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Border campaign (Irish Republican Army)
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Border campaign (Irish Republican Army)
The Border campaign (12 December 1956 – 26 February 1962) was a guerrilla warfare campaign (codenamed Operation Harvest) carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against targets in Northern Ireland, with the aim of overthrowing British rule there and creating a united Ireland. It was also referred to as the "resistance campaign" by some Irish republican activists. The campaign was a military failure, but some of its members felt it was justified, as it kept the IRA engaged for another generation.
The border campaign was the first major military undertaking carried out by the IRA since the 1940s, when the harsh security measures of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland governments had severely weakened it. In 1939-40 the IRA carried out a sabotage/bombing campaign in England (the S-Plan) to try to force British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. The final figures resulting from the S-Plan are cited as 300 explosions, ten deaths and 96 injuries. From 1942 to 1944 it also mounted an ineffective campaign in Northern Ireland. Internment on both sides of the border, as well as internal feuding and disputes over future policy, all but destroyed the organisation. These campaigns were officially called off on 10 March 1945. By 1947, the IRA had only 200 activists, according to its own general staff.
In principle, the IRA wished to overthrow both "partitionist" states in Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, both of which it deemed to be illegitimate entities imposed by Britain at the time of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922. However, in 1948 a General Army Convention issued General Order No. 8, prohibiting "any armed action whatsoever" against the forces of the recently proclaimed Republic of Ireland, amounting to a de facto recognition of the state. Under the new policy, IRA volunteers who were caught with arms in the Republic of Ireland were ordered to dump or destroy them and not to take defensive action.
From then on, armed action was focused on Northern Ireland, which was still part of the United Kingdom and which was dominated by Protestant unionists. The idea of a campaign launched from the Republic against Northern Ireland, first mooted by Tom Barry in the 1930s, gained currency within IRA circles as the 1950s went on. In 1954, after an arms raid at Gough Barracks in Armagh, a speaker at the Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown repeated that IRA policy was directed solely against British forces in Northern Ireland.
IRA Chief of Staff Tony Magan set out to create "a new Army, untarnished by the dissent and scandals of the previous decade," according to J. Bowyer Bell. One of its advisers was a retired British Major-General, Eric Dorman-Smith. The IRA was officially "apolitical," existing only to overthrow the "British-imposed political institutions" in Ireland. However Magan believed that a degree of political mobilisation was necessary and the relationship with Sinn Féin which had soured during the 30s was improved. At the 1949 IRA Convention, the IRA ordered its members to join Sinn Féin, which would partially become the "civilian wing" of the IRA.
By the middle of this decade, moreover, the IRA had substantially re-armed. This was achieved by means of arms raids launched between 1951 and 1954, on British military bases in Northern Ireland and England. Arms were taken from Derry, Omagh, Essex, Berkshire and Armagh. At the latter raid on Gough barracks in Armagh in June 1954, the IRA seized 250 Lee–Enfield rifles, 37 submachine guns, nine Bren guns and 40 training rifles. On 25 July 1953, there was an IRA arms raid on the armoury of the Officer Training Corps at Felsted, a private school in Essex. In that raid, the IRA netted over 108 rifles, ten Bren and eight Sten guns, two mortars and dummy mortar bombs. The police seized the van carrying the stolen weapons some hours later.
By 1955, splits were occurring in the IRA, as several small groups, impatient for action, launched their own attacks in Northern Ireland. One such activist, Brendan O'Boyle blew himself up with his own bomb in the summer of that year. Another, Liam Kelly founded a breakaway group Saor Uladh ("Free Ulster") and in November 1955, attacked a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks at Roslea in County Fermanagh. One RUC man was badly injured and a Republican fighter was killed in the incident. In August of the following year, Kelly and another IRA dissident, Joe Christle, burned down some customs posts on the border.
In November 1956, the IRA finally began its own border campaign. They were partly motivated by a desire to prevent any more splits in their organisation. They were also encouraged by the results of the UK general election of 1955, when Sinn Féin (since 1949, largely dominated by IRA members) candidates were elected MPs for the Mid-Ulster and Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituencies in Northern Ireland, with a total of 152,310 votes. This appeared to show that there was a substantial Irish republican support base within Northern Ireland. However, as the mainstream Nationalist Party had decided not to take part in the election, its supporters had voted for Sinn Féin instead.
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Border campaign (Irish Republican Army)
The Border campaign (12 December 1956 – 26 February 1962) was a guerrilla warfare campaign (codenamed Operation Harvest) carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against targets in Northern Ireland, with the aim of overthrowing British rule there and creating a united Ireland. It was also referred to as the "resistance campaign" by some Irish republican activists. The campaign was a military failure, but some of its members felt it was justified, as it kept the IRA engaged for another generation.
The border campaign was the first major military undertaking carried out by the IRA since the 1940s, when the harsh security measures of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland governments had severely weakened it. In 1939-40 the IRA carried out a sabotage/bombing campaign in England (the S-Plan) to try to force British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. The final figures resulting from the S-Plan are cited as 300 explosions, ten deaths and 96 injuries. From 1942 to 1944 it also mounted an ineffective campaign in Northern Ireland. Internment on both sides of the border, as well as internal feuding and disputes over future policy, all but destroyed the organisation. These campaigns were officially called off on 10 March 1945. By 1947, the IRA had only 200 activists, according to its own general staff.
In principle, the IRA wished to overthrow both "partitionist" states in Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State, both of which it deemed to be illegitimate entities imposed by Britain at the time of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922. However, in 1948 a General Army Convention issued General Order No. 8, prohibiting "any armed action whatsoever" against the forces of the recently proclaimed Republic of Ireland, amounting to a de facto recognition of the state. Under the new policy, IRA volunteers who were caught with arms in the Republic of Ireland were ordered to dump or destroy them and not to take defensive action.
From then on, armed action was focused on Northern Ireland, which was still part of the United Kingdom and which was dominated by Protestant unionists. The idea of a campaign launched from the Republic against Northern Ireland, first mooted by Tom Barry in the 1930s, gained currency within IRA circles as the 1950s went on. In 1954, after an arms raid at Gough Barracks in Armagh, a speaker at the Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown repeated that IRA policy was directed solely against British forces in Northern Ireland.
IRA Chief of Staff Tony Magan set out to create "a new Army, untarnished by the dissent and scandals of the previous decade," according to J. Bowyer Bell. One of its advisers was a retired British Major-General, Eric Dorman-Smith. The IRA was officially "apolitical," existing only to overthrow the "British-imposed political institutions" in Ireland. However Magan believed that a degree of political mobilisation was necessary and the relationship with Sinn Féin which had soured during the 30s was improved. At the 1949 IRA Convention, the IRA ordered its members to join Sinn Féin, which would partially become the "civilian wing" of the IRA.
By the middle of this decade, moreover, the IRA had substantially re-armed. This was achieved by means of arms raids launched between 1951 and 1954, on British military bases in Northern Ireland and England. Arms were taken from Derry, Omagh, Essex, Berkshire and Armagh. At the latter raid on Gough barracks in Armagh in June 1954, the IRA seized 250 Lee–Enfield rifles, 37 submachine guns, nine Bren guns and 40 training rifles. On 25 July 1953, there was an IRA arms raid on the armoury of the Officer Training Corps at Felsted, a private school in Essex. In that raid, the IRA netted over 108 rifles, ten Bren and eight Sten guns, two mortars and dummy mortar bombs. The police seized the van carrying the stolen weapons some hours later.
By 1955, splits were occurring in the IRA, as several small groups, impatient for action, launched their own attacks in Northern Ireland. One such activist, Brendan O'Boyle blew himself up with his own bomb in the summer of that year. Another, Liam Kelly founded a breakaway group Saor Uladh ("Free Ulster") and in November 1955, attacked a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks at Roslea in County Fermanagh. One RUC man was badly injured and a Republican fighter was killed in the incident. In August of the following year, Kelly and another IRA dissident, Joe Christle, burned down some customs posts on the border.
In November 1956, the IRA finally began its own border campaign. They were partly motivated by a desire to prevent any more splits in their organisation. They were also encouraged by the results of the UK general election of 1955, when Sinn Féin (since 1949, largely dominated by IRA members) candidates were elected MPs for the Mid-Ulster and Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituencies in Northern Ireland, with a total of 152,310 votes. This appeared to show that there was a substantial Irish republican support base within Northern Ireland. However, as the mainstream Nationalist Party had decided not to take part in the election, its supporters had voted for Sinn Féin instead.