How complicit were the southern Irish in IRA atrocities?

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Priscilla Duck

I'll assume you're referring to the Provisional IRA and our more recent history rather than the old IRA and the early fight for Irish independence.

Of course some people in the Republic of Ireland were complicit in the terrorist activities of the IRA. Anyone who denies this or tries to gloss over this inconvenient historical truth is living in denial. A prominant example of this is the arrest and subsequent trying of our Minister of Finance on charges of gun-running for the Provisional IRA in 1969. The case fell through, but did the Irish people distance themselves from his actions? Well, they elected him Taoiseach ten years later, so no, I guess not. In more recent years, gun caches have been discovered on farms in Limerick and Cork, the Real IRA (responsible for the Banbridge & Omagh bombings) is believed to be made up predominantly of terrorists from the Republic, and there were (are) IRA Brigades in Dublin, Kerry, Cork, Waterford and other areas which traditionally were charged with fundraising, training and storage of weaponry for use by the Northern units. Walk in to any number of pubs in rural Ireland and you will still find fundraisers for the likes of the 'Columbia Three' (2 of whom were born in the Republic and all of who are citizens of the Republic) and posters commemorating Bobby Sands and Sinn Fein. This sentiment may not be widespread but it does still exist, and ignoring it does not make it go away.

Sweeping our nation's more problematic history under the mat does no one any good. We should accept that of the minority of people invilved in republican terrorism on both sides of the border, a significant number of them were from the Republic of Ireland. But that does not mean that everyone in the Republic or in Northern Ireland were involved or complicit in terrorist acts; only a tiny minority in both states were ever directly involved.

Flying mop dog

Southern Irish is not a valid term but anyway to answer the question;

The majority of people in the Republic wanted nothing to do with the IRA and most certainly did not support them.

bluebell

The southern Irish members of the IRA were obviously very complicit. The rest of us, with no IRA connections, had no complicity at all. We wouldn't even have any idea of the numbers involved.

aislingthequeen

Granted the IRA turned into a criminal gang towards the end of the troubles but there was a time not that long ago that people in the north were being terrorised and persecuted by the police and terrible injustices were happening there.I am in no way condoning bombing innocent civilians but the troubles were a two way thing and if the people who live in N.Ireland can start to make peace now raking over the past helps no-one.

boofuswoolie

How complicit were the Black & Tans in the emergence of the IRA?
The parachute regiment were also complicit in recruiting IRA membership.
There is no such identity as southern Irish . Do you not think your question is ill-considered and contrived?
Atrocities are atrocities who ever commits them,
Prior to the Good Friday agreement , a referendum put to the Republic populace voted 93% for the agreement. The northern jurisdiction vote was 73%
Complicity to violence does not occur in a vacuum: it comes of deprivation of civil liberty The British were the culprits in this respect

tzddean

If you're talking about people from the republic, not at all. Most of us did not approve of the actions of the IRA in any way. In the same way that we did not approve of the actions of the loyalist terrorist groups.

deburca98

The munster command of the ira was one of the most active and heavly armed there were four provisional commands, the munster , connaught eastern and ulster.
Why do you think the gangs in limerick are so heavly armed decommisioning was not 100% effective.
The border was an effective place to remote detonate devices from as you were not in the north to be captured when they pushed the button such as the warrenpoint bomb which occurred on the same day as mountbattens death.

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