Do you know anyone that is/was in the IRA?

The True Puka

AS the title says. I'm talking about people who may Actually have been in the IRA or any one of it's seemingly innumerable factions and splinter groups - not the celtic jersey wearing, tattoo clad clowns you see in pubs who get into arguments and then start spouting that they are or have connections in "de RA" and will get a gun from the boot of their car and blow your shagging head off.

My personal story is that of a man that used to drink in a local pub (a quiet man in his 60s, not a drunked celtic jersey wearing knuckhead). Story goes that back in the 70s that him and some other fella planted a bomb in a petrol station in south Armagh. They got a call to call off the bombing. But then they decided that after all the trouble they went to organising and planting the bomb that they would just go ahead and blow it up anyway. And they did.

I've no idea which IRA he was in. It was the 70's, well before the day of the R-IRA, C-IRA or the RC-IRA so it was probably the P-IRA or O-IRA. It gets confusing!!

Unverifiyable, could be barstool republican bullsh!te but that's the story.

HondaSami

You think anyone is going to admit to that on the internet, it's not something you advertise outside the clique.

Hazys

Gerry Adams

yizorselves

I cant talk about it, just following orders ya know!

Degag

Hazys wrote: »

Gerry Adams

Hasn't he always denied it though? Martin on the other hand....

lkionm

Beyonce was in the Ra

wendell borton

Your ma's in the ra.

armaghbhoy

The rubberbandits, they're in the RA.

In seriousness though, you should know the answer to this question

and I have no comment

Kinder Bueno

Paul McGrath

lkionm

wendell borton wrote: »

Your ma's in the ra.

You are gonna get infracted because of that, just to shut you up.

Its a cover up. She really must have been.

The True Puka

Kinder Bueno wrote: »

Paul McGrath

Ooh Aah up de RA. Ooh Aah up de RA.

Praetorian Saighdiuir

Bosco

Mr. CooL ICE

Eric Cantonaah

divito06

Your selling a dead donkey my friend.. .

Nino Brown

So this is what the special branch has come to? Lets just go on boards and ask, see who bites.

Next week we'll advertise a free boat to any IRA member, collectible at their local Garda station.

ONeill2013

I know a good amount of people who were, my father was friends with someone who was jailed for a while and went on hungerstrike, some young people are proud to have family connections with PIRA which i think is wrong, I remember when I was 13 in school a girl said 'my 2 uncles were in the IRA'

I think my great-grandfathers brother may have had involvement in the 1910's, his brother died with the British army in WW1 as well.

DwightSchrute1

Do you mean the Old IRA, the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA or the I Can't Believe It's Not The IRA?

4zn76tysfajdxp

The True Puka wrote: »

I'm talking about people who may Actually have been in the IRA or any one of it's seemingly innumerable factions and splinter groups

- not the celtic jersey wearing, tattoo clad clowns you see in pubs who get into arguments and then start spouting that they are or have connections in "de RA" and will get a gun from the boot of their car and blow your shagging head off.

Same thing, really.

Gilbert Grape

Worked with a man who was one of the most wanted in the early 80's in Derry for shooting security forces,another was caught trying to blow an oil refinery up beside army barracks.The same company had a few other's that were high up in sf.

c_man

Somewhat of a local in a pub I worked in did time for membership. Absolute dickhead tbh.

twowheelsonly

If more people were in it we mightn't be in the shwitt we are now and people could be better off.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/ira.asp

con___manx1

my grandfather told me in the early eighties he was out late one evening in brittas bay county wicklow catching birds would you believe and the ira were testing out explosives close to the the beach. boom boom boom lol he didnt catch many birds lol he had an idea who they were too ; )

BillyMitchel

Hey garda, there's a lad from Belfast called Ian paisley he told my da's ma's brother's cousins twin that he was an active member of the RA.

The Backwards Man

Yep. I also know that 99.99% of the people that tell you down the pub that they were . . . . weren't

Duckworth_Luas

Liz Windsor, known to Sunday World readers by the nickname the Queen. She's in the 'RA!

Grayson

ONeill2013 wrote: »

I know a good amount of people who were, my father was friends with someone who was jailed for a while and went on hungerstrike, some young people are proud to have family connections with PIRA which i think is wrong, I remember when I was 13 in school a girl said 'my 2 uncles were in the IRA'

I think my great-grandfathers brother may have had involvement in the 1910's, his brother died with the British army in WW1 as well.

I've known a few oldtimers who were in the original IRA. So was my granddad although He died just after i was born so I can't really claim to have known him except through stories that were passed down.

I've known a few people that were members of the IRA in the 80's-90's. But I have no idea how active they were. And like the ones c_man knew, they were dickheads.

DEFTLEFTHAND

HondaSami wrote: »

You think anyone is going to admit to that on the internet, it's not something you advertise outside the clique.

Yeah, actual modern day members would never speak freely about it to strangers. The people who tell you they have connections are usually the ones who are full of sh1t.

divito06

twowheelsonly wrote: »

If more people were in it we mightn't be in the shwitt we are now and people could be better off.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/ira.asp

I totally agree. They should have never decommissioned back im july-sep 05.

Lando Griffin

Gilbert Grape wrote: »

Worked with a man who was one of the most wanted in the early 80's in Derry for shooting security forces,another was caught trying to blow an oil refinery up beside army barracks.The same company had a few other's that were high up in sf.

Great place to build a barracks in case someone didn't have enough explosives to blow it up they built it bedside an oil refinery.

Cazale

Eamon Kilmore.

Cienciano

Uncle was. Didn't do anything big, just delivered guns to people.

ONeill2013

Grayson wrote: »

I've known a few oldtimers who were in the original IRA. So was my granddad although He died just after i was born so I can't really claim to have known him except through stories that were passed down.

I've known a few people that were members of the IRA in the 80's-90's. But I have no idea how active they were. And like the ones c_man knew, they were dickheads.

It's pretty hard to find out about old family members involvement in the war of independence, it's hard enough finding a census, I'm just going by word of mouth

The True Puka

Here's the barstool republican version of Irish history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBT4ZWy6Lm4

Doom

It's like fight club, the st rule of fight club is..........;)

Gilbert Grape

Lando Griffin wrote: »

Great place to build a barracks in case someone didn't have enough explosives to blow it up they built it bedside an oil refinery.

That's the whole point,was to destroy the place.Below the A in the map is where the barracks used to be,east to that you can see the refinery.http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wlBay Road, Derry

johnny_knoxvile

I know lads in the Irish Rat Association does that count?

It's not as scary...unless you are scared of rats.

anndub

My grandfather was a gun runner for them back in the 1920's, during the war of independence. My great grandparents found out and sent him to boarding school and that was the end of that. He remained a staunch republican for life though and wasn't best pleased when my fathers career choice involved him working towards disbanding such organisations.

Mr Benevolent

Asking Boardsies if they know any terrorists... great idea.

The Queen of England

A guy I knew from Wexford was a IRA member. In the 90s, he was carrying a semtex bomb on a bus in London when the bomb exploded, blowing him to bits.

He was a fucking tool as were the majority of his ilk who carried out bombings back then.

I did a Google search & found an article about the "event" ; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/dead-ira-man-had-hitlist-of-bomb-targets-1305236.html

kfk

I'm a member of the International Reading Association. Does that count?

elefant

Yer man from the Da Vinci code- he's in the Ra.

Pacing Mule

kfk wrote: »

I'm a member of the International Reading Association. Does that count?

No it reads !

Scruffles

back in the day an uncle of mine was offered hitman services by one of their lot,he told him where to go.:P

Cody Pomeray

Quite a few locals were in the Southern Brigade of the IRA, even a local TD was a member of the Army Council up until the Good Friday Agreement, according to the Minister for Justice.

You always know the ones who were never in the IRA by their loud claims of having been in it!

With the 'genuine' IRA dying out and being romanticised, I expect it's similar to most of the population of Dublin having been in the GPO on Easter Monday...

mfceiling

Growing up in east tyrone i knew a few of the heads. Kept themselves to themselves but you wouldn't cross them.

One of my good mates in work his uncle was one of the original hunger strikers - this lad had connections (he used them to get out of a serious assault charge in dublin - got away with it after 2 phonecalls!!)

Foreman on a job i was on had lost both his parents in the troubles and was involved someway in something!!

St.Spodo

Yes, I know one person who was involved in Provisional activity, and I strongly suspect one more.

tdv123

Yeah, knew a guy who got done for gun running back in the 70's.

Grayson

ONeill2013 wrote: »

It's pretty hard to find out about old family members involvement in the war of independence, it's hard enough finding a census, I'm just going by word of mouth

There's a load of records in the military archives. We were lucky. family members still have things like the service revolver (which was decomissioned) and medals. But there was little paper work.
We looked in the records office and some stuff was still classified. But apparently that's not unusual. There's feck loads that hasn't passed the 100 year rule yet.

BTW, the census from 100 years ago is online. I managed to find both my grand fathers in it. Although they were still teenagers in the newest one.

Cody Pomeray

Grayson wrote: »

There's a load of records in the military archives. We were lucky. family members still have things like the service revolver (which was decomissioned) and medals. But there was little paper work.
We looked in the records office and some stuff was still classified. But apparently that's not unusual. There's feck loads that hasn't passed the 100 year rule yet.

BTW, the census from 100 years ago is online. I managed to find both my grand fathers in it. Although they were still teenagers in the newest one.

A quick search in the national newspaper archives search engine can bring up pretty good findings too.

They listed things like Sinn Féin contributions/ subscriptions and the amounts paid, so even if someone's family member wasn't in the IRB/ SF, you can tell what their political views were.

pragmatic1

Yeah I know a few ex stickies, an ex INLA man and worked with two former provos. No different to you or me, just circumstances can make people do crazy things.

Dyr

Grandfather was in it back in the 40s, knew him anyway

Growing up as a kid I knew men who were involved back in the 70's, looking back one of them was deffo a PTSD case. Then, as it turned out, some lads my age that I knew wound up in the provos and the reality real IRA. Possibly the continuity error bunch too.