Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade
Encyclopedia
The Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA
was the largest of the organisation's command areas, based in the city of Belfast
. Founded in 1969, along with the formation of the Provisional IRA, it was historically organised into three battalions; the First Battalion based in the Andersonstown/Lenadoon/Twinbrook area of Southwest Belfast; the Second Battalion based in the Falls Road/Clonard/Ballymurphy district of West Belfast; and the Third Battalion organised in nationalist
enclaves in the north (Ardoyne
, New Lodge
, Ligoniel), south (the Markets, Lower Ormeau) and east (Short Strand
) of the city.
, many republicans in Belfast felt that the IRA had let down the city's Catholic and nationalist community by failing to prevent the assault and burning of Catholic streets by loyalists
. Billy McKee
accused Billy McMillen
, the IRA's Belfast
commander, and the Dublin-based IRA leadership, of having failed to provide arms, planning or manpower to defend Catholic streets. .
On 22 September, McKee and a number of other IRA men, arrived armed at a meeting called by McMillen and tried to oust him as head of the Belfast IRA. They did not succeed, but announced that they would no longer be taking orders from the IRA leadership in Dublin. In December of that year, the IRA split into the Provisional IRA, which was composed of traditional militarists like McKee, and the Official IRA
which was composed of the pre-split Marxist leadership and their followers.. McKee sided with the Provisionals and sat on the first Provisional Army Council
in September 1970. Nine out of thirteen IRA units in Belfast sided with the Provisionals in 1969, roughly 120 activists and 500 supporters.
(OC) of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. From the start, there was intermittent feuding between McKee's men and his former comrades in the Official IRA
, as they vied for control of nationalist areas. The Provisionals, however, rapidly gained the upper hand, due to their projection of themselves as the most reliable defenders of the Catholic community.
McKee himself contributed greatly to this image by an action he undertook on 27 June 1970. Rioting broke out in the Ardoyne
area of north Belfast after an Orange Order parade
, and three Protestants were killed in gun battles between the Provisional IRA and loyalists. In response, loyalists prepared to attack the vulnerable Catholic enclave of Short Strand
in east Belfast. When McKee heard about this, he drove to Short Strand with some men and weapons and took up position at St Matthew's Church. In the ensuing five-hour gun battle, McKee was wounded and one of his men was killed, along with at least four Protestants. See Battle of St. Matthews
The leadership of the Provisional IRA had always planned to broaden their activities from defensive operations to an offensive campaign aimed at removing British rule from Northern Ireland. This only became practicable, however, after the Catholic community's relationship with the British Army deteriorated rapidly over the course of 1970. This deterioration was due to the Army's heavy-handed treatment of Catholics and nationalists in their efforts to combat republican paramilitaries. For example, on 5–7 July 1970, up to 3,000 troops sealed off the lower Falls area and conducted an aggressive search for arms - an episode known as the Falls Curfew
. Five civilians were killed and over 60 injured in gun battles between the troops and the Official IRA (who at that time were the dominant IRA faction in that part of Belfast). Over 300 people were arrested and the area was flooded with CS gas
.
After this point, the Belfast Brigade's strategy shifted from 'defence' to 'retaliation' and in January 1971, they began seeking out and attacking Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary
patrols. On 5 February 1971, the Belfast Provisionals killed their first soldier, Robert Curtis, who was killed by Billy Reid
in a gun battle in the New Lodge area
. In other confrontations around the city in the same night, one IRA man and two Catholic civilians were also killed in exchanges of fire with the Army Thereafter, gun battles between the IRA in Belfast and the security forces became a regular occurrence. By July 1971, ten soldiers had died at the hands of the IRA in the city
On 15 April 1971, McKee, along with Proinsias MacAirt
, was arrested by the Army when found in possession of a hand gun. He was charged and convicted for possession of the weapon and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol, and Joe Cahill
took over as OC of the Belfast Brigade.
In the early years of the Troubles
, the Provisional IRA in Belfast expanded rapidly. In August 1969, the Brigade had just 50 active members. By the end of 1971, it had 1,200 members, giving it a large but loosely-controlled structure.
It was during this period that the IRA campaign got off the ground in the city. Joe Cahill authorised the beginning of the IRA's bombing operations as well as attacks on troops and the RUC. He based himself in a house in Andersonstown
and toured the city, coordinating IRA operations.
, introducing internment
in an effort to arrest the IRA's leaders. The following day, Joe Cahill held a press conference in a school in Ballymurphy
and stated that the operation had been a failure. He said, "we have lost one brigade officer, one battalion officer and the rest are volunteers, or as they say in the British Army, privates". Cahill himself, however, had to flee to the Republic of Ireland
to avoid arrest -thus relinquishing his command of the Belfast Brigade. Seamus Twomey
took over Cahill's position as OC.
In the three days that followed the introduction of internment, there was fierce rioting and gun battles in nationalist areas of Belfast, as troops sought to enter these areas to arrest paramilitary suspects. In all, 17 people were killed in the clashes, among them two Provisional IRA members and three soldiers . In the remainder of 1971, 37 soldiers and 97 civilians were killed. In 1972, the death toll increased still further. The period was also costly for the IRA. In the Belfast Brigade's Second Battalion alone, for example, twenty IRA volunteers
were killed in the twelve months after August 1971
From 26 June to 10 July 1972 the Provisional IRA leadership declared a ceasefire
and held talks with the British Government. This truce broke down, however, in part due to a confrontation between the IRA Belfast Brigade and the Army in Lenadoon in west Belfast. The local IRA insisted that Catholic families who had been forced from Protestant areas be housed in homes vacated by Protestant families who had fled the predominantly nationalist Lenadoon area. The loyalist Ulster Defence Association
in turn threatened to burn the houses if they were occupied by Catholics. When the Catholic families attempted to move in, the Army stopped them, provoking a riot with the local Catholic population. Seamus Twomey, commander of the Belfast Brigade, declared that the British had violated the truce and shortly afterwards, his men opened fire on the troops. Sean MacStiofain, the IRA chief of staff, formally announced the end of the ceasefire that night, in response to events in Belfast.
In addition to attacks on the Army, a central part of the Belfast Brigade's campaign was the bombing of commercial
targets such as shops and businesses. The most devastating example of the Provisionals' commercial bombing campaign was Bloody Friday
on 21 July 1972 in Belfast city centre, where 22 bombs were 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.
. The Army proceeded to build fortified posts in republican west Belfast, thus hampering the IRA's freedom of movement. After this setback, Seamus Twomey, who had authorised the Bloody Friday operation, was replaced as Belfast Brigade commander by Gerry Adams
, with Ivor Bell
as his second in command . Adams held the post for ten months, before he was arrested and interned in July 1973. The security forces managed to capture the next three commanders of the Belfast Brigade over the next year: Ivor Bell, who held the post from July 1973 to January 1974, Sean Convey, who last just two months before being arrested in March 1974, and Brendan Hughes
, who was arrested in May 1974. These setbacks were indicative of the pressure being put on the IRA in Belfast, which was hard hit by arrests in this period.
After 1972, the numbers of soldiers killed by the IRA in Belfast fell consistently. In 1972, the Provisional IRA killed 145 members of the security forces, most of them in Belfast. By 1974, this figure had fallen to 40. Moreover, the Belfast Brigade changed its tactics in an effort to avoid the heavy losses in killed and captured they had suffered up to that point. According to the Provisional IRA, "As a result of the many arrests and increased Army presence, prolonged engagements with the Army faded out and were replaced with single shot sniping." In addition, "the revulsion caused by Bloody Friday persuaded the Provisionals to gradually abandon the car bomb.".
in nationalist parts of Belfast, hoping to encourage the development of the Provisional Republican Movement's political wing over its military wing. In practice, however, the ceasefire brought little diminution of the violence in Belfast.
The loyalist paramilitary groups, fearing a secret deal between the IRA and the Government, stepped up their killings of Catholic civilians, killing over 300 between 1974 and 1976. Billy McKee, by that time commander of the Belfast Brigade, responded with retaliatory attacks on Protestant civilians. The IRA carried out 91 sectarian assassinations in 1974-1976, many of them in Belfast. One of the most notorious of these attacks came on 13 August 1975, when an IRA team led by Brendan McFarlane
machine-gunned Bayardo's Bar
on Belfast's Protestant Shankill Road, killing five people and injuring over 50. While the attack was intended to kill Ulster Volunteer Force
members who used the bar, only one of the dead had paramilitary connections.
McKee was heavily criticised by many republicans for letting the Belfast IRA slip into a sectarian murder campaign. His critics were even more angry with his orders, in mid-1975, to attack the remaining Official IRA units in Belfast, in an effort to wipe out that organisation. The ensuing feud led to the deaths of 11 republican paramilitaries and a number of nationalist civilians, such as the head of the Falls Road taxi association, whose business was affiliated with the Provisionals. In addition, it was claimed by McKee's critics, notably Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison, that discipline in the Belfast Brigade all but broke down in this period, leading some IRA volunteers to slip into criminality. British Intelligence was also able to use the ceasefire period to recruit more informants within the IRA.
It was therefore almost with relief that many figures in the IRA Belfast Brigade welcomed the end of the IRA ceasefire in January 1976.
Secondly, they overhauled the IRA's structures, greatly reducing the numbers of volunteers who engaged in attacks and organising them into closed cells, or "active service units", so that the information any one IRA man would have about the organisation would be limited to 5 or 6 people. This process reduced the numbers of active IRA personnel in Belfast greatly. At its peak in the early 1970s, the Brigade had had up to 1,500 members. By the early 1980s, this had been reduced to about 100 men in active service units and another 2-300 in supporting roles. The cell structure also increased the control of the Brigade's leadership over its volunteers, since all weapons were held by one "quartermaster" attached to each unit and could only be used for operations authorised by the Brigade leadership.
. These were IRA men who were either recruited as informers by the RUC or who were offered immunity from prosecution in return for testifying against other IRA men. Although the supergrass system was ultimately not very successful in securing the conviction of IRA men, it led to many IRA volunteers being arrested and detained for a long period while they were awaiting trial.
The episode began with the arrest of Belfast IRA man Christopher Black
in 1981. After securing assurances that he would have protection from prosecution, Black gave statements which lead to 38 arrests. On 5 August 1983, 22 members of the Provisional IRA were sentenced to a total of 4,000 years in prison based on Black's testimony. (Eighteen of these convictions were overturned on appeal on 17 July 1986.) Up to 600 paramilitaries were arrested under the supergrass scheme, many of them from the IRA Belfast Brigade.
The subsequent fear of informers within the Belfast Brigade did much to diminish the effectiveness of its units. While, during the 1970s, the Brigade had been the most active of the IRA's command areas, in the 1980s and 1990s, the IRA's rural units became relatively more important within the organisation. Informers were one aspect of this shift, other factors cited include, "the increasing sophistication of the IRA's enemies in Belfast and Derry," and the electoral strategy of Sinn Fein, which meant that, "in Belfast IRA operations had been scaled down."
In 1990, senior Sinn Féin
and IRA figure Danny Morrison was arrested while interrogating an IRA informer in Belfast. In 2005, Denis Donaldson
, a former Belfast IRA man and senior Sinn Féin worker, was "outed" as an informer. He was later killed in his holiday home in Donegal
. The most senior alleged informer in the Belfast IRA was Freddie Scappaticci
, who was the head of the IRA's Internal Security Unit
from 1980 to 1990. Scappattici continues to deny the allegations that he was an informer. The fact that the charge is considered to be credible, however, shows the extent to which the fear of informers permeated the Belfast IRA.
by the SAS
while on a bombing mission. Their funerals were attacked by a loyalist gunman named Michael Stone
, who killed three mourners (the Milltown Cemetery attack
). At the funeral of one of those killed, two off-duty-but-armed soldiers drove into the procession. They were beaten and then killed by IRA members, in an incident known as the 'corporals killings
'.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the loyalist paramilitaries stepped up their killings of Catholics. In response, the IRA in Belfast tried to assassinate loyalist leaders. It wanted to avoid retaliatory sectarian attacks against Protestant civilians like those which had taken place in the 1970s. In one effort to wipe out the leadership of the Ulster Defence Association
in 1993, however, it committed one of the worst atrocities of the IRA campaign. Two Belfast Brigade volunteers from Ardoyne
were supposed to bomb a fish shop in the Shankill Road
where Johnny Adair
and other UDA men were meeting. However, the bomb exploded prematurely and killed one of the bombers, Thomas Begley
, and 9 Protestant civilians. In addition, 58 people were wounded. The intended targets were not in the building.
The 'tit-for-tat' cycle of killings between the IRA and the loyalists continued down to August 1994, when the IRA called a unilateral ceasefire.
While the IRA called off its ceasefire in 1996-1997, the Belfast Brigade remained quiet during this period. IRA actions were heavily restricted by the army council in the major urban areas in order to avoid civilian casualties. Meanwhile the bombing campaign was diverted to the British mainland.
by the Irish National Liberation Army
. The IRA in Belfast in retaliation killed a senior Ulster Defence Association
paramilitary.
In 2004, the Brigade was accused of carrying out the Northern Bank robbery
, the biggest ever robbery in the British Isles. This, however, has never been proven. Also in late 2004, suspected IRA members in the Short Strand killed a Catholic, Robert McCartney
, in a pub brawl. Allegedly other IRA members destroyed the evidence of the killing and intimidated McCartney's relatives, who wanted the killers convicted.
In the summer of 2005, the IRA decommissioned much of its weaponry. Although no details of this process were disclosed, most of the Belfast Brigade's arms are thought to have been destroyed.
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
was the largest of the organisation's command areas, based in the city of Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
. Founded in 1969, along with the formation of the Provisional IRA, it was historically organised into three battalions; the First Battalion based in the Andersonstown/Lenadoon/Twinbrook area of Southwest Belfast; the Second Battalion based in the Falls Road/Clonard/Ballymurphy district of West Belfast; and the Third Battalion organised in nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
enclaves in the north (Ardoyne
Ardoyne
Ardoyne is an Irish nationalist, working class and mainly Catholic district in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. It gained notoriety due to the large number of incidents during "The Troubles". It is home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants...
, New Lodge
New Lodge, Belfast
The New Lodge is an urban, working-class Catholic community in Belfast, Northern Ireland, immediately to the north of city centre. The landscape is dominated by several large tower blocks. The area has a number of murals, mostly sited along the New Lodge Road...
, Ligoniel), south (the Markets, Lower Ormeau) and east (Short Strand
Short Strand
The Short Strand is a mainly-nationalist area in east Belfast, surrounded by a mainly-unionist area. It is within the townland of Ballymacarret and sits on the east bank of the River Lagan in County Down.-Security issues:...
) of the city.
Formation
The Belfast Brigade was one of the first active units of the Provisional IRA, after the split in the IRA in late 1969. In the aftermath of the 1969 Northern Ireland riots1969 Northern Ireland Riots
During 12–17 August 1969, Northern Ireland was rocked by intense political and sectarian rioting. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising from the civil rights campaign, which was demanding an end to government discrimination against Irish Catholics and nationalists...
, many republicans in Belfast felt that the IRA had let down the city's Catholic and nationalist community by failing to prevent the assault and burning of Catholic streets by loyalists
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
. Billy McKee
Billy McKee
Billy McKee is an Irish republican and was a founding member and former leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army .-Early life:McKee was born in Belfast in the early 1920s, and joined the Irish Republican Army in 1939. During the Second World War, the IRA carried out a number of armed...
accused Billy McMillen
Billy McMillen
Billy McMillen was an Irish republican activist and an officer of the Official Irish Republican Army...
, the IRA's Belfast
Belfast Brigade, Irish Republican Army
The Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army was formed in March 1921 during the Irish War of Independence, when the IRA was re-organised by its leadership in Dublin into Divisions and Joe McKelvey was appointed commander of the Third Northern Division, responsible for Belfast and the...
commander, and the Dublin-based IRA leadership, of having failed to provide arms, planning or manpower to defend Catholic streets. .
On 22 September, McKee and a number of other IRA men, arrived armed at a meeting called by McMillen and tried to oust him as head of the Belfast IRA. They did not succeed, but announced that they would no longer be taking orders from the IRA leadership in Dublin. In December of that year, the IRA split into the Provisional IRA, which was composed of traditional militarists like McKee, and the Official IRA
Official IRA
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA is an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to create a "32-county workers' republic" in Ireland. It emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of "The Troubles"...
which was composed of the pre-split Marxist leadership and their followers.. McKee sided with the Provisionals and sat on the first Provisional Army Council
IRA Army Council
The IRA Army Council was the decision-making body of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, more commonly known as the IRA, a paramilitary group dedicated to bringing about the end of the Union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The council had seven members, said by the...
in September 1970. Nine out of thirteen IRA units in Belfast sided with the Provisionals in 1969, roughly 120 activists and 500 supporters.
The start of the armed campaign
McKee became the first Officer CommandingOfficer Commanding
The Officer Commanding is the commander of a sub-unit or minor unit , principally used in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. In other countries, the term Commanding Officer is applied to commanders of minor as well as major units.Normally an Officer Commanding is a company, squadron or battery...
(OC) of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. From the start, there was intermittent feuding between McKee's men and his former comrades in the Official IRA
Official IRA
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA is an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to create a "32-county workers' republic" in Ireland. It emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of "The Troubles"...
, as they vied for control of nationalist areas. The Provisionals, however, rapidly gained the upper hand, due to their projection of themselves as the most reliable defenders of the Catholic community.
McKee himself contributed greatly to this image by an action he undertook on 27 June 1970. Rioting broke out in the Ardoyne
Ardoyne
Ardoyne is an Irish nationalist, working class and mainly Catholic district in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. It gained notoriety due to the large number of incidents during "The Troubles". It is home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants...
area of north Belfast after an Orange Order parade
Orange walk
Orange walks are a series of parades held annually by members of the Orange Order during the summer in Northern Ireland, to a lesser extent in Scotland, and occasionally in England, the Republic of Ireland, and throughout the Commonwealth...
, and three Protestants were killed in gun battles between the Provisional IRA and loyalists. In response, loyalists prepared to attack the vulnerable Catholic enclave of Short Strand
Short Strand
The Short Strand is a mainly-nationalist area in east Belfast, surrounded by a mainly-unionist area. It is within the townland of Ballymacarret and sits on the east bank of the River Lagan in County Down.-Security issues:...
in east Belfast. When McKee heard about this, he drove to Short Strand with some men and weapons and took up position at St Matthew's Church. In the ensuing five-hour gun battle, McKee was wounded and one of his men was killed, along with at least four Protestants. See Battle of St. Matthews
The leadership of the Provisional IRA had always planned to broaden their activities from defensive operations to an offensive campaign aimed at removing British rule from Northern Ireland. This only became practicable, however, after the Catholic community's relationship with the British Army deteriorated rapidly over the course of 1970. This deterioration was due to the Army's heavy-handed treatment of Catholics and nationalists in their efforts to combat republican paramilitaries. For example, on 5–7 July 1970, up to 3,000 troops sealed off the lower Falls area and conducted an aggressive search for arms - an episode known as the Falls Curfew
Falls Curfew
The Falls Curfew was a British Army operation during 3–5 July 1970 in an area along the Falls Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The operation started with a weapons search but quickly developed into rioting and gun battles between British soldiers and the Official Irish Republican Army...
. Five civilians were killed and over 60 injured in gun battles between the troops and the Official IRA (who at that time were the dominant IRA faction in that part of Belfast). Over 300 people were arrested and the area was flooded with CS gas
CS gas
2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile is the defining component of a "tear gas" commonly referred to as CS gas, which is used as a riot control agent...
.
After this point, the Belfast Brigade's strategy shifted from 'defence' to 'retaliation' and in January 1971, they began seeking out and attacking Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
patrols. On 5 February 1971, the Belfast Provisionals killed their first soldier, Robert Curtis, who was killed by Billy Reid
Billy Reid (Irish republican)
William "Billy" Reid was a volunteer and Staff Officer in C Company, Third Battalion of the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army...
in a gun battle in the New Lodge area
New Lodge, Belfast
The New Lodge is an urban, working-class Catholic community in Belfast, Northern Ireland, immediately to the north of city centre. The landscape is dominated by several large tower blocks. The area has a number of murals, mostly sited along the New Lodge Road...
. In other confrontations around the city in the same night, one IRA man and two Catholic civilians were also killed in exchanges of fire with the Army Thereafter, gun battles between the IRA in Belfast and the security forces became a regular occurrence. By July 1971, ten soldiers had died at the hands of the IRA in the city
On 15 April 1971, McKee, along with Proinsias MacAirt
Proinsias MacAirt
Proinsias MacAirt was an Irish republican activist and long-serving member of various stripes of the Irish Republican Army.-Early years:...
, was arrested by the Army when found in possession of a hand gun. He was charged and convicted for possession of the weapon and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol, and Joe Cahill
Joe Cahill
Joe Cahill was a prominent Irish republican and former chief of staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army .- Background :In May 1920, Cahill was born in Divis Street in West Belfast, Ireland, where his parents had been neighbours of the Scottish-born Irish revolutionary James Connolly.Cahill...
took over as OC of the Belfast Brigade.
In the early years of the Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
, the Provisional IRA in Belfast expanded rapidly. In August 1969, the Brigade had just 50 active members. By the end of 1971, it had 1,200 members, giving it a large but loosely-controlled structure.
It was during this period that the IRA campaign got off the ground in the city. Joe Cahill authorised the beginning of the IRA's bombing operations as well as attacks on troops and the RUC. He based himself in a house in Andersonstown
Andersonstown
Andersonstown is a suburb of Belfast, Northern Ireland.It is overshadowed by the Black Mountain and Divis Mountain and contains a mixture of public and private housing. It is largely populated by the Irish nationalist and Roman Catholic community...
and toured the city, coordinating IRA operations.
Internment and the escalation of violence
On 9 August 1971, the Army mounted Operation DemetriusOperation Demetrius
Operation Demetrius began in Northern Ireland on the morning of Monday 9 August 1971. Operation Demetrius was launched by the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary and involved arresting and interning people accused of being paramilitary members...
, introducing internment
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
in an effort to arrest the IRA's leaders. The following day, Joe Cahill held a press conference in a school in Ballymurphy
Ballymurphy
Ballymurphy may refer to:*Ballymurphy, Belfast - an area in Belfast, northern Ireland, known for the Ballymurphy Massacre.*Ballymurphy, County Carlow - a village in County Carlow, Ireland....
and stated that the operation had been a failure. He said, "we have lost one brigade officer, one battalion officer and the rest are volunteers, or as they say in the British Army, privates". Cahill himself, however, had to flee to the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
to avoid arrest -thus relinquishing his command of the Belfast Brigade. Seamus Twomey
Seamus Twomey
Seamus Twomey was an Irish republican and twice chief of staff of the Provisional IRA.-Biography:Born in Belfast, Twomey lived at 6 Sevastopol Street in the Falls district...
took over Cahill's position as OC.
In the three days that followed the introduction of internment, there was fierce rioting and gun battles in nationalist areas of Belfast, as troops sought to enter these areas to arrest paramilitary suspects. In all, 17 people were killed in the clashes, among them two Provisional IRA members and three soldiers . In the remainder of 1971, 37 soldiers and 97 civilians were killed. In 1972, the death toll increased still further. The period was also costly for the IRA. In the Belfast Brigade's Second Battalion alone, for example, twenty IRA volunteers
Volunteer (Irish republican)
Volunteer, often abbreviated Vol., is a term used by a number of Irish republican paramilitary organisations to describe their members. Among these have been the various forms of the Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army...
were killed in the twelve months after August 1971
From 26 June to 10 July 1972 the Provisional IRA leadership declared a ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
and held talks with the British Government. This truce broke down, however, in part due to a confrontation between the IRA Belfast Brigade and the Army in Lenadoon in west Belfast. The local IRA insisted that Catholic families who had been forced from Protestant areas be housed in homes vacated by Protestant families who had fled the predominantly nationalist Lenadoon area. The loyalist Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
in turn threatened to burn the houses if they were occupied by Catholics. When the Catholic families attempted to move in, the Army stopped them, provoking a riot with the local Catholic population. Seamus Twomey, commander of the Belfast Brigade, declared that the British had violated the truce and shortly afterwards, his men opened fire on the troops. Sean MacStiofain, the IRA chief of staff, formally announced the end of the ceasefire that night, in response to events in Belfast.
In addition to attacks on the Army, a central part of the Belfast Brigade's campaign was the bombing of commercial
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
targets such as shops and businesses. The most devastating example of the Provisionals' commercial bombing campaign was Bloody Friday
Bloody Friday (1972)
Bloody Friday is the name given to the bombings by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Belfast on 21 July 1972. Twenty-two bombs exploded in the space of eighty minutes, killing nine people and injuring 130....
on 21 July 1972 in Belfast city centre, where 22 bombs were 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
Abercorn Restaurant (Belfast)
The Abercorn Restaurant was a restaurant in Belfast, Northern Ireland.On 4 March 1972, the restaurant was bombed without warning, killing two young women, Anne Owens and Janet Bereen , and injuring more than 130; many of the injured lost limbs...
in Belfast in 1972, where two people were killed and 130 wounded.
Setbacks: Operation Motorman and arrests
Up to 1972, the PIRA in Belfast effectively controlled many nationalist areas of Belfast, manning permanent checkpoints and barricades. These 'no-go areas', however, were re-taken by the Army in response to the Bloody Friday bombings of 1972, in a major operation named, Operation MotormanOperation Motorman
Operation Motorman was a large operation carried out by the British Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The operation took place in the early hours of 31 July 1972 with the aim of retaking the "no-go areas" that had been established in Belfast, Derry and other large towns.-Background:The...
. The Army proceeded to build fortified posts in republican west Belfast, thus hampering the IRA's freedom of movement. After this setback, Seamus Twomey, who had authorised the Bloody Friday operation, was replaced as Belfast Brigade commander by Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
, with Ivor Bell
Ivor Bell
Ivor Malachy Bell is an Irish republican, and a former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who later became Chief of Staff on the Army Council.-IRA career:...
as his second in command . Adams held the post for ten months, before he was arrested and interned in July 1973. The security forces managed to capture the next three commanders of the Belfast Brigade over the next year: Ivor Bell, who held the post from July 1973 to January 1974, Sean Convey, who last just two months before being arrested in March 1974, and Brendan Hughes
Brendan Hughes
Brendan Hughes , also known as "The Dark", was an Irish republican and former Officer Commanding of the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army...
, who was arrested in May 1974. These setbacks were indicative of the pressure being put on the IRA in Belfast, which was hard hit by arrests in this period.
After 1972, the numbers of soldiers killed by the IRA in Belfast fell consistently. In 1972, the Provisional IRA killed 145 members of the security forces, most of them in Belfast. By 1974, this figure had fallen to 40. Moreover, the Belfast Brigade changed its tactics in an effort to avoid the heavy losses in killed and captured they had suffered up to that point. According to the Provisional IRA, "As a result of the many arrests and increased Army presence, prolonged engagements with the Army faded out and were replaced with single shot sniping." In addition, "the revulsion caused by Bloody Friday persuaded the Provisionals to gradually abandon the car bomb.".
1975 ceasefire
Partly as a result of the losses they suffered through arrests in this period, and partly as a result of secret negotiations between the IRA leadership and the British Government, the Provisional IRA called a ceasefire from January 1975 to January 1976. The Belfast Brigade in general welcomed this respite. Under the terms of the ceasefire it ceased offensive operations against the security forces. In return, the Government funded 'incident centres', or offices for Sinn FéinSinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
in nationalist parts of Belfast, hoping to encourage the development of the Provisional Republican Movement's political wing over its military wing. In practice, however, the ceasefire brought little diminution of the violence in Belfast.
The loyalist paramilitary groups, fearing a secret deal between the IRA and the Government, stepped up their killings of Catholic civilians, killing over 300 between 1974 and 1976. Billy McKee, by that time commander of the Belfast Brigade, responded with retaliatory attacks on Protestant civilians. The IRA carried out 91 sectarian assassinations in 1974-1976, many of them in Belfast. One of the most notorious of these attacks came on 13 August 1975, when an IRA team led by Brendan McFarlane
Brendan McFarlane
Brendan "Bik" McFarlane is an Irish republican activist. Born into a Roman Catholic family, he was brought up in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast, Northern Ireland. At 16, he left Belfast to train as a priest in a north Wales seminary...
machine-gunned Bayardo's Bar
Bayardo Bar attack
The Bayardo Bar attack took place on 13 August 1975 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A unit of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade, led by Brendan McFarlane, launched a bombing and shooting attack on the pub on Aberdeen Street , which was frequented by Ulster Volunteer Force members...
on Belfast's Protestant Shankill Road, killing five people and injuring over 50. While the attack was intended to kill Ulster Volunteer Force
Ulster Volunteer Force
The Ulster Volunteer Force is a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in late 1965 or early 1966 and named after the Ulster Volunteer Force of 1913. The group's volunteers undertook an armed campaign of almost thirty years during The Troubles...
members who used the bar, only one of the dead had paramilitary connections.
McKee was heavily criticised by many republicans for letting the Belfast IRA slip into a sectarian murder campaign. His critics were even more angry with his orders, in mid-1975, to attack the remaining Official IRA units in Belfast, in an effort to wipe out that organisation. The ensuing feud led to the deaths of 11 republican paramilitaries and a number of nationalist civilians, such as the head of the Falls Road taxi association, whose business was affiliated with the Provisionals. In addition, it was claimed by McKee's critics, notably Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison, that discipline in the Belfast Brigade all but broke down in this period, leading some IRA volunteers to slip into criminality. British Intelligence was also able to use the ceasefire period to recruit more informants within the IRA.
It was therefore almost with relief that many figures in the IRA Belfast Brigade welcomed the end of the IRA ceasefire in January 1976.
Re-organisation
Many in the IRA argued that the ceasefire period was the closest they had come to defeat so far. A grouping of young Belfast Provisionals, led by Gerry Adams and Ivor Bell, emerged from internment in 1976, determined to restructure the IRA. Firstly, they ousted Billy McKee as OC of the Belfast Brigade, accusing him of demoralising and discrediting the IRA by allowing it to become involved in sectarian and intra-republican feuding.Secondly, they overhauled the IRA's structures, greatly reducing the numbers of volunteers who engaged in attacks and organising them into closed cells, or "active service units", so that the information any one IRA man would have about the organisation would be limited to 5 or 6 people. This process reduced the numbers of active IRA personnel in Belfast greatly. At its peak in the early 1970s, the Brigade had had up to 1,500 members. By the early 1980s, this had been reduced to about 100 men in active service units and another 2-300 in supporting roles. The cell structure also increased the control of the Brigade's leadership over its volunteers, since all weapons were held by one "quartermaster" attached to each unit and could only be used for operations authorised by the Brigade leadership.
The hunger-strike period
The IRA's new cell structure was somewhat compromised during the hunger strikes of 1981. During the mass protests arising out of the dispute, IRA members in Belfast were encouraged, as well as the usual sniping and assassination attacks, to lead the rioting against the RUC and Army in nationalist areas. One effect of this was to weaken the anonymnity of the IRA's "cell" organisation. According to Bishop and Mallie, "At the height of the Hunger Strike in 1981 ... the cell structure collapsed out onto the streets as the IRA, police and army engaged each other in rioting.".Supergrasses
In the 1980s, the Belfast Brigade was hard hit by the use of supergrass informersSupergrass (informer)
Supergrass is a slang term for an informer, which originated in London. Informers had been referred to as "grasses" since the late-1930s, and the "super" prefix was coined by journalists in the early 1970s to describe those informers from the city's underworld who testified against former...
. These were IRA men who were either recruited as informers by the RUC or who were offered immunity from prosecution in return for testifying against other IRA men. Although the supergrass system was ultimately not very successful in securing the conviction of IRA men, it led to many IRA volunteers being arrested and detained for a long period while they were awaiting trial.
The episode began with the arrest of Belfast IRA man Christopher Black
Christopher Black
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer and political activist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has been involved in high-profile cases involving human rights and war crimes and has defended those accused of these crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and is on the list of...
in 1981. After securing assurances that he would have protection from prosecution, Black gave statements which lead to 38 arrests. On 5 August 1983, 22 members of the Provisional IRA were sentenced to a total of 4,000 years in prison based on Black's testimony. (Eighteen of these convictions were overturned on appeal on 17 July 1986.) Up to 600 paramilitaries were arrested under the supergrass scheme, many of them from the IRA Belfast Brigade.
The subsequent fear of informers within the Belfast Brigade did much to diminish the effectiveness of its units. While, during the 1970s, the Brigade had been the most active of the IRA's command areas, in the 1980s and 1990s, the IRA's rural units became relatively more important within the organisation. Informers were one aspect of this shift, other factors cited include, "the increasing sophistication of the IRA's enemies in Belfast and Derry," and the electoral strategy of Sinn Fein, which meant that, "in Belfast IRA operations had been scaled down."
In 1990, senior Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...
and IRA figure Danny Morrison was arrested while interrogating an IRA informer in Belfast. In 2005, Denis Donaldson
Denis Donaldson
Denis Martin Donaldson was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army and a member of Sinn Féin who was exposed in December 2005 as an informer in the employment of MI5 and the Special Branch of the Police Service of Northern Ireland Denis Martin Donaldson (Short Strand, Belfast,...
, a former Belfast IRA man and senior Sinn Féin worker, was "outed" as an informer. He was later killed in his holiday home in Donegal
County Donegal
County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...
. The most senior alleged informer in the Belfast IRA was Freddie Scappaticci
Freddie Scappaticci
Freddie Scappaticci was accused in the Irish and British media on 11 May 2003 of being a high-level double agent in the Provisional Irish Republican Army , known by the codename Stakeknife.-Early life:...
, who was the head of the IRA's Internal Security Unit
Internal Security Unit
The Internal Security Unit was the name given to the counter-intelligence and interrogation unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army...
from 1980 to 1990. Scappattici continues to deny the allegations that he was an informer. The fact that the charge is considered to be credible, however, shows the extent to which the fear of informers permeated the Belfast IRA.
1980s and 1990s
In 1988, three Belfast Brigade IRA members were killed in GibraltarGibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
by the SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
while on a bombing mission. Their funerals were attacked by a loyalist gunman named Michael Stone
Michael Stone (loyalist paramilitary)
Michael Stone is a Northern Irish loyalist who was a volunteer in the Ulster Defence Association . Stone was born in England but raised in the Braniel estate in East Belfast, Northern Ireland. Convicted of killing three people and injuring more than sixty in an attack on mourners at Milltown...
, who killed three mourners (the Milltown Cemetery attack
Milltown Cemetery attack
The Milltown Cemetery attack The Milltown Cemetery attack The Milltown Cemetery attack (also known as the Milltown Cemetery killings or Milltown Massacre took place on 16 March 1988 in Belfast's Milltown Cemetery...
). At the funeral of one of those killed, two off-duty-but-armed soldiers drove into the procession. They were beaten and then killed by IRA members, in an incident known as the 'corporals killings
Corporals killings
The corporals killings was the killing of corporals David Robert Howes and Derek Tony Wood, two British Army soldiers of the Royal Corps of Signals killed on 19 March 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The non-uniformed soldiers were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army , after they...
'.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the loyalist paramilitaries stepped up their killings of Catholics. In response, the IRA in Belfast tried to assassinate loyalist leaders. It wanted to avoid retaliatory sectarian attacks against Protestant civilians like those which had taken place in the 1970s. In one effort to wipe out the leadership of the Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
in 1993, however, it committed one of the worst atrocities of the IRA campaign. Two Belfast Brigade volunteers from Ardoyne
Ardoyne
Ardoyne is an Irish nationalist, working class and mainly Catholic district in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. It gained notoriety due to the large number of incidents during "The Troubles". It is home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants...
were supposed to bomb a fish shop in the Shankill Road
Shankill Road bombing
The Shankill Road bombing was carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on 23 October 1993 and is one of the most notorious incidents of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA's intended target was a meeting of loyalist paramilitary leaders, which was to take place above...
where Johnny Adair
Johnny Adair
Jonathan Adair, better known as Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair is the former leader of the "C Company", 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade of the "Ulster Freedom Fighters" . This was a cover name used by the Ulster Defence Association , an Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation...
and other UDA men were meeting. However, the bomb exploded prematurely and killed one of the bombers, Thomas Begley
Thomas Begley
Thomas Begley , was a volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army...
, and 9 Protestant civilians. In addition, 58 people were wounded. The intended targets were not in the building.
The 'tit-for-tat' cycle of killings between the IRA and the loyalists continued down to August 1994, when the IRA called a unilateral ceasefire.
While the IRA called off its ceasefire in 1996-1997, the Belfast Brigade remained quiet during this period. IRA actions were heavily restricted by the army council in the major urban areas in order to avoid civilian casualties. Meanwhile the bombing campaign was diverted to the British mainland.
The post-ceasfire period
The ceasefire was reinstated in 1997 and has remained in force since then. For the most part, the IRA Belfast Brigade has not carried out armed actions. It has, however, used its arms on a few occasions. In late 1997 and early 1998, loyalist paramilitaries carried out a spate of killings of Catholic civilians in response to the killing of Billy WrightBilly Wright (loyalist)
William Stephen "Billy" Wright was a prominent Ulster loyalist during the period of violent religious/political conflict known as "The Troubles". He joined the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1975 and became commander of its Mid-Ulster Brigade in the early 1990s...
by the Irish National Liberation Army
Irish National Liberation Army
The Irish National Liberation Army or INLA is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group that was formed on 8 December 1974. Its goal is to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a socialist united Ireland....
. The IRA in Belfast in retaliation killed a senior Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
paramilitary.
In 2004, the Brigade was accused of carrying out the Northern Bank robbery
Northern Bank robbery
The Northern Bank robbery was a large robbery of cash from the Donegall Square West headquarters of Northern Bank in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Carried out by a large, proficient group on 20 December 2004, the gang seized the equivalent of £26.5 million in pounds sterling and small amounts of...
, the biggest ever robbery in the British Isles. This, however, has never been proven. Also in late 2004, suspected IRA members in the Short Strand killed a Catholic, Robert McCartney
Robert McCartney (murder victim)
The murder of Robert McCartney occurred in Belfast, Northern Ireland, allegedly carried out by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He was a father of two children and was engaged to be married in June 2005 to his longtime partner, Bridgeen Hagans...
, in a pub brawl. Allegedly other IRA members destroyed the evidence of the killing and intimidated McCartney's relatives, who wanted the killers convicted.
In the summer of 2005, the IRA decommissioned much of its weaponry. Although no details of this process were disclosed, most of the Belfast Brigade's arms are thought to have been destroyed.
Casualties
During the Troubles, the IRA Belfast Brigade lost a total of 105 of its members killed; this is the highest amount of casualties suffered by the IRA in any one brigade area. Of these, 19 were from the First Battalion, 41 from the Second and 45 from the third.See also
- Provisional IRA campaign 1969-1997
- Provisional IRA South Armagh BrigadeProvisional IRA South Armagh BrigadeThe South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army operated during the Troubles in south County Armagh. It was organised into two battalions, one around Jonesborough and another around Crossmaglen. By the 1990s, the South Armagh Brigade was thought to consist of about 40 members,...
- Provisional IRA East Tyrone BrigadeProvisional IRA East Tyrone BrigadeThe East Tyrone Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army , also known as the Tyrone/Monaghan Brigade was one of the most active republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland during "the Troubles"...