The Northern Campaign was a series of attacks by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) Northern Command between September 1942 and December 1944 against the security forces in Northern Ireland. The action taken by the Northern Ireland and Irish Free State governments as a result of these attacks shattered the IRA and resulted in the former being free from IRA activity by the end of World War II.[1]
The original Irish Republican Army (IRA) fought a guerrilla war against British rule in Ireland in the Irish War of Independence between 1919 and 1921. Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921, the IRA in the 26 counties that were to become the Irish Free State split between supporters and opponents of the Treaty. The anti-Treatyites, sometimes referred to by Free State forces as Irregulars, continued to use the name Irish Republican Army (IRA) or in Irish Óglaigh na hÉireann, as did the organisation in Northern Ireland which originally supported the pro-Treaty side. Óglaigh na hÉireann was also adopted as the name of the pro-Treaty National Army, and remains the official legal title of the Irish Defence Forces. This article deals with the anti-Treaty IRA that fought against the Irish Free State in the Irish Civil War, and with its successors up to 1969, when the IRA split again.
Northern Command was a command division in the Irish Republican Army (1922–1969) and Provisional IRA, responsible for directing IRA operations in the northern part of Ireland.
Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the UK's population. Established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Assembly holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the British government. Northern Ireland co-operates with the Republic of Ireland in some areas, and the Agreement granted the Republic the ability to "put forward views and proposals" with "determined efforts to resolve disagreements between the two governments".
This was the third republican campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. The first took place during the Irish War of Independence, the second 1939–40, the fourth took place from 1956–1962, the fifth took place from 1969–1997 and sixth from 1997–present.
The Irish War of Independence or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was an escalation of the Irish revolutionary period into warfare.
The S-Plan or Sabotage Campaign or England Campaign was a campaign of bombing and sabotage against the civil, economic, and military infrastructure of the United Kingdom from 1939 to 1940, conducted by members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was conceived by Seamus O'Donovan in 1938 at the request of then IRA Chief of Staff Seán Russell. Russell and Joseph McGarrity are thought to have devised such a strategy in 1936.
The dissident Irish republican campaign began at the end of the Troubles, a 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland. Since the Provisional Irish Republican Army called a ceasefire and ended its campaign in 1997, breakaway groups opposed to the ceasefire and to the peace agreements have continued a low-level armed campaign against the security forces in Northern Ireland. The main paramilitaries involved are the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and Óglaigh na hÉireann. They have targeted the Northern Irish police and the British Army in gun and bomb attacks, as well as with mortars and rockets. They have also carried out bombings that are meant to cause disruption. However, their campaign has not been as intensive as the Provisional IRA's.
The campaign
The prime minister of the Irish Free State, Éamon de Valera, complained about the occupation of Irish soil with the arrival of American soldiers in Northern Ireland as part of the war effort against Nazi Germany.[1] This influx of foreign soldiers encouraged the northern command of the IRA, under the auspices of newly appointed commander Hugh McAteer, to reorganise and on 25 March 1942 agree a new campaign against the British military and war effort in Northern Ireland.[1]
The Irish Free State was a state established in 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. That treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between the forces of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and British Crown forces.
Éamon de Valera was a prominent statesman and political leader in 20th-century Ireland. His political career spanned over half a century, from 1917 to 1973; he served several terms as head of government and head of state. He also led the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Over the first few months of the campaign, a few attacks against the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Strabane, Dungannon, and Belfast, resulted in the death of two RUC constables and the wounding of two others.[1] Six IRA members, including Joe Cahill,[2] were arrested during the Belfast incident and sentenced to death for the murder of one of the constables.[1] A petition signed by around two hundred thousand people calling for mercy was gathered by those calling for a reprieve, and several days before the date of the executions, all but one was commuted.[1] The sole IRA member executed was Tom Williams who was hanged at Crumlim Road gaol, Belfast, on 2 September 1942, resulting in the IRA intensifying their attacks.[1]
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, its formal title became the Royal Ulster Constabulary, GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). At its peak the force had around 8,500 officers with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve. During the Troubles, 319 members of the RUC were killed and almost 9,000 injured in paramilitary assassinations or attacks, mostly by the Provisional IRA, which made the RUC, by 1983, the most dangerous police force in the world in which to serve. In the same period, the RUC killed 55 people, 28 of whom were civilians.
Strabane, historically spelt Straban, is a town in west Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was the headquarters of the former Strabane District Council.
Dungannon is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the third-largest town in the county and had a population of 15,889 at the 2011 Census. The Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council had its headquarters in the town, though since 2015 it has been covered by Mid-Ulster District Council.
After the bombing of Randalstown RUC station, and more gunfire attacks against the RUC in parts of West Belfast and across the border area between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, around 320 members and suspected members of the IRA, including Hugh McActeer, were arrested across Northern Ireland.[1] One historian, Bowyer-Bell, reports a total of 60 armed attacks by the IRA in the three months up to December 1942, carried out by the remaining fifty to sixty IRA members still at large.[citation needed]
Randalstown is a townland and small town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, located between the towns of Antrim and Toome. It has a very prominent disused railway viaduct and lies beside Lough Neagh and the Shane's Castle estate. The town is bypassed by the M22 motorway with junctions at both the eastern and western ends of the town. It had a population of 5,099 people in the 2011 Census.
In the first few months of 1943, jail breaks at Crumlin Road and Derry gaols saw 23 IRA members, including McAteer, escape.[1] This however failed to inspire a resumption of activity.[1] Many of the escapees had crossed the border into County Donegal in the Free State and were subsequently recaptured by the Irish Army.[1] The few others that escaped arrest sought refuge from pursuit rather than resuming their attacks.[1]
Derry Gaol, also known as Londonderry Gaol, refers to one of several gaols (prisons) constructed consecutively in Derry, Northern Ireland. Derry Gaol is notable as a place of incarceration for Irish Republican Army (IRA) members during the Irish Civil War, and for its numerous executions, seven of which took place between 1820 and 1923.
IRA northern command units in south Londonderry and south Armagh were no longer able to function as required, and contact with units in Counties Cavan and Monaghan started to wane.[citation needed] Bowyer-Bell states of the late-1943 to mid-1943 period that the local commanding officers preferred to avoid arrest, and that anything associated with the IRA such as parades, training, and even meetings ended with fear of internment at Curragh.[3]
By the end of World War II in 1945, the northern command of the IRA, largely as a result of the stern response from the Free State, had been reduced to a few wanted men with Northern Ireland entirely free from IRA activity.[1] The Northern Ireland government couldn't publicly acknowledge the fact their neighbour had essentially defeated the IRA,[1] and the Irish Minister of Justice, Gerald Boland, was heard to boast during the period that "the IRA was dead and he had killed it".[4]
Easter Sunday – a heavy gunfight in Belfast left a RUC constable dead, with six IRA members arrested in Cawnpore Street in response.[1] In Dublin, Irish Special Branch attempted to arrest Lasarian Mangan and Brendan Behan. When Mangan seemed to hesitate in using his gun, Behan was heard to shout "Use it, use it. Give it to me and I will shoot the bastards.". Behan was later arrested in Dublin and received fourteen years in prison. The third incident in the time line involved Frank Morris, who began shooting when detained at a RUC border checkpoint in Strabane. He was captured 10 hours later that day, found hiding, immersed up to his neck in river water.
20 April – A new IRA Army Council was elected in the wake of these incidents. At this time it is known that Eoin McNamee in his capacity as Adjutant General met with German agent Günther Schütz shortly before this.
15 August – IRA Army Council meets to confirm the details of the Northern Campaign and to draw up a Campaign Proclamation. By this stage the arms and munitions from the IRA's Western and Eastern Command areas had been assembled on the border ready for transport into Northern Ireland.
30 August – IRA GHQ sends word to waiting units to begin the transfer of arms into Northern Ireland. That night three tons of material were transported over the border into Newry, County Down. Two lorries were used to transport the material through RUC checkpoints without incident. The arms were then stored in a barn attached to McCafferty's farm outside Hannahstown, County Antrim. The member overseeing the operation on the ground, Daragh O'Connor reported back to GHQ Belfast in person. His message was that the operation had been successful, and distribution of the material could now begin. Unfortunately for the IRA, a member sent to help Daragh O'Connor to the farm by members of the RUC who proceeded to raid the building. In the ensuing gun battle O'Connor was shot dead and 3 tons of arms seized. This however, was not the only shipment of arms into Northern Ireland the IRA had made, and the others were to remain, as yet, undetected.
1 September – The Army Council issued a General Army Order that in the event of the execution of Tommy Williams, all CO's were to take aggressive action.
2 September – Tom Williams' execution at 8am,[1] The first attack afterwards, scheduled was to take place against a British Army barracks in Crossmaglen, County Armagh. Twenty IRA members were led by Patrick Dermody in a commandeered lorry and accompanying car. According to IRA member Harry White, who wrote about the raid in his book of memoirs "Harry", they hoped to capture a British officer and hang him.
3 September – The front of a police barracks in Randalstown, Co. Antrim, was demolished by a mine and a RUC sergeant was injured.
4 September – The ambush of an IRA patrol in Belfast resulted in James Bannon being wounded. The same day a mine failed to detonated during the attack on Belleek, RUC barracks, Co. Fermanagh.
9 September – Sergeant Denis O'Brien, a serving Irish Special Branch officer and himself a former IRA member, was shot dead by 3 IRA members outside his home in Ballyboden, Rathfarnham, County Dublin. This action was directly against IRA Army Council orders which forbade any operations of a military nature in Éire. Notice of a five thousand pound reward was issued for information leading to the apprehension of O'Brien's killers along with a list of men wanted in connection with the incident. Michael Quill was later apprehended by the RUC and turned over to Irish Special Branch in connection with the incident. This led to his internment in January 1943.
Following the initial raid in September, the RUC and Irish Special Branch stepped up their efforts against the IRA. A series of arms finds and arrests were made.
10 September – Belfast IRA lost two members when they were surrounded in a house and captured.
30 September – Patrick Dermody was killed by Irish Special Branch following a gun battle in County Cavan. A member of Garda Síochána (Irish Police) also died due to friendly fire from his colleagues.
12 October – McAteer and his Director of Intelligence, O'Reilly, were arrested in Northern Ireland by the RUC Criminal Investigation Department (CID). McAteer was later sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for treason, and his position taken over by Charlie Kerins, who was later relieved by Harry White in late October.
19 October – Maurice O'Neill, was captured by Garda Síochána during a raid on a safe house in Holly Road, Donnycarney, County Dublin. A detective died during the raid. Harry White escaped and travelled to Belfast to take over as OC for Northern Command. During his trial by Military Tribunal in Éire, O'Neill was represented by Seán MacBride. MacBride failed however, to win O'Neill a reprieve and he was executed by the Irish Government on 12 November 1942.
October – An RUC member was killed in an IRA attack on Donegall Pass, RUC station in Belfast.
1943
15 January – IRA northern command commander, Hugh McAteer, along with another IRA member escaped over the wall of Crumlin Road gaol, Belfast.[1]
14 February – IRA Army Council despite losing the ability to carry out their campaign resolved that "A political arm be formed representative of the whole country, whose constitution shall be based on the Constitution of the Republic proclaimed in arms in 1916 and ratified by the free vote of the Irish people in 1918."[5]
24 April 1943– The IRA, including McAteer, took over the Falls Road Broadway cinema in Belfast, and whilst holding its staff at gunpoint, forced the cinemas audience to take part in a commemoration of the Easter Rising.[1] A Proclamation of the 1916 Easter Rising was read out to the audience along with the IRA Army Council's annual statement, which included a denouncement of the American military presence in Northern Ireland as an "..invasion of our rights..." and warned that US troops could expect to be targeted in any "..resumption of hostilities between the Irish Republic [as invested in the IRA] and Great Britain."
May – IRA members who had escaped from Derry gaol were re-arrested.
October – McAteer rearrested. Kerins assumed command again.[citation needed]
15 June – Kerins was arrested at 50 Rathmines Road in Dublin. He was tried by military tribunal by the Irish Free State and found guilty on 9 October 1944 of involvement in the death of detective O'Brien on 9 September 1942, and subsequently hanged on 1 December 1944.[citation needed]
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