Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign

In the early days of the Troubles (1969–72), the Provisional IRA was poorly armed, with only a handful of old weapons left over from the IRA's Border campaign of 1956–1962. The IRA had split in December 1969 into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA factions. In the first two years of the conflict, the Provisionals' main activities were defending Irish nationalist areas from attacks.[11]

In contrast to the IRA's relative inaction during the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, in the summer of 1970, the Provisional IRA mounted determined armed defences of the nationalist areas of Belfast against loyalist attackers, killing a number of Protestant civilians and loyalists in the process. On 27 June 1970, the IRA killed five Protestant civilians during street disturbances in Belfast.[12] Three more were shot in Ardoyne in north Belfast after gun battles broke out during an Orange Order parade. When loyalists retaliated by attacking the nationalist enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast, Billy McKee, the Provisionals' commander in Belfast, occupied St Matthew's Church and defended it in a five-hour gun battle with the loyalists, in what became known as the Battle of St Matthew's. One of his men was killed, he was badly wounded, and three loyalists were also killed.[13] The Provisional IRA gained much of its support from these activities, as they were widely perceived among nationalists as being defenders of nationalist and Irish Catholic people against aggression.[14]

Initially, the British Army, deployed into Northern Ireland in August 1969 to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and restore government control, was welcomed in Catholic nationalist areas as a neutral force compared to the Protestant- and unionist-dominated RUC and Ulster Special Constabulary.[15] However, this good relationship with nationalists did not last long. The Army was soon discredited in the eyes of many nationalists by incidents such as the Falls Curfew of July 1970, when 3,000 British troops imposed martial law conditions on the nationalist lower Falls area of west Belfast. After a gun and grenade attack on troops by Provisional IRA members, the British fired over 1,500 rounds of ammunition in gun battles with both the Official IRA and Provisional IRA in the area, killing six civilians.[16] Thereafter, the Provisionals continued targeting British soldiers. The first soldier to die was gunner Robert Curtis, killed by Billy Reid in a gun battle in February 1971.[17]

1970 and 1971 also saw feuding between the Provisional and Official IRAs in Belfast, as both organisations vied for supremacy in nationalist areas. Charlie Hughes, commander of the Provisionals' D Company in the Lower Falls, was killed before a truce was brokered between the two factions.[18]

The M1 Garand rifle, typical of the World War II-era weaponry the Provisional IRA had in the early 1970s

In the early 1970s, the IRA imported large quantities of modern weapons and explosives, primarily from supporters in the Republic of Ireland and Irish diaspora communities within the Anglosphere as well as the government of Libya.[19][20] Leader of the Opposition Harold Wilson in 1971 secretly met with IRA leaders with the help of John O'Connell, angering the Irish government; Garret FitzGerald wrote 30 years later that "the strength of the feelings of our democratic leaders ... was not, however, publicly ventilated at the time" because Wilson was a former and possible future British prime minister.[21]

As the conflict escalated in the early 1970s, the numbers recruited by the IRA mushroomed, in response to the nationalist community's anger at events such as the introduction of internment without trial and Bloody Sunday, when the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment of the British Army shot dead 14 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry.[22]

The early 1970s were the most intense period of the Provisional IRA campaign. About half the total of 650 British soldiers to die in the conflict[23] were killed in the years 1971–73.[24] In 1972 alone, the IRA killed 100 British soldiers and wounded 500 more. In the same year, they carried out 1,300 bomb attacks and 90 IRA members were killed.[25]

Up to 1972, the IRA controlled large urban areas in Belfast and Derry, but these were eventually re-taken by a major British operation known as Operation Motorman. Thereafter, fortified police and military posts were built in republican areas throughout Northern Ireland. During the early 1970s, a typical IRA operation involved sniping at British patrols and engaging them in fire-fights in urban areas of Belfast and Derry. They also killed RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers, both on and off-duty, and a number of retired policemen and UDR soldiers. These tactics produced casualties for both sides and for many civilian bystanders. The British Army study of the conflict later described this period (1970–72), as the 'insurgency phase' of the IRA's campaign.[26]

Another element of their campaign was the bombing of commercial targets such as shops and businesses. The most effective tactic the IRA developed for its bombing campaign was the car bomb, where large amounts of explosives were packed into a car, which was driven to its target and then detonated. Seán Mac Stíofáin, the first Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA, described the car bomb both as a tactical and strategic weapon. From the tactical point of view, it tied down a great number of British troops in Belfast and other cities and major towns across Northern Ireland. Strategically, it hampered the British administration and government of the country, striking simultaneously at its economic structure.[27] While most of the IRA's attacks on commercial targets were not intended to cause casualties,[28] on many occasions they killed civilians. Examples include the bombing of the Abercorn restaurant in Belfast in March 1972, in which two young Catholic women were killed and 130 people injured, attributed to the IRA, which never acknowledged responsibility, as well as the bombing of the La Mon restaurant in County Down in February 1978, which resulted in the deaths of twelve Protestant civilian customers, and others maimed and injured.[29]

In rural areas such as South Armagh (which is a majority Catholic area near the Irish border), the IRA unit's most effective weapon was the "culvert bomb", where bombs were planted under drains in country roads. This proved so dangerous for British Army patrols that virtually all troops in the area had to be transported by helicopter,[30] a policy which continued until 2007, when the last British Army base was closed in South Armagh.[31]

The Provisional IRA declared two ceasefires in the 1970s, temporarily suspending its armed operations. In 1972, the IRA leadership believed that Britain was on the verge of leaving Northern Ireland. The British government held secret talks with the Provisional IRA leadership in 1972 to try to secure a ceasefire based on a compromise settlement within Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA agreed to a temporary ceasefire from 26 June to 9 July. In July 1972, Provisional leaders Seán Mac Stíofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Ivor Bell, Seamus Twomey, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness met a British delegation led by William Whitelaw. The IRA leaders refused to consider a peace settlement that did not include a commitment to British withdrawal to be completed by 1975, a retreat of the British Army to barracks and a release of republican prisoners. The British refused and the talks ended.[32] On Bloody Friday in July 1972 in Belfast 22 bombs exploded, killing nine people and injuring 130.[33] Bloody Friday was intended to be a demonstration of IRA strength following the ceasefire, but was a disaster for the IRA due to the authorities being unable to deal with so many simultaneous bomb alerts in a small area.[34]

By the mid-1970s, it was clear that the hopes of the Provisional IRA leadership for a quick military victory were receding. Secret meetings between IRA leaders Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Billy McKee with British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees secured an IRA ceasefire from February 1975 until January of the next year. The republicans believed initially that this was the start of a long-term process of British withdrawal. However, after several months, many in the IRA came to believe that the British were trying to bring the Provisional movement into peaceful politics without giving them any guarantees.[35]

Critics of the IRA leadership, most notably Gerry Adams, felt that the ceasefire was disastrous for the IRA, leading to infiltration by British informers, the arrest of many activists and a breakdown in IRA discipline, which in turn led to tit-for-tat killings with loyalist groups fearful of a British sell-out and a feud with fellow republicans in the Official IRA. By early 1976, the IRA leadership, short of money, weapons and members, was on the brink of calling off the campaign.[36] Instead, the ceasefire broke down in January 1976.[37]

The IRA argued that its campaign was aimed not at Protestant and unionist people, but at the British presence in Northern Ireland, manifested in the state security forces. However, many unionists argue that the IRA's campaign was sectarian and there are many incidents where the organisation targeted Protestant civilians. The 1970s were the most violent years of the Troubles. As well as its campaign against the security forces, the IRA became involved, in the middle of the decade, in a "tit for tat" cycle of sectarian killings with loyalist paramilitaries. The worst examples of this occurred in 1975 and 1976. In September 1975, for example, IRA members machine-gunned an Orange Hall in Newtownhamilton, killing five Protestants. On 5 January 1976, in Armagh, IRA members operating under the proxy name South Armagh Republican Action Force shot dead ten Protestant building workers in the Kingsmill massacre.[48]

In similar incidents, the IRA deliberately killed 91 Protestant civilians in 1974–76.[49] The IRA did not officially claim the killings, but justified them in a statement on 17 January 1976, "The Irish Republican Army has never initiated sectarian killings ...[but] if loyalist elements responsible for over 300 sectarian assassinations in the past four years stop such killing now, then the question of retaliation from whatever source does not arise".[49] In late 1976, the IRA leadership met with representatives of the loyalist paramilitary groups and agreed to halt random sectarian killings and car bombings of civilian targets. The loyalists revoked the agreement in 1979, after the IRA killing of Lord Mountbatten, but the pact nevertheless halted the cycle of sectarian revenge killings until the late 1980s, when the loyalist groups began killing Catholics again in large numbers.[50]

After the British introduced their policy of "Ulsterisation" from the mid-1970s, IRA victims came increasingly from the ranks of the RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment, including off-duty and retired personnel. Most of these were Protestant and unionist, thus the killings were portrayed and perceived by many as a campaign of sectarian assassination. Historian Henry Patterson said about Fermanagh "that the killings struck at the Protestant community’s morale, sense of security and belonging in the area was undeniable."[51] while Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley claimed that the IRA campaign in Fermanagh was "genocidal".[52]

Rachel Kowalsaki argues that the IRA did not generally engage in sectarian activities but instead targeted those they deemed responsible for British rule in Northern Ireland and that they generally only targeted members of the military and police and made efforts to avoid civilian deaths. However, Kowalsaki notes that the IRA did not recognise that while they may have thought of themselves as fighting for a united Ireland, their actions were often perceived by the Northern Irish Unionists as sectarian attacks against Protestants.[53] A similar argument was made by Lewis et al, who argue that the IRA's ideology – which held that Irish Protestants and Unionists were part of the imagined community of the Irish nation and were simply deluded into thinking themselves British by colonial oppression – meant that the organisation had an ideological restraint against mass sectarianism. However, the authors note that this same belief could also blind them to the actual effects of their campaign, as they did not acknowledge that Northern Irish Unionists regarded themselves as a distinct community and thus would perceive the IRA's activities as sectarian.[54]

Timothy Shanahan argues that while the IRA did launch attacks against legitimate targets (defined as members of the security services), many members of the security services, such as the RUC and UDR, would themselves be Protestant, and would be presumed to be Protestant by the IRA. Thus any attacks on these legitimate targets would suffice in killing members of the Protestant community, negating any need for sectarian attacks on Protestant civilians. Shanahan thus argues that while the IRA may not have been sectarian as some loyalist paramilitaries, it may not have been as anti-sectarian as popularly claimed.[55] Similar arguments were made by Steve Bruce, who also argued that Catholic RUC members were disproportionately targeted, which Bruce argues is because they were viewed as betraying their community, which only makes sense in the nature of a sectarian conflict.[56] James Dingley argues that the IRA's focus on the idea of a united and independent Ireland made it de facto sectarian, as it did not recognise Ulster Unionists as a legitimate group and wanted to use violence to pursue goals that were opposed by the majority of the Northern Irish population.[57]

Protestants in the rural border areas of counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, where the number of members of the security forces killed was high, viewed the IRA's campaign as ethnic cleansing.[58] These views have been challenged. Boyle and Hadden argue that the allegations do not stand up to serious scrutiny,[59] while nationalists object to the term on the grounds that it is not used by unionists to describe similar killings or expulsions of Catholics in areas where they form a minority.[60] Henry Patterson, professor of politics at the University of Ulster, concludes that while the IRA's campaign was unavoidably sectarian, it did not amount to ethnic cleansing.[61] Although the IRA did not specifically target these people because of their religious affiliation, more Protestants joined the security forces so many people from that community believed the attacks were sectarian.[58] IRA volunteer Tommy McKearney argues that due to the British government's Ulsterisation policy increasing the role of the locally recruited RUC and UDR, the IRA had no choice but to target them because of their local knowledge, but acknowledges that Protestants viewed this as a sectarian attack on their community.[58][62] Gerry Adams, in a 1988 interview, claimed it was, "vastly preferable" to target the regular British Army as it "removes the worst of the agony from Ireland" and "diffuses the sectarian aspects of the conflict because loyalists do not see it as an attack on their community".[63]

Towards the end of the Troubles, the IRA widened their campaign even further, to include the killing of people who worked in a civilian capacity with the RUC and British Army. These workers were mostly, but not exclusively, Protestant, although Catholic judges, magistrates, and contractors were also assassinated by the IRA. In 1992, in Teebane, near Cookstown, an IRA bomb killed eight Protestant building workers who were working on a British Army base at Omagh.[64]

Gelignite was a common explosive obtained by the IRA in the Republic of Ireland for use in Northern Ireland. For example, it was behind the 48,000lbs of explosives detonated in Northern Ireland in the first six months of 1973 alone.[107]

In the early 1970s, the IRA gained control of a majority of the stockpiled weaponry still held from previous IRA campaigns. The stockpiles consisted mostly of pre-World War II small firearms from British and Irish armories ranging from Lee–Enfield, plus Bren light machine guns (LMG), a Thompson submachine gun (SMG), and Webley revolvers from British and Irish armories. In May 1970, Irish politicians Charles Haughey, Neil Blaney, and John Kelly, Irish Army Captain James Kelly, and Belgian businessman Albert Luykx were acquitted during the Arms Crisis of smuggling weapons to the IRA during the beginning of the conflict.

The primary and prominent source of arms in the Republic of Ireland for the IRA was explosives.[108][109] Mines, quarries, farms, and construction sites were where the explosive, gelignite, as well as detonators and safe fuses located.[110] Stratton Mills, MP for Belfast North, said that "there is virtually a gelignite trail across the [Irish] border", comparing it with the famous Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War.[111][112] Mills stated that:

[S]ome 60 percent of the gelignite used in Northern Ireland has come from Southern Ireland, and the security authorities believe that the figure might well be higher than that because of the difficulty of definite identification in all cases. In Northern Ireland steps are taken to control the use and distribution of gelignite. Certain steps have been taken recently in the South, but there is a great need for much tighter measures.[113]

After the Irish government began cracking down on commercial explosives, IRA engineers began moving "to develop alternative supplies of explosives" in the Republic of what the media termed "bomb factories", the source for the vast majority of the explosions in the north and against England for the remainder of the conflict. By spring 1972, they successfully manufactured quantities of two types of homemade explosives (HMEs), using mostly commercially available fertilizers and ANFO (a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil). The British Army estimated by the summer of that year, 90% of the bombings involving HMEs originated from the South. These earliest crude devices were unreliable and many IRA volunteers were killed due to premature explosions. As a result, the IRA centralised manufacture of the chief components, and IRA engineers were required to have the training necessary to complete the devices properly. The Hibernia Magazine reported that over 48,000 lbs of explosives had been detonated in Northern Ireland in the first six months of 1973, most of them IRA bombs.[114]

In the 1980s, HMEs of Southern Irish origin continued to flow into Northern Ireland and England. In 1981, a British Home Office report said that 88.7% of explosives used in Northern Ireland originated from the Republic of Ireland: 88% from fertilizers and 0.7% from commercial explosives. As with the previous decade, the IRA relied mostly on fertilizer bombs for the vast majority of its bombing campaign throughout the conflict.[115]

An AK-47 rifle, over 1,000 of which were smuggled by Muammar Gaddafi to the Provisional IRA in the 1980s

In the 1980s, the Provisional IRA received large quantities of modern weaponry, including heavy weaponry such as heavy machine guns, over 1,000 rifles, several hundred handguns, rocket-propelled grenades, flamethrowers, surface-to-air missiles and the plastic explosive Semtex, from the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi. There were four successful shipments between 1985 and 1986; three of these trips were carried out by the trawler Casamara and a fourth by the oil-rig replenisher Villa. All told, they brought in 110 tons of weaponry.[116][117][118] A fifth arms cargo on board the coaster Eksund was intercepted by the French Navy in 1987.[119] This brought the Provisional IRA's new capability to the attention of the authorities on either side of the Irish border. Five men were captured with the boat; three IRA members, including Gabriel Cleary, received jail sentences.[120] Reportedly, Gaddafi donated enough weapons to arm the equivalent of two infantry battalions.[121]

The IRA therefore came to be very well armed in the latter part of the Troubles. Most of the losses it inflicted on the British Army, however, occurred in the early 1970s, although they continued to cause substantial casualties to the British military, the RUC and UDR throughout the conflict. According to author Ed Moloney, the IRA Army Council had plans for a dramatic escalation of the conflict in the late 1980s, which they likened to the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War, with the aid of the arms obtained from Libya.

The plan had been to take and hold several areas along the border, forcing the British Army to either withdraw from border areas or use maximum force to re-take them – thus escalating the conflict beyond the point which the Provisional IRA thought that British public opinion would accept.[122] However, this offensive failed to materialise. IRA sources quoted in the Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney say that the interception of the Eksund shipment eliminated the element of surprise which they had hoped to have for this offensive. The role of informers within the IRA seems to have also played a role in the failure of the "Tet Offensive" to get off the ground.[120] Nevertheless, the shipments which got through enabled the IRA to begin a vigorous campaign in the 1980s.[123] The success of the arms smuggling was a defeat for British intelligence and marked a turning point in the conflict in Northern Ireland.[124] The Libyan weaponry allowed the IRA to wage war indefinitely.[125]

Samples of Semtex-H and C4 plastic explosives

In the event, much of the IRA's new heavy weaponry, for instance the surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and flamethrowers, were never, or very rarely, used. The only recorded use of flamethrowers took place in the attack in Derryard, County Fermanagh, when two soldiers were killed when a permanent checkpoint manned by the King's Own Scottish Borderers was the target of a multiple weapons attack on 13 December 1989.[126][127] The SAMs turned out to be out of date models, unable to shoot down British helicopters equipped with anti-missile technology.[128] The missiles were eventually rendered useless when their batteries wore out.[129] The Semtex plastic explosive proved the most valuable addition to the IRA's armoury.[130]

As it was, the numbers of members of the British and Northern Ireland military personnel killed by the IRA increased in the years 1988–1990, from 12 in 1986 to 39 in 1988, but dropped to 27 in 1989 and decreased again to 18 in 1990. The death toll by 1991 was similar to that of the mid-1980s, with 14 fatalities. 32 members of the RUC were killed in the same period.[131][132]

By the late 1980s, the Provisional IRA, in the judgement of journalist and author Brendan O'Brien, "could not be beaten, it could be contained". Politically and militarily, that was the most significant factor.[133] By the late 1980s and early 1990s, roughly nine out of every ten IRA attacks were aborted or failed to cause casualties.[134] Republican sources such as Mitchel McLaughlin and Danny Morrison argued that by the early 1990s, the Provisional IRA could not attain their objectives by purely military means.[135]

A campaign to pressure Libya to pay compensation to IRA victims was derailed by the Libyan Crisis.[136]

The IRA suffered some heavy losses at the hands of British special forces like the Special Air Service (SAS), the heaviest being the killing of eight IRA members in the Loughgall Ambush in 1987, as they attempted to destroy the Loughgall RUC station.[137] The East Tyrone Brigade was hit particularly hard by British killings of their members in this period, losing 28 members killed by British forces in the period 1987–1992, out of 53 dead in the whole conflict.[138] In many of these cases, Provisional IRA members were killed after being ambushed by British special forces. Some authors alleged that this amounted to a campaign of assassination on the part of state forces (see shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland).[139]

Another high-profile incident took place in Gibraltar in March 1988, when three unarmed IRA members were shot dead by an SAS unit while scouting out a bombing target (see Operation Flavius).[140] The subsequent funerals of these IRA members in Belfast were attacked by loyalist gunman Michael Stone. At a funeral of one of Stone's victims, two plainsclothes British Army corporals were abducted, beaten and shot dead by the IRA after driving into the funeral procession (see Corporals killings).[141]

There were, however, a number of incidents in which undercover operations ended in failure, such as a shoot-out at the village of Cappagh on 24 March 1990, where plain-clothes members of the security forces were ambushed by an IRA unit, and, just two month later, Operation Conservation, which was thwarted by the IRA's South Armagh Brigade, A British soldier in an undercover position was shot dead in a counter-ambush.[142] On 2 May 1980, Joe Doherty, Angelo Fusco, Paul Magee and another IRA member were arrested after being cornered by the SAS in a house in Belfast.[143] SAS commander Captain Herbert Westmacott was hit by fire from an M60 machine gun and killed instantly.[144]

The IRA and Sinn Féin suffered from a campaign of assassination launched against their members by loyalist paramilitaries from the late 1980s. These attacks killed about 12 IRA and 15 Sinn Féin members between 1987 and 1994.[145] This tactic was unusual as the vast majority of loyalist victims were Catholic civilians.[146] In addition, loyalists killed family members of known republicans; John (or Jack) McKearney and his nephew, Kevin McKearney, and Kevin's parents-in-law, Charles and Teresa Fox (whose son, Peter, was an IRA volunteer) were all targeted by the UVF. Two of Kevin's brothers, Pádraig and Sean, were IRA volunteers killed during the Troubles.[147][148] According to recently released documents, British military intelligence stated in a secret 1973 draft report that within the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) it was likely there were soldiers who were also loyalist paramilitaries. Despite knowing this, the British Government stepped up the role of the UDR in "maintaining order" within Northern Ireland. British Government documents released on 3 May 2006 show that overlapping membership between British Army units like the UDR and loyalist paramilitary groups was a wider problem than a "few bad apples" as was often claimed.

The documents include a draft report titled "Subversion in the UDR" which detailed the problem. In 1973; an estimated 5–15% of UDR soldiers were directly linked to loyalist paramilitary groups, it was believed that the "best single source of weapons, and the only significant source of modern weapons, for Protestant extremist groups was the UDR", it was feared UDR troops were loyal to "Ulster" alone rather than to "Her Majesty's Government", the British Government knew that UDR weapons were being used in the assassination and attempted assassination of Roman Catholic civilians by loyalist paramilitaries.[149]

Loyalists were aided in this campaign by elements of the security forces, including the British Army and RUC Special Branch (see Stevens Report). Loyalist sources have since confirmed that they received intelligence files on republicans from members of British Army and police intelligence in this period. A British Army agent within the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), Brian Nelson, was convicted in 1992 of the killings of Catholic civilians. It was later revealed that Nelson, while working as a British Army agent, was also involved in the importation of arms for loyalists from South Africa in 1988.[150]

In 1993, for the first time since the 1960s, loyalist paramilitaries killed two more people than republican paramilitaries. In 1994, loyalists killed eleven more people than republicans, and in 1995, they killed twelve more. In the latter case (1995 period), the Provisional IRA 1994's cease-fire was still in place.

In response to these attacks, the IRA began a reactive assassination campaign against leading members of the UDA and UVF. By the late 1980s, the IRA Army Council would not sanction attacks on Protestant areas with a high likelihood of civilian casualties, but only on named, identified loyalist targets. The main reason for this was the negative impact of attacks on civilians on the republican movement's electoral appeal. The IRA issued a statement in 1986 saying: "At no time will we involve ourselves in the execution of ordinary Protestants, but at all times we reserve the right to take armed action against those who attempt to terrorise or intimidate our people into accepting British/unionist rule".[151] Gerry Adams stressed his party's point of view in 1989; "Sinn Féin does not condone the deaths of people who are non-combatants".[152]

To maximise the impact of the tactic, the IRA targeted senior loyalist paramilitary figures. Among the leading loyalists killed were John McMichael, Joe Bratty, Raymond Elder and Ray Smallwoods of the UDA and John Bingham and Robert Seymour of the UVF.[152][153] Mechanic Leslie Dallas, shot dead by the IRA along with two elderly Protestants in 1989, was also claimed by the IRA to be a member of the UVF[154] but his family and the UVF denied this. He is listed in the Sutton Index as a civilian.[155]

One IRA bomb on 23 October 1993 caused civilian casualties, when a bomb was planted at a Shankill Road fish shop. The bomb was intended to kill the entire senior leadership of the UDA, including Johnny Adair, who sometimes met in a room above the shop. Instead, the bomb killed eight Protestant civilians, a low-level UDA member and also one of the bombers, Thomas Begley, when the device exploded prematurely. In addition, 58 more people were injured.[156] This provoked a series of retaliatory killings by the UVF and UDA of Catholic civilians with no political or paramilitary connections.[157][158] According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), University of Ulster statistics, the Provisional IRA killed 30 loyalist paramilitaries in total. Lost Lives gives a figure of 28[159] out of a total number of loyalists killed in the Troubles of 126.[160]

According to The Irish War by Tony Geraghty, the IRA killed 45 loyalists.[161] These killings intensified just before the IRA ceasefire of 1994, with UDA members Ray Smallwoods being killed on 11 July, Joe Bratty & Raymond Elder on 31 July & a UVF commander Billy Wright had been seriously injured by the IRA in June. As well as these IRA killings the other Republican paramilitary the Irish National Liberation Army killed three UVF men during the same period including UVF Belfast commander Trevor King. The loyalist groups called their ceasefire six weeks after the IRA ceasefire of that year and they argued that it was the killing of Catholic civilians and republicans that had forced the IRA ceasefire by placing intolerable pressure on nationalists, a view echoed by former deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, John Taylor, Baron Kilclooney.[162]

According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), a research project at the University of Ulster, the IRA was responsible for 1,705 deaths, about 48% of the total conflict deaths.[195] Of that figure:

• 1,009 (59.2%) were members or former members of the British security forces, including:
  • 697 British military personnel: 644 from the British Army (including the Ulster Defence Regiment/Royal Irish Regiment), 4 from the Royal Air Force, 1 from the Royal Navy, and 43 former British military personnel.[4]
  • 312 British law enforcement personnel: 270 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers, 14 former RUC officers, 20 Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) officers, 2 former NIPS officers, and 6 English police officers.[4]
• 508 (29%) were classed as civilians, including 17 political activists.[4]
• 133 (7.8%) were members of the IRA, killed as informers or in premature explosions of bombs.[4]
• 39 (2.2%) were loyalist paramilitary members: 26 Ulster Defence Association (UDA) members, 12 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) members and 1 Red Hand Commando member.[4]
• 8 (0.4%) were members of the Irish security forces, including 6 Gardaí, 1 Irish Prison Service officer, and 1 Irish Army soldier.[4]
• 5 (0.2%) were members of other republican paramilitary groups: 4 Official IRA members and 1 IPLO member.[4]

Another detailed study, Lost Lives,[5] states the Provisional IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,781 people up to 2004. It says that, of this figure:

• 944 (53%) were members of the British security forces, including: 638 British military (including the UDR), 273 Royal Ulster Constabulary (including RUC reserve), 23 Northern Ireland Prison Service officers, five British police officers and five former British soldiers.
• 644 (36%) were civilians.
• 163 (9%) were Republican paramilitary members (including IRA members, most caused their own deaths when bombs they were transporting exploded prematurely).
• 28 (1.5%) were loyalist paramilitary members.
• 7 (0.3%) were members of the Irish security forces (6 Gardaí and one Irish Army).

Lost Lives states that 294 Provisional IRA members died in the Troubles.[160] The IRA lost 276 members during the Troubles according to the CAIN figures. In addition, a number of Sinn Féin activists or councillors were killed, some of whom were also IRA members. An Phoblacht gives a figure of 341 IRA and Sinn Féin members killed in the Troubles, indicating between 50–60 Sinn Féin deaths if the IRA deaths are subtracted.[196]

About 120 Provisional IRA members caused their own deaths, almost all when they were killed by their own explosives in premature bombing accidents – 103 deaths according to CAIN, 105 according to an RUC report of 1993. Nine IRA members died on hunger strike.[197] Lost Lives gives a figure of 163 killings of republican paramilitary members (this includes bombing accidents and feuds with republicans from other organisations).[159] Of the remaining 200 or so IRA dead, around 150 were killed by the British Army, with the remainder killed by loyalist paramilitaries, the RUC and the UDR.

Far more common than the killing of IRA volunteers however, was their imprisonment. Journalists Eamonn Mallie and Patrick Bishop estimate in The Provisional IRA (1988), that between 8–10,000 Provisional IRA members were, up until that point, imprisoned during the course of the conflict, a number they also give as the total number of IRA members during the Troubles.[3] The total number of Provisional IRA members imprisoned must be higher, once the figures from 1988 onwards are included.

Apart from its armed campaign, the Provisional IRA was also involved in many other activities, including "policing" of nationalist communities, robberies and kidnapping for the purposes of raising funds, fund raising in other countries, involvement in community events and parades, and intelligence gathering. The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), a body supervising the ceasefire and activities of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland has judged the Provisional IRA to have ceased all of the above activities. The IMC issues a bi-yearly public report on the activities of all paramilitary groups operating and known of in Northern Ireland.[214]

• Chronologies of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions
• Improvised tactical vehicles of the Provisional IRA
• List of attacks on British aircraft during The Troubles