with the Harold Wilson government. Kieran Conway, the IRA's director of intelligence, wrote an autobiography, Southside Provisional, which is worth a read. He's featured in the docu series Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History which covers the entire conflict with interviews with leading figures on all sides and access to declassified or leaked documents which shine a light on secret negotiations, the role of Gerry Adams in plotting attacks, and collusion between the British army and loyalist paramilitaries etc.
The IRA had shit tons of guns and ammunition given to them by the Libyans but never really did anything with it other than shoot a few cops and detonate car bombs once in a while. As a guerilla organization they were a total failure.
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How? They went from being branded terrorists to parliment politicians with one of the largest and most popular parties. I'd call that a success. IRA have shown us that you can bomb, shoot and kill your way into high office. I'm surprised more people aren't adopting this strategy. It would certainly make the two party system more lively.
No they were very good at what they did. They had weapons, bombs and people supporting them. This scared the shit out of the retards in Westminster. They sent their military into Northern Ireland to try and put it all down, but the IRA and Irish in general resisted.
They didn't have aims to cause immense terror and suffering on the Irish population which is why they never really sought to use those weapons in excess. This is why they mostly did targeted attacks or would detonate bombs in places but give warning to authorities ahead of time so they could evacuate.
They successfully harassed the United Kingdom enough to make them essentially concede and withdrawal. There was no Irish reunification (not yet, at least, but hopefully one day) but they managed to draw down the conflict and get the UK to fuck off. They then evolved and morphed into one of the most successful political parties in the history of Ireland.
The IRA was never that successful outside South Armagh and maybe East Tyrone and Monaghan (at least untill Pat Kelly was killed at Loughgall). They had weapon supplies that most guerrillas could only dream of and lots of talented people but never used them well. There's a former US marine who fought with the IRA who wrote a book about his experiences. He said the IRA leadership just didn't care about skill. They had guys with serious military training but never used their full potential. They never had those guys train or lead other men.
>They then evolved and morphed into one of the most successful political parties in the history of Ireland.
Yet the Provisional IRA is still banned in the Republic and the UK. Politics is what happened. The IRA could have fought an effective military campaign to force the British out of Ireland. But Sinn Feinn realized they could use the army as leverage to further their political careers and that's exactly what they did. That's also why the Libyans and the Palestinains begun pulling their support.
Still better than the nothingburger that was(and are) the Puerto Rican nationalist movement.