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The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.
Sinn Féin is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Gerard Adams is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he followed the policy of abstentionism as a Member of Parliament (MP) of the British Parliament for the Belfast West constituency.
The Irish Republic was an unrecognised revolutionary state that declared its independence from the United Kingdom in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdiction over the whole island of Ireland, but by 1920 its functional control was limited to only 21 of Ireland's 32 counties, and British state forces maintained a presence across much of the north-east, as well as Cork, Dublin and other major towns. The republic was strongest in rural areas, and through its military forces was able to influence the population in urban areas that it did not directly control.
The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has seven members in the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLAs) and two members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It was created as a separate legal entity on 3 May 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The new autonomous Northern Ireland was formed from six of the nine counties of Ulster: four counties with unionist majorities – Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Londonderry – and two counties with slight Irish nationalist majorities – Fermanagh and Tyrone – in the 1918 General Election. The remaining three Ulster counties with larger nationalist majorities were not included. In large part unionists, at least in the north-east, supported its creation while nationalists were opposed.
The Workers' Party is an Irish republican, Marxist–Leninist communist party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The UK Unionist Party (UKUP) was a small unionist political party in Northern Ireland from 1995 to 2008 that opposed the Good Friday Agreement. It was nominally formed by Robert McCartney, formerly of the Ulster Unionist Party, to contest the 1995 North Down by-election and then further constituted to contest the 1996 elections for the Northern Ireland Forum. McCartney had previously contested the 1987 general election as an independent using the label Real Unionist.
The Downing Street Declaration was a joint declaration issued on 15 December 1993 by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Major, and the Irish Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, at the British Prime Minister's office in 10 Downing Street.
The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developments.
Irish republicanism is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed various tactics and identities, simultaneously elective and militant and has been both widely supported and iconoclastic.
United Ireland, also referred to as Irish reunification or a New Ireland, is the proposition that all of the island of Ireland should be a single sovereign state. At present, the island is divided politically: the sovereign state of Ireland has jurisdiction over the majority of Ireland, while Northern Ireland, which lies entirely within the Irish province of Ulster, is part of the United Kingdom. Achieving a united Ireland is a central tenet of Irish nationalism and Republicanism, particularly of both mainstream and dissident republican political and paramilitary organisations. Unionists support Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom and oppose Irish unification.
NORAID, officially the Irish Northern Aid Committee, is an Irish American membership organization founded after the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969. The organization states its mission is to aid in the creation of a United Ireland in the spirit of the 1916 Easter Proclamation and to support the Northern Ireland Peace process. During the Troubles, NORAID was known for raising funds for the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Nationalist relief groups such as Green Cross and An Cumann Cabrach. NORAID runs a newsletter titled The Irish People which provides analysis and coverage of ongoing events in Northern Ireland.
The St Andrews Agreement is an agreement between the British and Irish governments and Northern Ireland's political parties in relation to the devolution of power in the region. The agreement resulted from multi-party talks held in St Andrews in Fife, Scotland, from 11 to 13 October 2006, between the two governments and all the major parties in Northern Ireland, including the two largest, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin. It resulted in the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the formation of a new Northern Ireland Executive and a decision by Sinn Féin to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland, courts and rule of law.
The 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election was held on Wednesday, 7 March 2007. It was the third election to take place since the devolved assembly was established in 1998. The election saw endorsement of the St Andrews Agreement and the two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin, along with the Alliance Party, increase their support, with falls in support for the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).
The London Docklands bombing occurred on 9 February 1996, when the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a powerful truck bomb in South Quay. The blast killed two people and devastated a wide area, causing an estimated £150 million worth of damage. The IRA had sent warnings 90 minutes beforehand, but the area was not fully evacuated. As well as the two people who were killed, more than 100 were injured, some permanently.
Padraig O'Malley is an Irish international peacemaker, author, and professor. O'Malley specializes in the problems of divided societies, such as South Africa and Northern Ireland. He has written extensively on these subjects and has been actively involved in promoting dialogue among representatives of differing factions. He's currently the John Joseph Moakley Distinguished Professor of Peace and Reconciliation at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. It is made up of the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties, and the British–Irish Agreement between the British and Irish governments. Northern Ireland's present devolved system of government is based on the agreement.
The Forum for Peace and Reconciliation was a forum established by the government of Ireland in October 1994 as part of the Northern Ireland peace process.
The independent Assessment on Paramilitary Groups in Northern Ireland was announced by the United Kingdom government in September 2015 in response to the political crisis in Northern Ireland. The assessment sought to establish "the structure, role and purpose of paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland." The report was delivered to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 19 October 2015 and published the next day. It concluded that: "all the main paramilitary groups operating during the Troubles are still in existence including the Ulster Volunteer Force, Red Hand Commando, Ulster Defence Association, the Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army." But that "the leaderships of the main paramilitary groups are committed to peaceful means to achieve their political objectives".
References
- 1 2 McKittrick, David (21 May 1996). "Sinn Féin ready to accept Mitchell principles" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 15 May 2022. Retrieved 13 February 2009.
- ↑ Knox, Colin and al. Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, Israel and South Africa St. Martin's Press, LLC: 2000. page 39