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  IRA Splinter Groups (U.K., separatists)

  Updated: November 2005

  • What groups have split off from the Irish Republican Army?
  • Why did the Real IRA split off from the IRA?
  • What attacks have IRA splinter groups carried out?
  • How large are these groups?
  • What weapons do these groups have?
  • Who founded the Real IRA?

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  What groups have split off from the Irish Republican Army?

  There are three IRA splinter groups: the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, and the Irish National Liberation Army. The Real IRA and the Continuity IRA are formally listed as terrorist groups by the State Department. U.S., British, and Irish authorities consider the Real IRA the most dangerous of these groups.

  Why did the Real IRA split off from the IRA?

  Because of its objections to the Irish peace process. The Real IRA was formed in 1997 by hard-liners who opposed the negotiations being pursued by the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, which culminated in the April 1998 Good Friday accord, a peace pact that renounced violence. By continuing terror activities, the Real IRA hoped to disrupt

  What attacks have IRA splinter groups carried out?

  After a string of smaller incidents, in August 1998, the Real IRA perpetrated the single deadliest incident in decades of political violence in Northern Ireland when it set off a 500-pound car bomb in the Northern Irish town of Omagh, killing twenty-nine people, including a woman eight months pregnant with twins. The Omagh attack was so widely condemned that the Real IRA subsequently declared a cease-fire, but the group resumed terrorist operations early in 2000. It has since been linked to almost attacks in Northern Ireland and in London, including a failed attempt to blow up a bridge over the Thames River and minor explosions at BBC Television and MI6 intelligence headquarters.

  The group that was later established as the Continuity IRA is thought to have carried out a notorious 1987 bombing in the Northern Ireland town ofEnniskillen that killed eleven Protestants; experts say the IRA leadership saw the attack as a tactical mistake. Since 1994, the Continuity IRA has conducted sporadic assassinations and bombings, mostly aimed at Protestant targets.

  The least active of the splinter groups is the Irish National Liberation Army. Among other actions against Protestant terror groups, its gunmen shot dead a loyalist terrorist leader, Billy Wright, in Northern Ireland’s notorious Maze prison in December 1997. Experts say the group is known as much or more for its participation in the drug trade and other criminal activities as it is for outright terrorism.

  How large are these groups?

  Experts aren’t sure, but they estimate that there may be as many as 150 active members of the Real IRA, around 100 active members of the Continuity IRA, and perhaps fifty of the Irish National Liberation Army. Each group is small enough to be vulnerable to informers, both from the IRA and from British or Irish security forces.

  What weapons do these groups have?

  Mostly light arms, often acquired on the East European arms market.

  Who founded the Real IRA?

  The republican militant Michael (Mickey) McKevitt, who was in charge of the IRA’s armory before he left the group. His common-law wife—also active in republican politics—is the sister of Bobby Sands, the famous IRA activist and member of Parliament who died in prison during a 1981 hunger strike. McKevitt was arrested in March 2001 by Irish authorities, convicted in August 2003, and is currently serving his twenty-year sentence in an Irish jail.

   

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  In this POP, Adjunct Fellow Michelle D. Gavin suggests steps the Bush administration could take to promote political and ethnic reconciliation and to restore the viability of Kenya’s governing institutions.

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  In this paper, Senior Fellow Daniel Markey poses a set of recommendations for the United States to consider in response to Pakistan’s ongoing political crisis.

  

  

  A Citizen's Guide
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  To address the growing importance of Africa, the Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs present Beyond Humanitarianism, a collection of recent work that explains underlying trends on the continent and provides an absorbing look at Africa’s emergence as a strategic player on the world stage.

  

  

  May/June 2008

  • Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times calls "Beyond Darfur" by Andrew Natsios, an important article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.

  

  

  

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