Provisional IRA campaign 1969–1997

Encyclopedia : P : PR : PRO : Provisional IRA campaign 1969–1997

Other aspects of the PIRA's campaign are covered in the following articles:

• For IRA armament, see Provisional IRA arms importation
• For the Provisional's political strategy see Provisional IRA Strategy.
• ''For a chronology see Chronology of Provisional IRA Actions

Beginnings

In the early days of the Troubles from around 1969-71, the Provisional IRA was very poorly armed, having available only a handful of old fashioned weapons left over from the IRA's Border campaign of the 1950s. In the first years of the conflict, the Provisionals' main activity was providing firepower to support nationalist rioters, often very young, defend nationalist areas against attacks from loyalists, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the B-Specials (see Battle of the Bogside). In 1969, the IRA (before the split between Official and Provisional factions) had failed to defend nationalist areas of Belfast from loyalist attack - leading to the burning of many Catholic homes. By contrast, Provisional IRA members in the summer of 1970 mounted determined armed defences of the nationalist Short Strand and Clonard areas of Belfast against loyalist attackers. The PIRA gained much of its support from these activities, as they were widely perceived within the nationalist community as being defenders of Irish nationalist and Catholic people against aggression. .

Initially, the British Army was welcomed in Catholic nationalist areas as a neutral force compared to the Protestant unionist-dominated Northern Ireland security forces, but this perception did not outlast incidents such as the Falls Road Curfew of July 1970, when 3000 British troops imposed a curfew on the nationalist Lower Falls area of West Belfast, firing over 1500 rounds of ammunition in gun battles with both the Official and Provisional IRA in the area (Taylor p72). Thereafter, the Provisionals began targeting British soldiers. The first to die was Robert Curtis, killed in a gun battle in February 1971 (Taylor p88).

Early campaign 1970-1980

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The first half of the 1970s was the most intense period of the PIRA campaign. About half the total of 500 or so British soldiers to die in the conflict were killed in the years 1971-1973 (O'Brien p135). In 1972 alone, the IRA killed 100 British soldiers and wounded 500 more. In the same year, they carried out 1,300 explosions and lost over 90 guerrillas killed themselves (O'Brien p19). Up to 1972, The Provisionals controlled large urban areas in Belfast and Derry, but these were eventually re-taken by a major British operation known as Operation Motorman. Thereafter, fortified Police and military posts were built in republican areas throughout Northern Ireland. During the early 1970s, a typical IRA operation involved sniping at British patrols and engaging them in fire-fights in urban areas of Belfast and Derry. They also killed local police and soldiers when off-duty. These tactics produced many casualties for both sides and for civilian by-standers.

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In rural areas such as South Armagh (which is a majority Catholic area near the border with the Irish Republic), the IRA units most effective weapon was the "culvert-bomb" - where explosives were planted under drains in country roads. This proved so dangerous for British army patrols that all troops in the area had to be transported by helicopter, a policy which they have continued down to the present day. The highest military death toll from an IRA attack came in August 1979, at Warrenpoint, County Down, when 18 British soldiers from the Parachute Regiment were killed by two "culvert bombs" placed by the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. On the same day the IRA killed one of their most famous victims, the uncle of Prince Philip, Lord Louis Mountbatten, assassinated along with two children and his cousin on 27 August 1979 in County Sligo, by a bomb placed in his boat. Another very effective IRA tactic devised in the 1970s was the use of home-made mortars mounted on the back of trucks that were fired at police and army bases. These mortars were first tested in 1974 but did not kill anyone until 1979. The most lethal of these attacks came in February 1985, when 9 RUC officers were killed by mortar rounds fired at a police station in Newry. As in Warrenpoint, the South Armagh IRA unit was responsible. (Mallie, Bishop p420).

Ceasefires - 1972 and 1975

The Provisional IRA declared two ceasefires in the 1970s, temporarily suspending its armed operations. In 1972, the IRA leadership thought that Britain was on the verge of leaving Northern Ireland. The British government held secret talks with the PIRA leadership in 1972 to try and secure a ceasefire based on a compromise settlement within Northern Ireland. The PIRA agreed to a temporary ceasefire from 26th of June to the 9th of July. In July 1972, Provisional leaders, Seán Mac Stíofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Ivor Bell, Seamus Twomey, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness met a British delegation led by William Whitelaw. The IRA leaders refused to consider a peace settlement that did not include a commitment to British withdrawal, a retreat of the British Army to barracks and a release of republican prisoners. The British refused and the talks broke up (Taylor p139).

By the mid 1970s, it was clear that the hopes of the PIRA leadership for a quick military victory were receding. Secret meetings between IRA leaders Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Billy McKee with British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees secured an IRA ceasefire from February 1975 until January of the next year. The republicans believed that this was the start of a long term process of British withdrawal, however, it seems that Rees was trying to bring the Provisionals into peaceful politics without giving them any guarantees. Critics of the IRA leadership, most notably Gerry Adams, felt that the ceasefire was disastrous for the IRA, leading to infiltration by British informers, the arrest of many activists and a breakdown in IRA discipline - leading to sectarian killings (see next section) and a feud with fellow republicans in the Official IRA. The ceasefire broke down in January 1976 (Taylor p156).

In response to the 1975 ceasefire and the arrest of many IRA vounteers in its aftermath, the Provisionals re-organised their structures in the late 1970s into small cell based units that were thought to be harder to infiltrate. They also embarked on a strategy known as the "Long War" - a process of attrition based on the indefinite continuation of an armed campaign until the British government grew tired of the political, military and financial costs involved in staying in Northern Ireland.

Accusations of sectarian attacks

The 1970s were the most violent years of the Troubles. As well as its campaign against the security forces, the IRA became involved, in the middle of the decade, in a "tit for tat" cycle of sectarian killings with loyalist paramilitaries. The worst example of this occurred in 1976, when an IRA unit in Armagh shot dead ten Protestant building workers at Kingsmills, in reprisal for Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) killings of local Roman Catholics. In similar incidents, the IRA deliberately killed 91 Protestant civilians in 1974-76 (CAIN).

As the IRA campaign continued through the 1970s and '80s, the organisation increasingly targeted RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment servicemen -including when they were off duty. Because these men were almost exclusively Protestant and unionist, these killings were also widely portrayed (and perceived in unionist circles) as a campaign of sectarian assassination. Another example of an IRA sectarian attack happened in 1987, when the IRA placed a bomb near a Remembrance Day service in Enniskillen, killing eleven, mostly Protestant, by-standers. (See Remembrance Day Massacre). Towards the end of the troubles, the Provisionals widened their campaign even further, to include the killing of people who worked in a civilian capacity with the RUC and British Army. The bloodiest example of this came in 1992, when an IRA bomb killed eight Protestant building workers who were working on a British Army base at Teebane. Again, since Protestants and unionists were more likely to work for the British Army and police, this was widely seen as part of a campaign against Protestants. For the IRA, such attacks may have been counter-productive, as incidents such as these facilitated the British government's aims to "criminalise" the IRA and portray the conflict as one between sectarian gangs, and itself as a neutral arbiter.

Attacks outside Northern Ireland

The IRA also targeted certain British government officials, politicians, judges, senior military and police officers and civilians in Great Britain, and in other areas such as Germany, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia. Between 1979 and 1990, eight soldiers and six civilians died in these attacks, including the British Ambassador to the Netherlands[link]. . In 1984, in the Brighton hotel bombing, the IRA tried to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She survived, but five people including two Conservative Party Members of Parliament were killed.

Many British civilians were killed during the IRA bombing campaign in England, which was often directed against civilian targets such as pubs and public transport, and targets of an economic significance such as shops and Canary Wharf. IRA bombing campaigns have been conducted against rail and London Underground (subway) stations, pubs and shopping areas on the island of Great Britain. On several occasions, including at Birmingham and Guildford in the mid 1970s, bombings of pubs (on the basis that they were used by British soldiers) caused large-scale civilian loss of life. See also: Balcombe Street Siege. Another notorious bombing was the Warrington bomb attacks of 1993, which killed two young children.

Republicans contend that these bombings concentrated minds in the British government far more than the violence in Northern Ireland, which led to the beginning of informal contacts with the IRA soon after. The IRA had an official policy of bombing only targets in England (not the Celtic countries of Scotland and Wales), although they detonated a bomb at an oil terminal in the Shetland Isles in 1981 while Queen Elizabeth II was performing the official opening of the terminal.

Libyan arms and the \"Tet Offensive\"

In the mid 1980s, the Provisional IRA received large quantities of modern weaponry, including heavy weaponry such as Heavy machine guns, over 1000 rifles, several hundred handguns, rocket propelled grenades, flamethrowers, surface to air missiles and the plastic explosive semtex from the Libyan regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi. reportedly, Qadaffi donated enough weapons to arm the equivilent of three infantry battallions. (See Provisional IRA arms importation).

The IRA therefore, came to be very well armed by the end of the Troubles, but this did not necessarily correlate with the intensity of its armed campaign. Most of the losses it inflicted on the British Army occurred in the early to mid 1970s, although they continued to inflict substantial casualties on the British Military, the RUC and UDR throughout the Troubles. The IRA Army Council had plans for a dramatic escalation of the conflict in the late 1980s which they likened to the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War with the aid of the arms obtained from Libya. However, a third of the arms donated were intercepted aboard the ship, the Eksund by the French and Irish authorities -bringing the PIRA's new capability to the attention of the authorities on either side of the Irish border.

The plan had been to take and hold several areas along the border, forcing the British Army to either withdraw from border areas or use maximum force to re-take them - thus escalating the conflict beyond the point which the PIRA thought that British public opinion would accept. However this failed to materialise. IRA sources quoted in The Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney say that the interception of the Eksund shipment eliminated the element of surprise which they had hoped to have for this offensive. The role of informers within the IRA seems to have also played a role in the failure of the "Tet Offensive" to get off the ground.

In the event, much of the IRA's new heavy weaponry, for instance the surface-to-air missiles and flamethrowers, were never used. As it was, the numbers of British soldiers killed by the IRA increased slightly in the years 1988-1990, from five in 1986 to 22 in 1988, 24 in 1989 but decreased again to 10 in 1990 and dropped to five by 1991 (Moloney p338). The failure to intensify the conflict in the mid 1980s meant that the PIRA, while it could not be defeated within the forseeable future by the British security forces, was effectively contained. Such republican sources as Mitchel McLaughlin and Danny Morrison argued by the early 1990s the PIRA could not attain their objectives by military means (Taylor p 314).

War with British special forces

The IRA suffered some heavy losses at the hands of British special forces like the SAS (Special Air Service), the most spectacular being the ambush and killing of eight armed IRA members at Loughgall in 1987. The Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade was particularly hard hit by British killings of their volunteers in this period, losing 28 members killed by British forces in the period 1987-1992, out of 53 dead in the whole Troubles. (Moloney p319). In many of these cases, PIRA members were lured into ambushes by British forces and then killed. Republicans alleged that this amounted to a campaign of targeted assassination on the part of state forces. (see shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland). Another high profile instance of British "shoot to kill" policy took place in Gibraltar in March 1988, when three unarmed IRA volunteers were shot dead by an SAS unit while scouting out a bombing target (Moloney page330). (See Also Operation Flavius) The subsequent funerals of these IRA members in Belfast were attacked by loyalist gunman Michael Stone. At the funerals of Stone's victims, two un-uniformed British Army corporals were lynched when they produced a weapon among the mourners (O'Brien p164). See also Corporals killings.

Loyalists and the IRA - killing and reprisals

The IRA and also its political wing, Sinn Féin also suffered from a campaign of assassination launched against their members by Loyalist paramilitaries from the late 1980s. These latter attacks killed about 12 IRA and 15 Sinn Fein members between 1987 and 1995 (Geraghty, p320). In addition, the loyalists murdered family members of known republicans. However, the vast majority of loyalist victims were innocent Catholic civilians. According to recently released documents the British Government knew since 1973 that British Army units such as the Ulster Defence Regiment were partisan and actively helping loyalist paramilitaries with arms and membership. Despite knowing this the British Government stepped up the role of the UDR in "maintaining order" within Northern Ireland.Recently released (3 May 2006) British Government documents show that overlapping membership between British Army units like the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and loyalist paramilitary groups was a wider problem than a "few bad apples" as was often claimed. The documents include a report titled "Subversion in the UDR" which details the problem. In 1973; an estimated 5-15% of UDR soldiers were directly linked to loyalist paramilitary groups, it was believed that the "best single source of weapons, and the only significant source of modern weapons, for Protestant extremist groups was the UDR", it was feared UDR troops were loyal to "Ulster" alone rather than to "Her Majesty's Government", the British Government knew that UDR weapons were being used in the assassination and attempted assassination of Roman Catholic civilians by loyalist paramilitaries. May 2, 2006 edition of the Irish News available [here.]

It has also been confirmed that the loyalists were aided in this campaign by elements of the security forces including the British Army and RUC Special Branch (see Stevens Report). Loyalist sources have since confirmed that they received intelligence files on republicans from Army and Police intelligence in this period and an Army agent within the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), Brian Nelson, was convicted in 1992 of the killings of Catholic civilians. It was later revealed that Nelson, while working as a British Army agent, was also involved in the importation of arms for loyalists from South Africa in 1988 (O'Brien p231). In 1993, for the first time, Loyalist paramilitaries killed more people than Republican paramilitaries. While the difference was only two, the following year saw Loyalists having killed eleven more people than Republicans, and 1995 saw them having killed twelve more. [CAIN].

In response to these attacks, the IRA began a reactive assassination campaign against leading members of the UDA and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). In the mid-1970s, from 1974, the IRA had a policy of retaliating to loyalist attacks on Catholics with attacks on Protestants such as the Kingsmill massacre of 1976 (see section above). However, by the late 1980s, the IRA Army Council would not sanction attacks on Protestant civilians, but only at named, identified loyalist targets. Gerry Adams publicly said in 1989, "Sinn Fein does not condone the deaths of people who are non combatants" (Moloney p321). To maximise the impact of such killings, the IRA targeted senior loyalist figures. Among such leading loyalists killed were John McMichael, Joe Bratty, Raymond Elder and Ray Smallwoods of the UDA and Leslie Dallas and Trevor King of the UVF (Moloney p321, O'Brien p 314). One infamous IRA attempt to kill the entire leadership of the UDA on October 23rd 1993 caused many civilian casualties, when a bomb planted at a Shankill Road fish shop killed 10 people. The bomb was intended to kill the entire senior leadership of the UDA, including Johnny Adair, who were meeting in a room above the shop. Instead, the meeting finished early and the bomb ended up killing only 9 Protestant civilians as well as the bomber (Thomas Begley) himself, whose device exploded prematurely. In addition, 58 more people were injured (Coogan p437). This provoked a series of 16 retaliatory murders of Catholic civilians, none of them with political or paramilitary connections, by the UVF and UDA, (Moloney p415).

According to the [| Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)], University of Ulster statistics, the PIRA killed 35 loyalist militants in total. Lost Lives gives a figure of 28 (Lost Lives p1536) out of a total number of loyalists killed in the Troubles of 126 (Lost Lives p1531). According to "The Irish War" by Tony Geraghty, the IRA killed 45 loyalists (Geraghty p235). Such killings intensified just before the IRA ceasefire of 1994 and it has been speculated that this assassination programme against Loyalist guerrilla leaders helped convince the leadership of both the UDA and UVF, to call ceasefires at this point. However the Loyalists called their ceasefire six weeks after the IRA ceasefire of that year and indeed argued that it was their murder campaign against Catholics in general that had forced the IRA ceasefire by placing intolerable pressure on the nationalist community. Republicans deny this - citing how few of the loyalist victims were republican paramilitaries. They argue that the republican political strategy was un-affected by loyalist actions.

While neither SAS operations nor loyalist killings "defeated" the PIRA, they heightened the costs to the IRA of carrying on an indefinite armed campaign (the "Long War" in their terminology) and contributed to the war-weariness of their host community.

Campaign up to and after the 1994 ceasefire

Early 1990s

A grisly IRA technique used in the early 1990s was the "proxy bomb" -a sort of involuntary suicide bomb, where a victim was kidnapped and forced to drive a car bomb into its target. In one infamous operation in Derry in 1990, the PIRA chained a Catholic civilian to a car laden with explosives, held his family hostage and forced him to drive to an Army checkpoint as a "human bomb" where the bomb exploded, killing himself and five soldiers. This practice was stopped due to the revulsion its caused among the nationalist community.

During this period, the IRA also established a highly damaging economic bombing campaign against the British mainland, particularly London, and other major British cities, which caused a huge amount of physical and economic damage to property. Among their targets were the City of London, Birmingham, Canary Wharf and the Manchester city centre. It has been argued by many commentators that this bombing campaign helped convince the British government (who had hoped to contain the conflict to Northern Ireland with its Ulsterisation policy) to negotiate with Sinn Fein after the IRA ceasefires of August 1994 and July 1997.

The ceasefires

The Provisional IRA called off its 1994 ceasefire on February 9 1996 because of its dissatisfaction with the state of negotiations. They resumed their ceasefire on July 20 1997. However it's campaign when the ceasefire was suspended during this period never reached the intensity of previous years. In total the IRA killed 2 British soldiers, 2 RUC men, 2 British civilians, and 1 Garda according to the CAIN project. (Moloney p459) PIRA military activities were widely believed to have been used to leverage negotiations with the British government during the period. Whereas in 1994-95, the British Conservative Party government had refused to enter public talks with Sinn Féin until the IRA had given up its weapons, the Labour Party government in power by 1997 was prepared to include Sinn Féin in peace talks before IRA decommissioning. Another widespread interpretation of the temporary breakdown in the first IRA ceasefire is that the leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness tolerated a limited return to violence in order to avoid a split between hardliners and moderates in the IRA Army Council. Once they had won over or removed the militarists from the Council, they re-instated the ceasefire (Moloney p472).

Other Activities

The IRA looked on itself as the police force of nationalist areas of Northern Ireland during the Troubles instead of the RUC, during a time when the Catholic community had little confidence in the neutrality of the state forces. Some Catholic civilians have been killed by the IRA for collaboration with the British security forces (i.e., the British Army or the RUC). The IRA also summarily executed or otherwise punished suspected drug dealers and other suspected criminals in the past, sometimes after kangaroo trials. In addition the PIRA habitually carried out beatings, known as "punishment beatings" and "knee cappings" (shootings in the knees) of petty criminals until recently. IRA members suspected of being British or Irish government informers were also executed, often after interrogation and torture and a kangaroo trial. The IRA had a special unit for this purpose, known in republican circles as the "Nutting Squad".

The PIRA has also targeted other republican paramilitary groups. In 1972, 1975 and 1977, the Official IRA and Provisional IRA fought a feud with each other in Belfast, leaving several Volunteers dead on either side. In 1992, The PIRA eliminated the Irish People's Liberation Organisation, which was widely involved in drug dealing and other criminality. One IPLO member was killed, several more shot and wounded (kneecapped) and still more beaten and told to disband and in some cases to leave the country. Most recently, there has been at least one case, in 2000, of the IRA shooting dead a Real IRA member for his opposition to the Provisional's political strategy [link].

Although the IRA's General Order No. 8 forbids military action "against 26 County forces under any circumstances whatsoever" (O'Brien p121), members of the Garda Síochána (the Republic of Ireland's police force) have also been killed; most notorious was the killing of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe, who was killed by sustained machine-gun fire while sitting in his car in Adare county Limerick while escorting a post office delivery in 1996. The Provisionals have killed 6 Gardai and one Irish Army soldier, mostly during robberies.

The IRA has carried out many robberies of bank and post offices over the 30 or so years of its existence. In 1982-83, the RUC estimated that the IRA stole roughly £700,000 in such raids (O'Brien p121). It is strongly suspected to have carried out the Northern Bank Robbery of December 2004, although this is unproven.

In the 1980s, IRA members are suspected to have kidnapped the racehorse Shergar and attempted to ransom it. It has also been involved in the kidnapping and ransom of businessmen Gael Weston, Ben Dunne and Don Tidey in the early 1980s. Activities such as these were linked to the IRA's fundraising. Gardai estimate that the PIRA got up to £1.5 million from these activities (O'Brien p121).

The PIRA was (and according to the Irish Minister of Justice, Michael McDowell, still is) involved in organised crime on both sides of the Irish border. These activities include smuggling, sale of contraband cigarettes, extortion and money laundering.

Recently, there have been many allegations of in-discipline and intimidation of the Catholic community against the IRA. The most high profile of these cases is the Robert McCartney killing in late 2004. In February 2005, the IRA was denounced by relatives of Robert McCartney, who was murdered in a brawl in a public house in Belfast by IRA members, who subsequently destroyed the evidence at the scene and intimidated the wtinesses. The resulting controversy saw US Political backing for Sinn Fein was badly damaged. Gerry Adams advised republicans to give evidence against those IRA members who were involved, a first for the republican leader. Three IRA members were expelled from the organisation following the murder and an offer was made by the organisation to shoot those responsible for the killing. The family of Mr. McCartney allege that, notwithstanding public calls for information by Sinn Féin leaders, no one has come forward with information that would allow a prosecution to go further. They also allege that republican intimidation of witnesses has continued and that even the friend of Mr. McCartney who was stabbed with him is too afraid to make a police statement.

Casualties

According to the CAIN research project at the University of Ulster [link], the Provisional IRA was responsible for the deaths of 1,821 people during the Troubles up to 2001. This figure represents 48.4 percent of the total fatalities in the conflict. 621 of these casualties were civilians. A total of 1,013 were British forces; 465 from the British Army, 190 were from the Ulster Defence Regiment (a part time local British Army reserve unit), 272 were members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, 14 were former Royal Ulster Constabulary members, 6 were British Police, 20 were Northern Ireland Prison officers, 2 were former Prison officers. A further 35 were loyalist paramilitaries (21 Ulster Defence Association (UDA), 3 former UDA, 11 Ulster Volunteer Force). 6 were Gardai and 1 was Irish Army. About 180 were republican paramilitaries, including 12 Official IRA members, 1 IPLO member, 63 alleged informers and 103 accidental deaths of PIRA members due to premature explosions.

Of its victims, 340 were Northern Irish Catholics, 794 were Northern Irish Protestants and 572 were not from Northern Ireland.

Another very detailed study, Lost Lives (2004. Ed's David McKitrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton, David McVea) gives the following figures for people killed by the Provisional IRA up to 2004: 644 civilians, 456 British military (including British Army, RAF, Royal Navy, and Territorial Army), 273 Royal Ulster Constabulary (including RUC reserve), 182 Ulster Defence Regiment, 163 Republican paramilitary members (including from the IRA), 28 loyalist paramilitary members, 23 Northern Ireland Prison Officers, 7 Gardai or Irish Army, and 5 British Police (Lost Lives page 1536). Lost Lives therefore concludes that the Provisional IRA was responsible for a total of 1781 deaths to date. It has also been estimated that the IRA injured 6000 British Army, UDR and RUC and up to 14,000 civilians, during the Troubles (O'Brien p135).

The IRA lost 276 members during the Troubles according to the CAIN figures. Lost Lives states that 294 PIRA members died in the Troubles (Lost Lives p1531). In addition, many members of Sinn Fein were killed, some of whom were also IRA members, but this was not publicly acknowledged. An Phoblacht gives a figure of 341 IRA and Sinn Fein members killed in the Troubles, indicating between 50-60 Sinn Fein deaths if the IRA deaths are subtracted (cited in O'Brien, Long War p26).

In roughly 123 of these cases, IRA members either caused their own deaths, as a result of hunger strikes - 8 deaths - premature bombing accidents - 103 deaths, or were killed on allegations of having worked for the security forces -13 deaths (CAIN). Lost Lives gives a figure of 163 killings of republican paramilitary members (but this includes republicans from other organisations) (Lost Lives p 1536). Of these self inflicted deaths, according to an RUC report of 1993, 105 were accidental deaths of IRA volunteers through the premature detonation of their own bombs (O'Brien p160). Most of the remaining IRA deaths were at the hands of the British army, followed by the RUC and then the loyalist paramilitaries.

Far more common than the killing of IRA Volunteers however, was their imprisonment. Journalists Eamonn Mallie and Patrick Bishop estimate in The Provisional IRA, that between 8-10,000 PIRA members were imprisoned during the course of the conflict, a number they also give as the total number of IRA members during the Troubles (Mallie, Bishop p12).

References