Was the Provisional IRA at any one time larger than the Irish Defence Forces?

paky · 17-06-2010 8:49pm #1

Glenshane Pass · 17-06-2010 10:16pm

No, the PIRA itself wasn't, but if you take into account supporting activists, then yes.

Run_to_da_hills · 17-06-2010 11:23pm

paky wrote: »

Was the Provisional IRA at any one time larger than the Irish Defence Forces?

It was probably more equipped than the defense forces.

17-06-2010 11:27pm

paky wrote: »

Was the Provisional IRA at any one time larger than the Irish Defence Forces?

I doubt it, but their small size was their strength too - the war of the flea and all that.

Glenshane Pass · 17-06-2010 11:44pm

After Bloody Sunday (Hunger Strikes and Loughgall aswell for example) the ranks swelled, especially in of course Derry and Belfast, with what was a few dozen becoming thousands. Of course the Army was unable to deal both in arming new Volunteers and training them. Had the huge amounts of weapons from Libya and other sources arrived earlier - a more dramatic story would have evolved no doubt.

punchdrunk · 18-06-2010 12:43pm

I've read that the strength of active service units was only in the region of ~500 at any one time

flutered · 18-06-2010 12:51pm

in numbers no.
effectiveness yes.

punchdrunk · 18-06-2010 1:09pm

flutered wrote: »

in numbers no.
effectiveness yes.

not sure what you mean by that?

comparing an organized military organisation to a paramilitary organisation (I'll be kind and not call them terrorists) is a bit apples & oranges don't you think?

the Irish Army were never called into action North of the border by the Irish Government,so how can you call them Ineffective when they were never asked to be involved?

Sebastien De Valmont · 18-06-2010 1:29pm

The IRA had thousands of supporters, political activists, sympathisers and fundraisers.

But the number of people who actually were on active service were only a few hundred.

Few of those people would have had military quality training - tactical training, explosives and small arms.

Some IRA members joined the FCA to get basic military training or the British Army to get both training and to get inside knowledge on how the British conducted operations.

It didn't take much training to shoot someone in the head point blank with a pistol.

The few occasions where the IRA actually tried to fight a battle with the British Army rather than a hit and run attack ended with defeat.

At Loughall, eight IRA men were ambushed by the elite SAS Special Forces and wiped out.

Professional soldiers especially elite soldiers practice firing their weapons regularly and take part in simulated attack and defence exercises.
They learn to dismantle and put their weapons together blind folded.

A soldier is trained to place his shots inside the area of a saucer at a range of several hundred yards, to conserve his ammunition even when under fire and to maintain fire discipline.

Few IRA would have had that training.

The Irish Defence Forces were professional Army, equipped with heavy weapons, crew served weapons and small arms.

The IRA were a rag bag of amateurs.

They were good at shooting off duty members of the security forces and planting stolen cars loaded with homemade fertiliser explosives in the middle of Northern towns but not much more than that.

They never captured any territory or held a town or wiped out any British units.

PeterIanStaker · 18-06-2010 3:29pm

I've read that PIRA Active Service units were often very small, so no. Some "battalions" may have had only a few members.

Delancey · 18-06-2010 4:02pm

Sebastien De Valmont wrote: »

They never captured any territory or held a town or wiped out any British units.

Must tell that to the British Paratroopers killed in the Warrenpoint attack !

Glenshane Pass · 18-06-2010 5:48pm

They never captured any territory or held a town or wiped out any British units.

Derryard, Co. Fermanagh off the top of my head.

delta-boy · 18-06-2010 6:33pm

Sebastian, we can tell from your post that you a anti IRA. But be reasonable and dont deny the facts, of course IRA units could have a stand up fight with security forces. As in, wiping them out.

And by stand-up I dont mean prolonged.

Glenshane Pass · 18-06-2010 6:57pm

They never captured any territory or held a town or wiped out any British units.

Ballygawley also. The Mid-Ulster Command established 'no-go' areas whether the Brits like to admit it or not.
Officers Commanding Jim Lynagh and Seamus McElwaine were advocates of combining brigades and establishing liberated zones in the border counties. Unfortunately he didn't live long enough to experiment fully. His unit also perfected room clearance which could be contrasted with SAS modus operandi.

OS119 · 18-06-2010 7:41pm

Glenshane Pass wrote: »

Ballygawley also. The Mid-Ulster Command established 'no-go' areas whether the Brits like to admit it or not.
Officers Commanding Jim Lynagh and Seamus McElwaine were advocates of combining brigades and establishing liberated zones in the border counties...

i'd not be arguing against the idea that PIRA were a skillfull, inventive and reasonably disiplined force - but i think that those who argue that because they were able to create limited areas where a 'constabulary+' force feared to tread they had 'beaten the British Army on a military level' miss a fundamental point - that PIRA was, in those areas, operating towards the apogee of its military capability while the BA was operating at not far off its lowest level of force projection.

had the BA turned up as an army - with its Warrior AFV's, air support, heavy weapons and similar ROE's to PIRA - then these areas would not by any stretch of the imagination be 'no go areas', except perhaps for PIRA flying collumns...

creating a 'difficult to go' area for a force that was, in effect, armed policemen with helicopter support, is very different to holding an Army that acts like an Army.

i accept of course that there were political reasons that mandated the BA to operate in the way it did - but those who suggest that PIRA could up its ante, and change the political status quo fail to understand that the BA's operations would also change as the status quo changed.

Glenshane Pass · 18-06-2010 7:53pm

OS119 wrote: »

i'd not be arguing against the idea that PIRA were a skillfull, inventive and reasonably disiplined force - but i think that those who argue that because they were able to create limited areas where a 'constabulary+' force feared to tread they had 'beaten the British Army on a military level' miss a fundamental point - that while PIRA was, in those areas, operating towards the apogee of its military capability while the BA was operating at not far off its lowest level of force projection

That was the conflict that was in it. The British Army could not operate as they wanted to in conventional terms. Why? Because it just doesn't work. If they had have done so more, they would have suffered for it.

The RUC, while a constabulary, very rarely operated without the British Army close by, always hand in hand with eachother. Yes, the RUC were afraid to enter some areas, but so was the British Army. Even British soldiers will admit that.

There will always be different defintions of what it is to be a 'soldier' or an 'army', and a large part of people describing the IRA as 'terrorists' comes into it. I could give many instances of inhuman actions carried out by the British Army, which I don't believe lives up to anyones standards of soldierly behaviour. Either way - the IRA is viewed by a large number of people to be a dedicated and courageous organisation and more and more pieces of history and narrative are coming out as we move through a process of reconciliation and conflict resolution.

OS119 · 18-06-2010 8:10pm

sorry, my reply to your post was cut in half - my point was that the BA acted as a manpower reserve to the RUC, and by and large operated as the RUC+, not as an army. the BA's ability to operate as a conventional army wasn't constrained by PIRA, but by politics, and not SF politics.

PIRA didn't really fight an army, it couldn't be said to have beaten or held it - the example that proves this is that for all the success of the South Armagh ASU's, when the BA went for the Cullyhanna Gun Team as an Army, they deployed there, and stayed there - and there was fcuk all PIRA could do about it.

Glenshane Pass · 18-06-2010 10:36pm

OS119 wrote: »

sorry, my reply to your post was cut in half - my point was that the BA acted as a manpower reserve to the RUC, and by and large operated as the RUC+, not as an army. the BA's ability to operate as a conventional army wasn't constrained by PIRA, but by politics, and not SF politics.

PIRA didn't really fight an army, it couldn't be said to have beaten or held it - the example that proves this is that for all the success of the South Armagh ASU's, when the BA went for the Cullyhanna Gun Team as an Army, they deployed there, and stayed there - and there was fcuk all PIRA could do about it.

I just lost a very long post for some reason, damn it.

I would agree with you in regards to certain situations. I believe politics restricted the use of shoot to kill policy such as the awful events at Loughgall and Drumnakilly.

However, I believe that British Army movements in South Armagh and Fermanagh were definitely hampered because of IRA organisation in those areas. Heh, even today the police (armed but not armoured of course) won't go into areas such as Roslea and Lisnaskea for fear of an ambush by very willing militants in those area. With potential IED placements as well as the presence of two sniper teams (which operated for eight years and a bit) I think the decrease of the Brits on the ground replaced with observation towers and other surveillance apparatus is a clear and direct result of asymmetric warfare on the IRA's part. I don't know what you mean when you say 'deployed as an army' in the Armagh sniper capture. As far as I'm concerned the whole deployment was 'as an army' and as such was taken on in a guerrilla fighting fashion with great results.

Manic Moran · 19-06-2010 2:14am

Glenshane Pass wrote: »

I don't know what you mean when you say 'deployed as an army' in the Armagh sniper capture. As far as I'm concerned the whole deployment was 'as an army' and as such was taken on in a guerrilla fighting fashion with great results.

He means that 'no-go' areas weren't really due to the PIRA operations. If the British forces had a pressing need to go anywhere, there was nowhere they couldn't go if they had a mind to, and expect to deal with any opposition which was likely to crop up. The question was if gathering together all the units required was considered a worthy use of them. I have no doubt that if #1 on their Top Ten wanted list was identified anywhere within the boundaries of Northern Ireland, the British could have gone in there to get him. They were places that the British had to be more careful about going, and using more resources, but that they decided it wasn't worth it doesn't mean to say that they were kept out by force of arms.

Perhaps an equivalent could be found in the upper Korengal in Afghanistan. The US doesn't go there and, in fact, has pulled out generally. Perhaps the Taliban will claim that they now have made the Korengal into a no-go area for ISAF, but who cares? There's nothing that the Americans particularly need up there right now, so they're focusing elsewhere. But if Bin Laden were suddenly located in one of the Korengal sub valleys, you know that there will be helicopters showing up in short order regardless of the Taliban's 'no-go' claims.

NTM

PeterIanStaker · 19-06-2010 6:12pm

Slightly off topic, but anyone have an idea of the numerical strength of the "dissidents"? I would imagine numerically very small and not all active all of the time?

paky · 19-06-2010 7:16pm

I would say between 150-300 members of which 40-50 would be hard core activists

danbohan · 19-06-2010 7:23pm

Sebastien De Valmont wrote: »

The IRA had thousands of supporters, political activists, sympathisers and fundraisers.

But the number of people who actually were on active service were only a few hundred.

Few of those people would have had military quality training - tactical training, explosives and small arms.

Some IRA members joined the FCA to get basic military training or the British Army to get both training and to get inside knowledge on how the British conducted operations.

It didn't take much training to shoot someone in the head point blank with a pistol.

The few occasions where the IRA actually tried to fight a battle with the British Army rather than a hit and run attack ended with defeat.

At Loughall, eight IRA men were ambushed by the elite SAS Special Forces and wiped out.

Professional soldiers especially elite soldiers practice firing their weapons regularly and take part in simulated attack and defence exercises.
They learn to dismantle and put their weapons together blind folded.

A soldier is trained to place his shots inside the area of a saucer at a range of several hundred yards, to conserve his ammunition even when under fire and to maintain fire discipline.

Few IRA would have had that training.

The Irish Defence Forces were professional Army, equipped with heavy weapons, crew served weapons and small arms.

The IRA were a rag bag of amateurs.

They were good at shooting off duty members of the security forces and planting stolen cars loaded with homemade fertiliser explosives in the middle of Northern towns but not much more than that.

They never captured any territory or held a town or wiped out any British units.

wow amazing what you can learn on a wet night in the pub . getting military training from fca that really cracked me up

''The Irish Defence Forces were professional Army, equipped with heavy weapons, crew served weapons and small arms.

The IRA were a rag bag of amateurs.''

did the army union allow you to say that , i mean it wont effect their hearing or anything will it , our country cant afford our brave defence force not to be motivated

i think we all know who the amateurs were !

Locust · 19-06-2010 7:50pm

delancey42 wrote: »

Must tell that to the British Paratroopers killed in the Warrenpoint attack !

Those troopers were unarmed, and travelling in a packed bus when they were blown up by the flick of a switch. And a second bomb was detonated to kill the first responders on the scene... And a few pot shots from across the border where they knew they couldn't be followed.
They never wiped out a unit in a proper firefight.

"Derryard, Co. Fermanagh off the top of my head."

They only killed 2 soldiers on a fixed checkpoint and withdrew once the British soldiers regrouped and returned fire.

I can't think of a single engagement where the PIRA (or others) have attacked, overcame and held any ground or post against 'Security Forces' in the North. Its all hit and run, i know thats guerilla warfare but the PIRA was never the size of the defence forces, never held its own in a firefight nor was capabale of fighting a conventional war. It was all guerilla warfare

Glenshane Pass · 19-06-2010 8:02pm

Locust wrote: »

"Derryard, Co. Fermanagh off the top of my head."

They only killed 2 soldiers on a fixed checkpoint and withdrew once the British soldiers regrouped and returned fire.

I can't think of a single engagement where the PIRA (or others) have attacked, overcame and held any ground or post against 'Security Forces' in the North. Its all hit and run, i know thats guerilla warfare but the PIRA was never the size of the defence forces, never held its own in a firefight nor was capabale of fighting a conventional war. It was all guerilla warfare

You are correct, mostly. But there were these types of battles in Belfast and Derry in the early days. And correct, of course the IRA wouldn't have been capable of a 'conventional' war.

Avgas · 19-06-2010 9:22pm

Glenshane Pass wrote: »

I just lost a very long post for some reason, damn it.

"I would agree with you in regards to certain situations. I believe politics restricted the use of shoot to kill policy such as the awful events at Loughgall and Drumnakilly."

Thread seems to be moving away from OP to 'were the Provos better than the Brits, or vice versa'?

The literal answer to the OP is "perhaps". In the mid 1930s the Irish regular DF was whittled down by Dev to around 5,000...not sure what reserves were but probably effective reserves were not much more than 10,000, and IRA rolls of membership would have had several thousand in the mid 1930s..but .....perhaps of which only a few hundred were 'reliably active'.

In terms of capacity to mobilize and wider public support ...there has never been any doubt but that the majority constitutional nationalist tradition could mobilize and deploy if need be tens of thousands of troops-this was done in 1922 and again in 1939-41. Moreover, public support for the IRA campaign 1969-1996 has been estimated variously at between as low as 2% and some as high as 30+%....depends when you did the poll.

Mention was made of Loughall and 'shoot to kill'. There has been no finding of unlawful killing in the case of Loughgall....only that a proper investigation should have been carried out. It was a very different situation from other so called 'shoot to kill'....the provo unit were actually carrying their arms and using them. Pretty much classic grounds for self-defence.

The reason of course it wasn't properly investigated was to protect the intelligence source(s) for what was a complete wipe out of an entire ASU...and more importantly the removal of a number of hardliners who could have opposed the Adams long-term game plan of negotiation.....this reveals
(a) just how compromised and penetrated Provos were in terms of intelligence
(b) also perhaps how good British electronic snooping was and is--always been a strong point...the same people who cracked Enigma in WW2 wouldn't find provo comms especially hard.....
[c] how poor provo tactics often were...Lynagh and his buddies had pioneered the 'spectacular' barracks attacks with a JCB delivered bomb....but a short period of reflection should have revealed that what you might get away with once.....you won't get away with a third time. Even without the mole/intel, the SAS would have been probably able to put together something like what eventually happened...it was an insane operational plan.

A frontal attack on an enemy strong point on a May evening when light was still good...and following a modus operandi that been used a few times before...and the van behind with shooters...what for?

Republicans have spun Loughall much like the British did the miracle of Dunkirk...tried to spin a defeat into a positive story of Martyrdom and perfidious albion, etc.

In a proper army the OCs would have probably been court-martialled.

Conveniently for everyone concerned, they were killed.

Delancey · 19-06-2010 9:30pm

Loughgall is portrayed in 2 ways by the Republican propaganda machine - firstly as an heroic clash of soldier against soldier and secondly as evidence of a ' shoot to kill ' policy.

Which is it guys - cos in war when the enemy get the drop on you then you get killed and theres no talk about human rights then.

paky · 19-06-2010 9:34pm

delancey42 wrote: »

Loughgall is portrayed in 2 ways by the Republican propaganda machine - firstly as an heroic clash of soldier against soldier and secondly as evidence of a ' shoot to kill ' policy.

Which is it guys - cos in war when the enemy get the drop on you then you get killed and theres no talk about human rights then.

ya just like warrenpoint

Avgas · 19-06-2010 9:50pm

Loughall was very different from Warrenpoint for both sides.....

in Loughall there were two openly armed parties...SAS/RUC and the IRA ASU....fire was exchanged....the bomb was successfully detonated and 3 RUC were wounded....then the IRA unit were eliminated...chiefly it seems by a combination of GPMG, sniper file and close-in pistols.....not very clear.

Warrenpoint was a simple 'double trap' bombing.....the shots across Carlingford were probably distractions....what Warrenpoint shows is the provos were most effective/lethal when the adopted indirect bombing...because if they tried anything else they were too exposed....which is what Loughall revealed yet again......

paky · 19-06-2010 10:28pm

Avgas wrote: »

Loughall was very different from Warrenpoint for both sides.....

in Loughall there were two openly armed parties...SAS/RUC and the IRA ASU....fire was exchanged....the bomb was successfully detonated and 3 RUC were wounded....then the IRA unit were eliminated...chiefly it seems by a combination of GPMG, sniper file and close-in pistols.....not very clear.

Warrenpoint was a simple 'double trap' bombing.....the shots across Carlingford were probably distractions....what Warrenpoint shows is the provos were most effective/lethal when the adopted indirect bombing...because if they tried anything else they were too exposed....which is what Loughall revealed yet again......

but as far as p.issing and moaning is concerned, i think there on a par

Glenshane Pass · 20-06-2010 6:52am

delancey42 wrote: »

Loughgall is portrayed in 2 ways by the Republican propaganda machine - firstly as an heroic clash of soldier against soldier and secondly as evidence of a ' shoot to kill ' policy.

Which is it guys - cos in war when the enemy get the drop on you then you get killed and theres no talk about human rights then.

Which is it? Its both as far as I am concerned. There is no doubt the Volunteers had their human rights violated. A very large document was available online, the report of the European Court of Human Rights. The SAS were brutal. At Drumnakilly an SAS operative jumped up on the bonet, then onto the roof of the target car, and fired about fifty rounds into the sunroof in some act of sick bravado.

Some of the families of the Volunteers and indeed their comrades fully accept they were in a state of war and as such was just a bad day for the Army. But its the circumstances in/by which they were killed that becomes an issue.

I think anyone who argues that there was no shoot to kill policy at Loughgall is seriously delluded.

And just to add, no one in the Republican movement subscribes to the claims of fire over the water at Warrenpoint - that never happened. Just to clarify.

troubleshooter · 20-06-2010 9:17am

Glenshane Pass wrote: »

Which is it? Its both as far as I am concerned. There is no doubt the Volunteers had their human rights violated. A very large document was available online, the report of the European Court of Human Rights. The SAS were brutal. At Drumnakilly an SAS operative jumped up on the bonet, then onto the roof of the target car, and fired about fifty rounds into the sunroof in some act of sick bravado.

Some of the families of the Volunteers and indeed their comrades fully accept they were in a state of war and as such was just a bad day for the Army. But its the circumstances in/by which they were killed that becomes an issue.

I think anyone who argues that there was no shoot to kill policy at Loughgall is seriously delluded.

And just to add, no one in the Republican movement subscribes to the claims of fire over the water at Warrenpoint - that never happened. Just to clarify.

So why is there a republican mural showing " volunteers" firing down on the scene at warrenpoint?

If we accept the republican claims the PIRA were soldiers in a war, then they are guilty of warcrimes, ie deliberatly targetting civilans.

"While 1978 saw a decrease in terrorist activity it also saw their violence sink to a new low, with the murder of a father and daughter. The vicious murder of William Gordon, on February 8th 1978 shocked the country. A part time UDR lance-corporal aged 41 married with 3 children, was murdered along with his ten year old daughter Leslie when an IRA booby trap bomb blew up underneath his car. His seven year old son Richard was blown out of the vehicle onto the footpath. This shows the real face and nature of Francis Hughes – Hughes the child killer. In his crazed spree of terror he gave no regard for life whether that of an elderly lady or a young child, to him they were legitimate targets in a campaign fuelled by sectarian hatred."

What about these childrens human rights? why do demos or campaigns for their justice by republicans? is it because it was ok for republicans to murder, but if shot in the process it became a human rights violation, how cowardly.

As for south Armagh, it was never a no go zone for the British army, this is another lie, the area had more troops based there then any other part of the north.

Was the Provisional IRA at any one time larger than the Irish Defence Forces?

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