How much money did the PIRA have?

FireFoxBoy · 01-07-2017 9:17pm #1

Any idea how much the PIRA had in their heyday? I saw some guy on the Sunday World who got busted in a RIRA weapons sting. The weapons deal was in the region of 1 million USD. Seems like a considerable amount for a small organization.

Victor · 01-07-2017 9:49pm

FireFoxBoy wrote: »

Seems like a considerable amount for a small organization.

An organisation that was into bank robbery, smuggling, extortion, etc.

FireFoxBoy · 01-07-2017 10:01pm

If the RIRA has that, then Provos must have had a lot more.

Manach · 01-07-2017 11:00pm

An interesting book on Terrorist/Insurgent organisational problems is "The Terrorist Dilemma" - while it only AFAIR dealt peripherally with the IRA it did go into the issues that a typical group like those have in gathering, storing and trusting other people with spending money. One workaround was to have foreign backers, such as the Libyans acted in the 1980s for the PIRA.

Del.Monte · 01-07-2017 11:01pm

FireFoxBoy wrote: »

Any idea how much the PIRA had in their heyday? I saw some guy on the Sunday World who got busted in a RIRA weapons sting. The weapons deal was in the region of 1 million USD. Seems like a considerable amount for a small organization.

Why don't you do a 'freedom of information' search? And, what's with your use of tense - they haven't gone away you know and I'm damn sure they didn't decommission their funds as part of the GFA.

FireFoxBoy · 03-07-2017 1:42am

Del.Monte wrote: »

FireFoxBoy wrote: »

Any idea how much the PIRA had in their heyday? I saw some guy on the Sunday World who got busted in a RIRA weapons sting. The weapons deal was in the region of 1 million USD. Seems like a considerable amount for a small organization.

Why don't you do a 'freedom of information' search? And, what's with your use of tense - they haven't gone away you know and I'm damn sure they didn't decommission their funds as part of the GFA.

what exactly is that?

Del.Monte · 03-07-2017 8:48am

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/national_government/standards_and_accountability/freedom_of_information.html

I was being sarcastic as I doubt the Provos are likely to supply you with information.

BalcombeSt4 · 03-07-2017 8:30pm

Between 1970 - 1998 probably close to the 100 million mark. On the 3 shipments that came from Libya in the mid - late 80's there was a token $2,000,000 on board one ship.

They bought thousands of AR-18 & AR-15, M1 Carbines, Heckler & Koch, CAR-15's & M16 rifles from the States usually supplied with pistols like Brownings & Smith & Wessons. In the early 1970's George Harrison spent an estimated US$1 million purchasing 2,500 - 3,000 rifles,revolvers & pistols for the IRA. They also got a number a M60 GPMG's in 1977 which they used to kill one of the highest ranking SAS officers during the war.

In the 80's they got around 40 RPG-7's, hundereds maybe thousands of AK47's, AKM's, Tauras pistols & MP5's. They also got dozens of FN MAG's, DShK HMG's, Atleast seven Military Flame Throwers (which was used on the the assault on the Derryard checkpoint in 1989). 20 SAM7's & tones of Semtex H.

They also got a large number of other weapons around Europe like the Vigneron SMG, VZ 58 rifles, G3A3's LMG, FN FNC rifles and a number of of pistols & revolvers.

There was also the famous Barret M82 & M90 sniping rifles used in South Armagh during the 1990's.

But the IRA never needed half of these weapons or the cash to buy them. Their most successful attacks (Narrow Water ambush, Balleygalley bus bombing, Newry 85 mortar attack) all used homemade, manufactured IRA weapons.
For instance a British military bomb disposal expert who worked for NSY estimated it would have taken the IRA about £500 to have cariied out the April 1993 Bishopsgate bombing which devasted Britains financial center & caused about £400,000,000 of damage.

Victor · 03-07-2017 9:27pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

For instance a British military bomb disposal expert who worked for NSY estimated it would have taken the IRA about £500 to have cariied out the April 1993 Bishopsgate bombing which devasted Britains financial center & caused about £400,000,000 of damage.

While it may have involved £500 of fertiliser, when you factor in vehicles, fuel, transport, personnel, timers / fuses / primers, safe houses, failed missions and time in prison, etc. things soon add up.

BalcombeSt4 · 04-07-2017 1:57am

Victor wrote: »

While it may have involved £500 of fertiliser, when you factor in vehicles, fuel, transport, personnel, timers / fuses / primers, safe houses, failed missions and time in prison, etc. things soon add up.

I don't know about all that but the Scotland yard fella explains Bishopsgate cost at around 4:00 in to this.

tomwaterford · 04-07-2017 2:05am

Victor wrote: »

While it may have involved £500 of fertiliser, when you factor in vehicles, fuel, transport, personnel, timers / fuses / primers, safe houses, failed missions and time in prison, etc. things soon add up.

Personal,safe houses and time in jail etc wouldve been free i would have taught??

Victor · 04-07-2017 12:33pm

tomwaterford wrote: »

Personal,safe houses and time in jail etc wouldve been free i would have taught??

Perhaps 'free at point of use', but not free.

Arsemageddon · 04-07-2017 2:36pm

The estimated annual cost of running the Provos campaign during the late 80s and 90s was about 2m sterling. A large part of this cost was made up of payments to the dependents of people who had been imprisoned and to IRA members who were on the run. Arms procurement was a relatively minor expense after Gaddafi donated huge quantities of arms.

Afraid I can't remember the source for this figure.

donaghs · 04-07-2017 4:14pm

I heard lots of stories of property investments linked back to Provo funding:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/provo-businessmen-fronted-property-drive-26739427.html

Del.Monte · 04-07-2017 4:16pm

AH Thread?

BalcombeSt4 · 26-07-2017 12:41pm

Arsemageddon wrote: »

The estimated annual cost of running the Provos campaign during the late 80s and 90s was about 2m sterling. A large part of this cost was made up of payments to the dependents of people who had been imprisoned and to IRA members who were on the run. Arms procurement was a relatively minor expense after Gaddafi donated huge quantities of arms.

Afraid I can't remember the source for this figure.

I'd say that's probably about right, after all between 10,000 - 15,000 IRA volunteers went to prison during the conflict usually doing long time.

Victor · 26-07-2017 1:03pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

I'd say that's probably about right, after all between 10,000 - 15,000 IRA volunteers went to prison during the conflict usually doing long time.

So on average, they got £160 each?

riffmongous · 26-07-2017 1:14pm

Victor wrote: »

So on average, they got £160 each?

From Gerry Bradley's book, Insider: Gerry Bradley's Life in the IRA

In the seventies, volunteers got nothing from the IRA except expenses -say if they needed a taxi to move gear...

Later in the eighties, when it was clear that there was no end in sight for the campaign, an IRA volunteer received 20£ a week. That sum remained the same right up to the Good Friday Agreement. That was less than a third of the average industrial wage in 1980 and by the 1990s it was laughable, an impossible sum with which to support a family. To put it in perspective the average weekly wage in the North in 1998 was around 280£. In the seventies, prisoners' families got 5£ a week for a married man and 3£ a week for a single man from the Prisoners' Dependants Fund, rising to the giddy heights of 10£ and 5£ respectively in the 1980s.

26-07-2017 1:14pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

I'd say that's probably about right, after all between 10,000 - 15,000 IRA volunteers went to prison during the conflict usually doing long time.

that is a huge amount of people !

Del.Monte · 26-07-2017 1:38pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

I'd say that's probably about right, after all between 10,000 - 15,000 IRA volunteers went to prison during the conflict usually doing long time.

Where did you get that very wide ranging figure from? How many were repeat offenders?

BalcombeSt4 · 27-07-2017 8:33pm

Del.Monte wrote: »

Where did you get that very wide ranging figure from? How many were repeat offenders?

Ed Moloney in his his 2002 book on th PIRA esitmated over 10,000 IRA volunteers where imprisoned at various times during the conflict.

Eamonn Mallie & Patrick Bishop in their 1988 book claimed 10,000 had been imprisoned and that was in 1988, 9 years before their final ceasefire.

Gerry Kelly said in an interview that around 30,000 passed through the IRA during the whole period of the conflict.

So I'd 10,000 - 15,000 is about right or close enough anyway.

BalcombeSt4 · 27-07-2017 8:40pm

Victor wrote: »

So on average, they got £160 each?

From what I'm aware they didn't get anything.

Brendan Hughes who spent a good few years on active service said volunteers had to find their own incomes, they maybe got money if they needed some to go towards an operation or something but that was it.

I think the Northern bank job in 2004 was suppose to be a pension for a few hundered top people.

Arsemageddon · 27-07-2017 10:12pm

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

From what I'm aware they didn't get anything.

Brendan Hughes who spent a good few years on active service
said volunteers had to find their own incomes, they maybe got money if they
needed some to go towards an operation or something but that was it.

So you think IRA men on the run also had to have a part time job!?

I think the Northern bank job in 2004 was suppose to be a pension for a few
hundered top people.

Everyone knows that.

paul71 · 27-07-2017 11:59pm

I am reminded of a quote allegedly attributed to the bold Brendan Behan while watching the march past of The War of Independence and 1916 survivors in 1966

Impressed by the numbers he stated "By God weren't the black and tans a fierce brave little body of men"

BalcombeSt4 · 31-07-2017 9:25pm

Arsemageddon wrote: »

So you think IRA men on the run also had to have a part time job!?

No.

I already said they would have been given money to go towards operations & stuff like that, but they had safe houses stay in very few on the runs actually slept rough maybe people like Francis Hughes, Brendan Hughes, Martin Meehan etc... those types of people who were very active might have slept in fields & barns the odd time.

I suppose the ASU's in England & Europe would have had money sent to them to keep them going & to keep their cover safe.

BalcombeSt4 · 01-08-2017 8:03pm

Another example, The INLA estimated that the explosives used in the bomb to kill Airey Neave cost £5.12. (Deadly Divisions, Henry McDonald & Jack Holland pg 139). It seems most of the money Volunteers got came from prisoner fund raising organizations.

L1011 · 14-08-2017 7:56am

donaghs wrote: »

I heard lots of stories of property investments linked back to Provo funding:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/provo-businessmen-fronted-property-drive-26739427.html

Pubs were common enough investments and laundry setups for both the PIRA and OIRA - the requirement to have a tax clearance cert to renew a liquor licence was introduced to try limit this

BalcombeSt4 · 17-08-2017 3:13am

L1011 wrote: »

Pubs were common enough investments and laundry setups for both the PIRA and OIRA - the requirement to have a tax clearance cert to renew a liquor licence was introduced to try limit this

The Sticks had alot of pubs & clubs around Belfast in the 1970's they were in to pretty much all types of racketeering including the running of "massage parlours". During the first PIRA/OIRA feud in 71, Charlie Hughes (Brendan Hughes' cousin) led D-Company on several raids on Sticky owned clubs & pubs and burned a few to the ground. Which is why Charlie Hughes was eventually killed by the Officials, it was rumored Joe McCann was the gunman who shot him.

Alot of the most well known racketeers joined the INLA & eventually ended up in the IPLO which by the early 90's was just a collection of Belfast gangsters & some sectarian nutters, but they did find a way around the tax clearance cert issue which was to just demand money from club owners or they would destroy their business, they firebombed a huge club and then shot a security guard who worked their for not paying them just before the Provos wiped them out. They also shot dead a snooker club owner for not paying them & who they deemed a "enemy of the revolution".
This was all pretty much Jimmy Brown's thinking & strange reasoning who also got them into the drugs trade and Jimmy was living in a fantasy land at the time who had outlined a strategy for himself to win Gerry Adam's West Belfast seat, become the voice of Republican politics, then over take the SDLP & become the face of Nationalist Ireland being in the White House on Paddy's day, convince Loyalists to join him & within in 10 years the IPLO would rule Ireland as a Marxist-Leninist state, unfortunately for Jimmy he was shot a few weeks after he came up with his fool-proof plan by the even crazier Sammy Ward who was shot himself a few weeks later.

How much money did the PIRA have?

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