Irish Republican Army

Based on Wikipedia: Irish Republican Army

The Irish Republican Army might be the most fractious organization in modern history. As playwright and former member Brendan Behan once quipped, the first item on any Irish organization's agenda is "the split." For the I-R-A, this hasn't been a joke. It's been their defining characteristic.

Over the course of a century, what began as a unified resistance movement has splintered into at least a dozen different organizations, each claiming to be the true inheritor of the original I-R-A's legacy. Think of it as a family tree drawn by someone having a nervous breakdown. Every few years, another branch splits off, insisting they alone represent the authentic vision of Irish republicanism.

The Original Vision

The story begins in 1919. Ireland had been under British rule for centuries, and after the failed Easter Rising of 1916, a new approach emerged. Members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, reinforced by Irishmen who had fought for Britain in World War One and returned disillusioned, formed what we now call the "old I-R-A."

This wasn't just another resistance group. In Irish law, this I-R-A was the legitimate army of the Irish Republic, as declared by the revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann. They fought the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1921, a guerrilla campaign against British forces that would shape the tactics of resistance movements worldwide.

The Irish Republican Army's core belief was simple to state but complicated to achieve: all of Ireland should be an independent republic, completely free from British colonial rule. Not home rule. Not dominion status. Full independence.

The First Great Split

Then came the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, and with it, the first devastating split.

The treaty was a compromise. It created the Irish Free State, giving most of Ireland independence but keeping it within the British Commonwealth. Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom. For some I-R-A members, this was an acceptable stepping stone toward full independence. For others, it was a betrayal of everything they'd fought for.

The pro-treaty faction, led by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, formed the National Army of the new Irish Free State. They became the government forces, the "Regulars." Their political wing evolved into Cumann na nGaedheal, which later merged into Fine Gael, today one of Ireland's major political parties.

The anti-treaty faction kept the name Irish Republican Army. Led by Liam Lynch and supported politically by Éamon de Valera, they rejected both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland as illegitimate creations of British imperialism. These two Irish forces, former comrades, fought a brutal civil war from 1922 to 1923.

The anti-treaty I-R-A lost.

The Wilderness Years

But losing didn't mean disappearing. The anti-treaty I-R-A refused to recognize either the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland. Through the 1920s and 1930s, they attempted various campaigns: bombings in Britain, operations in Northern Ireland, occasional military activities in what had become the Irish Free State and later the Republic of Ireland.

Politically, the anti-treaty movement also splintered. In 1926, Éamon de Valera broke away from Sinn Féin and formed Fianna Fáil, which became another major Irish political party. This established a pattern: the I-R-A and its political wings splitting, with some factions choosing electoral politics and others continuing armed resistance.

By the 1960s, after a failed border campaign, something unexpected happened. Sinn Féin, the political wing associated with the I-R-A, began moving toward a Marxist class struggle analysis. They started thinking less about nationalism and more about workers' revolution.

This shift set up the next major fracture.

The Troubles and the 1969 Split

When sectarian violence exploded in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, the I-R-A split again. The more traditional republicans, who wanted to fight the British militarily, broke away to form the Provisional I-R-A and Provisional Sinn Féin.

The remainder became known as the Official I-R-A, with Official Sinn Féin as its political wing. The Officials maintained their Marxist orientation but soon declared a ceasefire. They faded from military relevance, while their political wing moved further left, eventually renaming itself the Workers' Party.

The Provisionals, meanwhile, became the dominant force. Operating primarily in Northern Ireland, they waged a violent campaign against the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the British Army, and British economic targets. This was the I-R-A most people think of when they hear the name: the organization that dominated the Troubles from 1969 through the 1990s.

The Provisional I-R-A initially rejected Marxism, but over time developed its own left-wing orientation. More importantly, it combined military action with increasingly sophisticated political activity.

Splits Upon Splits Upon Splits

But even the Officials and Provisionals couldn't maintain unity.

In 1974, the Official I-R-A suffered another split when Seamus Costello led members into forming the Irish National Liberation Army, or I-N-L-A, with the Irish Republican Socialist Party as its political wing. The I-N-L-A took a far-left position and became notorious for internal feuds and sectarian killings. Costello himself was later assassinated by the Official I-R-A during one of these bloody feuds.

In 1986, the Provisional I-R-A fractured when it ended its policy of abstentionism. Abstentionism was the refusal to take seats in the Dáil Éireann, Ireland's parliament, because doing so would mean recognizing the legitimacy of the Irish state. When Gerry Adams led Sinn Féin to abandon this policy, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh walked out and formed Republican Sinn Féin and the Continuity I-R-A.

In 1997, when the Provisional I-R-A moved toward the peace process that would culminate in the Good Friday Agreement, members who rejected peace talks split off to form the Real I-R-A. Its political wing is the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.

The Modern Fragments

The splintering didn't stop with the peace process.

In 2012, the Real I-R-A merged with other republican groups, including Republican Action Against Drugs, to form what's called the New I-R-A. In 2011, former Provisional I-R-A members announced they were resuming hostilities under the simple name "Irish Republican Army," claiming they were entirely separate from the Real I-R-A, the Continuity I-R-A, and various groups called Óglaigh na hÉireann, which means "Volunteers of Ireland" in Irish.

Each of these organizations insists it is the sole legitimate successor to the original 1919 I-R-A. Each claims the others are pretenders or sellouts.

Understanding the Pattern

Why so many splits? The surface reasons vary: disagreements over treaties, over whether to participate in electoral politics, over socialist ideology, over peace processes, over tactics and strategy.

But underneath runs a deeper current: the question of legitimacy and purity. Each split represents a group that believes the parent organization has compromised the core principles of Irish republicanism. Whether that compromise is accepting the 1921 treaty, or embracing Marxism, or ending abstentionism, or pursuing peace talks, the pattern is the same.

There's a philosophical concept called republican legitimatism that helps explain this. It holds that the Irish Republic was legitimately declared in 1916 and 1919, and that any Irish government that doesn't embody that full republic is illegitimate. From this view, even the current Republic of Ireland is a compromise, because it doesn't include Northern Ireland.

If you believe in republican legitimatism, then any organization that recognizes the legitimacy of the Irish government, or participates in its parliament, or negotiates with the British government, has betrayed the cause. The only response is to split and form a new organization that maintains ideological purity.

The Human Cost

This century of splits wasn't an abstract political drama. The Irish Civil War killed more Irishmen than the War of Independence. The Troubles claimed over 3,500 lives across three decades. The various I-R-A factions killed not just British soldiers and Ulster police, but Irish Army members, Irish police officers, and countless civilians.

The I-N-L-A's internal feuds turned members against each other in assassination campaigns. Different I-R-A factions fought each other as bitterly as they fought the British state.

And through it all, each organization claimed to be fighting for Ireland's freedom.

The Legacy

Today, the Provisional I-R-A is officially decommissioned. Sinn Féin, once its political wing, is now a major political party in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, participating in the very institutions the original I-R-A fought to destroy.

Small groups still claim the I-R-A name and occasionally carry out attacks. They're generally considered fringe organizations, disconnected from any meaningful political movement.

The original I-R-A's vision, a fully independent Irish Republic encompassing the entire island, remains unfulfilled. Northern Ireland is still part of the United Kingdom, though the Good Friday Agreement has created a complex power-sharing arrangement and opened the possibility of future reunification through democratic means.

What the I-R-A saga reveals is how difficult it is to maintain revolutionary purity while engaging with political reality. Every compromise creates a faction that refuses to compromise further. Every strategic shift leaves behind true believers who see only betrayal.

The Irish Republican Army isn't really one organization. It's a century-long argument about what Irish freedom means, and what price is acceptable to achieve it. That argument has been conducted through manifestos and bullets, through parliamentary debates and car bombs, through prison hunger strikes and peace negotiations.

It's an argument that, in various forms, continues today.