Formation of the Provisional IRA

The PIRA was formed in 1969, with the stated aim of removing the British from Northern Ireland, and to the unification of Ireland by force. It is organized into small, tightly knit cells under the leadership of the Army Council. Due to its frequent use of bombings, its assassination of politicians and diplomats, its murder of hundreds of policemen and soldiers predominantly though not exclusively in Northern Ireland and its alleged role in racketeering, it is generally described as a terrorist group. Its supporters prefer the label guerrilla.¹

Split from the 'Officials'

The Provos were initially a splinter group of the Official IRA, which claimed descent from the Old IRA, which was the army of the Irish Republic, (1919-22), and which split into pro- and anti-treaty factions during the Irish Civil War. The 'Officials', or Official IRA, moved to a more Marxist analysis of the 'Irish Problem' in the mid 1960s. The Provos held to a more traditional republican analysis and became larger and more successful, eventually overshadowing the original group. The name arose when those who were unhappy with the IRA's Army Council formed a "Provisional Army Council" of their own, echoing in turn the "Provisional Government" proclaimed during the Easter Rising of 1916.

The split in the armed wing of the republican movement was mirrored in the separation of their political wing, Provisional Sinn Féin (later known simply as Sinn Féin), from the older organisation (which itself eventually became the Workers' Party). The new Provisional group was less committed to a revolutionary class-based socialist view of the situation.

The PIRA has several hundred members and several thousand sympathizers, although its strength may have been affected by operatives leaving the organization to join hardline splinter groups. While it and its political wing, Sinn Féin, operated on the belief that it 'spoke for Ireland', at no stage has it never had mass support. Even with the end of its war and the entry of its ministers into government in Stormont, and with all the resulting media exposure and good-will from some, it still receives relatively small support in the Republic of Ireland (5 TDs out of 166). In Northern Ireland its support base is stronger but still remains anything but politically dominant, though if it gets more MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly at Stormont) a member of the party may become Deputy First Minister. (That post was most recently held by Mark Durkan, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, which currently has more MLAs² than Sinn Féin.)