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Irish republican Army, short IRA, is a secret military organisation that seeks to unite the independent country of Ireland with Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland occupies the north-eastern corner of the island of Ireland. Ireland occupies the rest. The IRA also shares the goal of its political wing, called Sing Féin.
The IRA was formed in 1919 as a part of a movement to gain
independence from Great Britain. Ireland and Northern Ireland are a single country, which was united with Great Britain and ruled by the British. Most of the people in the country's six north-western counties were Protestants, and most of those in the southern and western counties were Roman Catholics. The British government had proposed that Ireland remained united with Great Britain but take control of its own domnestic affaires. But most of the Protestants in the north-western province of Ulster opposed this plan because they didn't want to be a minority in a Catholic nation.
The Irish Free State. In 1919, the IRA began a guerrilla war for independence from British rule. The British had superior weapons and more soldiers. But the IRA harassed the police and military with ambushes and sudden raids. In 1920, the British government passed the Government of Ireland Act. The act divided Ireland into two states, each with limited powers of self-government. Under the act the six counties of north-eastern Ireland were separated from the rest of Ireland and became Northern Ireland. But most of the southern Catholics rejected the act and demanded a single, united Ireland republic. The guerrilla war continued until 1921, when British and Irish leaders agreed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. This treaty made Ireland a dominion - that is a self-governing country owing allegiance to the British Crown. The dominion was called the Irish Free State. Now Ireland had two Parliaments, one for the Nationalists and another for the Unionists.
The treaty split the IRA. One group accepted it and became part of the army of the Irish Free State. The other group, called the Irregulars, rejected the treaty because it didn't provide complete independence from Great Britain and union with Northern Ireland. In 1922, civil war broke out. The Irregulars were defeated in 1923 but continued as an underground organisation.
In 1949, the Irish Free State renounced its dominion status and declared itself an independence country, fulfilling a major IRA goal. But Northern Ireland remained united with Great Britain. In the 1950's the IRA periodically raided British installations in Northern Ireland and embarrass the Irish government.
In the late 1960's, Catholics in Northern Ireland began to protest discriminations by Protestants. Fighting broke out between
Catholics and Protestants, and the IRA took up the cause of the Catholics. Britain sent troops to restore order, and the IRA and the British soldiers were soon fighting each other.
Then a deep split developed within the IRA over strategy and tactics. The dominant group resulting from the division was called the Provisional IRA, the other group became known as the Official IRA. The Provisional IRA includes of the youngest and most aggressive members chiefly committed to social change. It ahs limited the use of violence to achieve its objectives.
Today the official IRA poses little threat to British security forces or to the Irish population. However the strong alliance between the Provisional IRA and the Sinn Féin continues to hamper stable government in both Ireland and Northern Ireland.
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