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"PIRA", pronounced "pye-ra" is an abbreviation used mostly by the British Army in Ulster. In reality it is not even used as an abbreviation but "pye-ra" is British Army-talk for the Provisionals.
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When Jimmerc says that the PIRA is an abbreviation used mostly by the British in Ulster' he should get his facts right. The Provisional IRA is called the PIRA by the
* Irish government in documents;
* by nationalist leaders north and south;
* by the Northern-Irish unionists;
* by the British government;
* by much of the media


== Shanahan citation ==
In other words, Jimmerc is speaking pure cobblers. And who, by the way, are the 'British in Ulster'? The protestant community? The British government? Or just anyone who doesn't agree with the PIRA and Sinn Féin? And by the way, Ulster is a geographic unit. It is not a state. The state's name is Northern Ireland. The state in which Sinn Féin sits in government (or will do again when the PIRA FINALLY gets around to fully decomissioning, which under the Belfast Agreement it is supposed to have FINISHED 2 years ago.


I can't edit the article since I don't have a user, but I just wanted to draw attention to a problem in a source cited in support of the claim that "Following partition, Northern Ireland became a de facto one-party state governed by the Ulster Unionist Party in the Parliament of Northern Ireland, in which Catholics were viewed as second-class citizens." The footnote cites p. 12 of Timothy Shanahan's book "The Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Morality of Terrorism". On that page, however, the author describes the "Standard Republican Narrative" of which he says that "I will not argue that these myths are false in all respects, but rather that they contain partial-truths at best and that the reality is considerably more complicated" (p. 11).
As to the 'When has the IRA ever targeted civilians, it was always legitimate targets ( there have been SOME exceptions, though)' line, I presume that someone is being ironic or sarcastic there. Or does someone actually think that the children murdered in Warrington, the woman watching a Remembrance Day wreath-laying in Enniskillen, the people sitting in a restaurant who were burned to death by IRA bombs, the young community policeman having a pint in a gay pub, an elderly former Speaker of the Northern Ireland parliament and his son (both butchered) and scores of members of Án Garda Siochána like Frank Hand and Gerry McCabe were legitimate targets? Damn all people in Ireland think that. In fact most people have no time for the PIRA and it makes their skin crawl that they (and their murdering twins in the UDA/UFF etc) are out of prison. But we are stomaching it because it is part of the Belfast Agreement and we all live in hope that they have learned their lesson. Which is why, at its recent 'highpoint' in the Republic of Ireland's general election, managed to win a massive FIVE seats out of 166. Wooopee! Some breakthrough. Only seventy-eight seats to go and you might actually form a government, lads! And at the rate of gaining five seats an election, that's 14 elections. Yeah, Sinn Féin finally winning government in the Republic of Ireland in or around 2070.


== Semi-protected edit request on 11 March 2024 ==
In other words, don't kid yourself that the PIRA ran a 'legitimate war', had 'legitimate' that the PIRA 'spoke' for the 'oppressed people of Ireland' or that Sinn Féin 'represents' Ireland. Padraig Pearse never advocated murdering children, women honouring war dead, members of Ireland's police-force, a gay policeman having a pint, or burning people to death in restaurants. And he would be ashamed that some people claim his authority for brutally slaughtering people they way the PIRA did for years. (And the way dumb americans were foolish enough to give these guys money and support.)


{{Edit semi-protected|Provisional Irish Republican Army|answered=yes}}
But at least Sinn Féin today has real leaders of substance who are trying to solve, not create, divisions, people like Adams, McGuinness and Alex Maskey, the deeply impressive Lord Mayor of Belfast.
Add the "anti-imperialist organization" tag ] (]) 01:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:] '''Not done:'''<!-- Template:ESp --> The article makes no mention of the IRA having an anti-imperialist stance. Although sources appear to exist that could support such a claim in the article, I also doubt that it would be considered a ]; it might be an aspect of their motivations, but it's probably far from being their central ideology. ] (]) 10:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)


== Semi-protected edit request on 6 July 2024 ==
] 03:39 Dec 19, 2002 (UTC) (A REAL republican whose grand-uncle fought for the REAL republic in the REAL Irish War of Independence.)


{{edit semi-protected|Provisional Irish Republican Army|answered=yes}}
Removed 'Mainland Great Britain'. As Great Britain is an island, it does not have a mainland, just . . . em . . . Great Britain. What people using this geographically ludicrous term is the bit of the United Kingdom that isn't Northern Ireland. And that is . . . well. . . Great Britain! The actual full name of the UK is the ]. Northern Ireland isn't part of Great Britain, it is part of the UK., which is Northern Ireland + Great Britain. So there isn't a 'mainland Great Britain'. (If they said the mainland of the United Kingdom, that ''would'' mean Great Britain.) But there ain't no 'mainland Great Britain'. (Yes I know some people use the term, but Wiki as an encyclopedia has to use the ''correct'' term, not replicate their mistake!) ] 03:52 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)
The provisional IRA was NOT a “terrorist organisation,” it was the only defence Irish Catholic people had against the RUC and British Army, who were placing these innocent people in internment centres without crime or without trial simply for being Irish. ] (]) 19:37, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


] '''Not done for now:''' please establish a ] for this alteration ''']''' using the {{Tlx|Edit semi-protected}} template.<!-- Template:ESp --> ] (]) 17:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
: Point of fact "Mainland Great Britain" is correct in a different context, if refering to it as distinct from any of the smaller islands that are politically part of Great Britain and ''do not'' have any autonomomy. Examples are the numerous Scottish Islands, Angelsey, The Isle of Wight and Scilly Isles, where the inhabitants refer to the island of Great Britain as the ''mainland'' ''Dainamo March 22, 2004''
----


== "Officially known as"? ==
I reverted the last three edits because they were pitched rather non-neutrally. We're not here to present one side's view or the other's, but it seemed clear to me that the entries were presenting only one side, that of the PIRA or their supporters, and not a neutral one. See ] for more information. It's important that we write dispassionately about subjects, and not give them the benefit of the doubt, only present facts that support them, or extend facts like when and where a bomb went off and that the PIRA ''claimed'' it went off early ... all the way to "instead exploded" implying there is no doubt of veracity. Likewise, we don't know the "the British" framed them (and are perhaps not even sure they were framed, depending on your POV). I can't claim to be perfect at it writing dispassionately, but I have to call this one non-NPOV. <tt>;-)</tt> ] 11:58, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)


What does this phrase mean? Does it mean "self-described as"? In fact they self-described as "Óglaigh na hÉireann" (which does not translate as "Irish Republican Army" either but as "younglings of Ireland" or more idiomatically "Irish volunteers", IRA merely being a euphemism of no status from 1919 onwards). And that is also the title of the Irish Defence Forces, which surely have a higher claim on "officially" etc. ] (]) 11:35, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
----
:See the history section about their origins. <span style="border:1px solid green; padding:0 2px">]&nbsp;]</span> 12:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
::That has nothing to do with the "officially known as" though - "officially" by what? What office or officer calls them this? ] (]) 20:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)


== First PIRA public statement ==
The entry has a listing of "notable events" in the history of the PIRA. All of them are negative, starting with "1972...bombs killed" to "1996...bomb...injured". I added one positive event, the fact that the people of Fermanagh-South Tyrone elected a prisoner who was openly in the PIRA their MP while he was on hunger strike for POW recognition. The enemies of the PIRA always claim that they do not have the support of the community, and this contradicted that, it pretty much takes the line of the British establishment and turns it on it's head. I see that this was removed. Sorry, but it was definitely a notable event in the history of the PIRA - the fact that one of it's members was elected MP. I put it back in.


The article states, "The Provisional IRA issued their first public statement on 28 December 1969." The citation is to a secondary source. Is this statement (or other PIRA statements) online anywhere? The CAIN website has an archive of IRA statements but it's focused on the period after 1994. I'm really asking out of personal curiousity but this would probably be of interest to other readers. ] (]) 21:13, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
I see some of my wording has been changed for a more NPOV. Some of these changes are fine. However, I described the person who was attempting an attack on a UDA office over a fish and chip shop as a volunteer, and this was changed to bomber. This does not seem neutral to me, it is like not calling British soldiers soldiers or RUC policemen policemen and instead calling them all "shooters" if they shoot a gun. If you feel something I said regarding Bobby Sands election is NPOV, you can edit it, but trying to throw the event down the memory hole is not NPOV.

Plus, the whole scope of events seems tilted. The original Shankill Road bombing fails to note that there was a UDA office over the fish-and-chip shop and that the volunteer was killed along with the others when the bomb went off prematurely. This omission makes it seem like the PIRA planted a time-bomb in a fish-and-chip shop in order to kill a bunch of civilians. -- ] 21:03, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Firstly, ''volunteer'' is blatently POV and terminology ''exclusively'' used by the PIRA and its defenders. It is loaded terminology and cannot be used here. The person in question went to plant a bomb. That makes him a bomber. It is elementary english.

Secondly, your account of the election of Sands is a good spin but selective in its facts. That constituency had a history of electing independent nationalists. The unionist vote was split. The SDLP controversially did not put up a candidate. Sands' election, like that of Eoin Carron later, was not the great PIRA electoral triumph you suggest but a product of electoral polarisation produced by Thatcher's handline stance on the hunger strikes, the complex nature of Fermanagh and South Tyrone electoral politics and also the belief in many quarters that voting for a hunger striker might make Thatcher moderate her policy stance and so save lives. To claim it as an electoral mandate for the PIRA is fact-twisting spin worthy of Alaistair Campbell.

Thirdly, you make it sound that the PIRA was only out to kill UDA men and did not target non-combatents. Killing of anyone was generally deemed by Irish people to be wrong, even if they were in the UDA. And to suggest that the PIRA did not target non-combatents is a blatent lie. It murdered men, women and children, blew people's heads off in the street, burnt to death people in restaurants, murdered Jean McConville and buried her body on a beach and then lied about it as they lied about so much else, robbed banks, kidnapped supermarket tycoons, blew up diplomats, threatened to kidnap government ministers, etc. If the Shankill Road bombing was not aimed at innocent men, women and children it was unusual for an organisation that killed anyone anywhere to suit their own ends. ] 23:09, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

==Terrorism==

PIRA operations: guerrilla campaign or terrorism? Here's what dictionary.com has to say about each:

guerrilla: A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy, as by surprise raids.

terrorism: The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Now I think you could say both definitions apply to PIRA, but in my personal opinion "terrorist" seems much more descriptive of PIRA than "guerrilla", particularly as their targets were so often civilians.

:Regardless of what dictionary.com may say the correct definition of terrorism is a controversial subject. It is also a matter of dispute as to whether or not the Provo's are terrorists, so using the word ''terrorist'' in this context is not ]. ] 01:18, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Does that mean that we can't refer to Al Qaida as a terrorist group?

To quote our Duffy from above " It murdered men, women and children, blew people's heads off in the street, burnt to death people in restaurants, murdered Jean McConville and buried her body on a beach and then lied about it as they lied about so much else, robbed banks, kidnapped supermarket tycoons, blew up diplomats, threatened to kidnap government ministers, etc." This is terrosism whatever you defintion. This is not a question of NPOV ] ] 11:24, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

:The point is that a significant minority disagree with the characterisation of PIRA as terrorist so like it or not this is a matter of opinion rather than of fact. It may seem that any definition of terrorism must include the PIRA but with a nebulous word like this there are all kinds of definitions in use, and believe it or not there are a great many who dont think that even deliberately targeting civilians is enough to make a group terrorist.

:Ultimately it is best to let people read the article and make up their own minds. I dont think anyone reading the information in this article can be left in any doubt as to exactly what kind of organisation the PIRA is. ] 20:16, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You cannot rewrite history in the name of NPOV. Who is this significant minority? Iit certainly doesn't include the government of the Republic of Ireland or the government of the United States or any other ''signifcant'' body. ] ] 20:27, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It is worth noting that at no stage in modern late 20th century to early 21st century history have the people of Ireland endorsed the IRA or its political wing Sinn Fein (which incidentially has just joined the former communists in a voting block in the European Parliament). At its modern highpoint Sinn Fein still is a political minnow in the south and in the North it is now the largest nationalist party but not overwhelmingly dominant. Furthermore, there was a national outcry when it was suggested that the IRA men who killed Irish policemen Garda Gerry McCabe should be released under the Belfast Agreement. ''Terrorist'' was one of the milder descriptions given to the organisation. ] 20:36, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Iota, to clarify: assuming that a significant minority of Arabs don't consider them to be terrorists, is it your position that Al Qaeda should not be referred to as a terrorist group in Misplaced Pages?

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Shanahan citation

I can't edit the article since I don't have a user, but I just wanted to draw attention to a problem in a source cited in support of the claim that "Following partition, Northern Ireland became a de facto one-party state governed by the Ulster Unionist Party in the Parliament of Northern Ireland, in which Catholics were viewed as second-class citizens." The footnote cites p. 12 of Timothy Shanahan's book "The Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Morality of Terrorism". On that page, however, the author describes the "Standard Republican Narrative" of which he says that "I will not argue that these myths are false in all respects, but rather that they contain partial-truths at best and that the reality is considerably more complicated" (p. 11).

Semi-protected edit request on 11 March 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Add the "anti-imperialist organization" tag Lajward.Candango (talk) 01:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: The article makes no mention of the IRA having an anti-imperialist stance. Although sources appear to exist that could support such a claim in the article, I also doubt that it would be considered a WP:DEFCAT; it might be an aspect of their motivations, but it's probably far from being their central ideology. Liu1126 (talk) 10:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 July 2024

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The provisional IRA was NOT a “terrorist organisation,” it was the only defence Irish Catholic people had against the RUC and British Army, who were placing these innocent people in internment centres without crime or without trial simply for being Irish. Cárthach Leahy (talk) 19:37, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. PianoDan (talk) 17:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

"Officially known as"?

What does this phrase mean? Does it mean "self-described as"? In fact they self-described as "Óglaigh na hÉireann" (which does not translate as "Irish Republican Army" either but as "younglings of Ireland" or more idiomatically "Irish volunteers", IRA merely being a euphemism of no status from 1919 onwards). And that is also the title of the Irish Defence Forces, which surely have a higher claim on "officially" etc. 185.60.76.112 (talk) 11:35, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

See the history section about their origins. The Banner talk 12:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
That has nothing to do with the "officially known as" though - "officially" by what? What office or officer calls them this? 2A02:C7C:37D6:C100:885E:F169:EE60:F3F7 (talk) 20:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

First PIRA public statement

The article states, "The Provisional IRA issued their first public statement on 28 December 1969." The citation is to a secondary source. Is this statement (or other PIRA statements) online anywhere? The CAIN website has an archive of IRA statements but it's focused on the period after 1994. I'm really asking out of personal curiousity but this would probably be of interest to other readers. Prezbo (talk) 21:13, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

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