[permalink] [id link]
IRA attacks on Catholics who joined the RUC, and the perception that the police force was " a Protestant force for a Protestant people " meant that Catholic participation in the Royal Ulster Constabulary always remained disproportionally small in terms of the Catholic percentage of the overall Northern Irish population.
from
Wikipedia
Some Related Sentences
IRA and attacks
They soon gained a reputation for brutality, as the RIC campaign against the IRA and Sinn Féin members was stepped up and police reprisals for IRA attacks were condoned by the government.
The official army position, backed by the British Home Secretary the next day in the House of Commons, was that the paratroopers had reacted to gun and nail bomb attacks from suspected IRA members.
From the beginning of " The Troubles " in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s until the mid-1990s, London was subjected to repeated terrorist attacks by the Provisional IRA.
The second phase of the IRA campaign, roughly from January to July 1920, involved attacks on the fortified police barracks located in the towns.
In Dublin, the " Squad " and elements of the IRA Dublin Brigade were amalgamated into the " Active Service Unit ", under Oscar Traynor, which tried to carry out at least three attacks on British troops a day.
The poem called Belfast Confetti tells of the attacks made by the IRA.
In 1976 after a series of terror attacks by the Provisional IRA, Gaddafi announced that " the bombs which are convulsing Britain and breaking its spirit are the bombs of Libyan people.
* March 20 – Warrington bomb attacks: An IRA bomb explodes in Warrington Town Centre and kills 2 children, Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry.
On December 11, 1920 Cork City centre was gutted by fires started by the Black and Tans in reprisal for IRA attacks.
During the Troubles, over 300 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 ( in 1983 ) the most dangerous police force in the world of which to be a member.
Whenever it claimed responsibility for its attacks, the UVF usually claimed that those targeted were IRA members or IRA sympathisers.
Other times, attacks on Catholic civilians were claimed as " retaliation " for IRA actions, since the IRA drew most of its support from the Catholic community.
The IRA takes this opportunity to restate its policy of non sectarian attacks, while retaining its right to take unequivocal action against those who direct or motivate sectarian slaughter against the Nationalist population ".
Although formally on ceasefire ( except for " defensive actions ") since 1972 ( see above ), the Official IRA continued some attacks on British forces up until mid 1973, killing seven British soldiers in what it termed " retaliatory attacks ".
The measures were introduced by the then Police Commissioner, Owen Kelly, following an IRA bombing campaign in the City in the early 1990s including attacks such as the 1992 Baltic Exchange and 1993 Bishopsgate bombings.
It served the purpose of providing a visible sign to the public that the City authorities were taking the threats of more attacks by the IRA seriously.
The attack by the Provisional IRA showed that while the ring of steel was able to hinder attacks inside the City itself, terrorists could instead target other high value areas such as the Docklands or Westminster, which are not inside the City of London.
Starting the following month, the Special Constabulary started shooting Catholic civilians in revenge for IRA attacks.
Following the killing of Notarantonio, unaware of the involvement of the FRU, the IRA assassinated two UDA leaders in reprisal attacks.
The remnants of the IRA, which had split several times into ever smaller groupings since 1922, embarked on a bombing campaign in Britain ( see Sabotage Campaign ( IRA )) and some attacks in Northern Ireland ( see Northern Campaign ), intended to force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.
IRA and on
* 1979 – An IRA bomb explodes on the Grand Place in Brussels.
He was killed during an IRA attack on the RIC barracks in Rathmore, County Kerry, on 11 July 1920.
On 10 August Bombardier Paul Challenor became the first soldier to be killed by the Provisional IRA in Derry, when he was shot by a sniper on the Creggan estate.
He claimed McGuinness, the second-in-command of the IRA in the city at the time, and another anonymous IRA member gave him bomb parts on the morning of 30 January, the date planned for the civil rights march.
The report concluded that an Official IRA sniper fired on British soldiers, albeit on the balance of evidence his shot was fired after the Army shots that wounded Damien Donaghey and John Johnston.
The GAC passed motions ( by the necessary two-thirds majority ) allowing members of the Provisional IRA to discuss and debate the taking of parliamentary seats, and the removal of the ban on members of the organisation from supporting any successful republican candidate who took their seat in Dáil Éireann.
This argument is based on the view that the surviving anti-Treaty members of the Second Dáil delegated their " authority " to the IRA Army Council in 1938.
On 21 January 1994, on the 75th anniversary of the First Dáil Éireann, Continuity IRA volunteers offered a " final salute " to Tom Maguire by firing over his grave, and a public statement and a photo were published in Saoirse Irish Freedom.
In February 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission claimed in a report on paramilitary activity that two groups, styling themselves as Saoirse na hÉireann and Óglaigh na hÉireann, had been formed after a split in the Continuity IRA.
After a failed attempt to bomb Canary Wharf, a large IRA bomb exploded at South Quay on 9 February 1996.
* 1974 – M62 coach bombing: The Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) explodes a bomb on a bus carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel in Yorkshire, England.
Fenian soldiers wearing IRA insignia fought at the Battle of Ridgeway on 2 June 1866.
The fear was increased when, on the very day the new national parliament was meeting, 21 January 1919, members of the IRA Third Tipperary Brigade led by Seán Treacy and Dan Breen seized a quantity of gelignite and two Royal Irish Constabulary constables ( James McDonnell and Patrick O ' Connell ) were shot dead in the process.
As part of the ongoing strategy to take control of the IRA, Brugha proposed to Dáil Éireann on 20 August 1919 that the Volunteers were to be asked, at this next convention, to swear allegiance to the Dáil.
Brugha was nominally the superior as Minister for Defence, but Collins's powerbase came from his position as Director of Organisation of the IRA and from his membership on the Supreme Council of the IRB.
Thus, the third phase of the war ( roughly August 1920 – July 1921 ) involved the IRA taking on a greatly expanded British force, moving away from attacking well defended barracks and instead using ambush tactics.
The area had a Protestant and Unionist majority and IRA actions were responded to with reprisals against the Catholic population, including killings ( such as the McMahon Murders ) and the burning of many homes – as on Belfast's Bloody Sunday.
In this regard, the IRA acted to a large degree as an agent of social control and stability, driven by the need to preserve cross-class unity in the national struggle, and on occasion being used to break strikes.
The most contentious areas of the Treaty for the IRA were abolition of the Irish Republic declared in 1919, the status of the Irish Free State as a dominion in the British Commonwealth and the British retention of the so called Treaty Ports on Ireland's south coast.
A month later, on 18 February, Liam Forde, O / C of the IRA Mid-Limerick Brigade, issued a proclamation stating that: " We no longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army, and renew our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic ".
IRA and Catholics
The RUC and army arrested 342 Catholics, but key Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) members had been tipped off and 104 of those arrested were released when it emerged they had no paramilitary connections.
The security forces were also reportedly implicated in reprisal killings of Catholics, notably the McMahon Murders on 26 March 1922, in which six Catholics were killed and the Arnon Street Massacre on 1 April, where another six were shot dead in retaliation for the IRA killing of a policeman.
A major concern was the welfare of Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, many of whom suffered the harsh policing methods of the Ulster Special Constabulary that was formed in late 1921 to deal with the IRA there.
The IRA began extending attacks to Royal Irish Constabulary barracks and tax offices in the north and there had been serious rioting between Catholics and Protestants in Derry in May and June and in Belfast in July, which had left up to 40 people dead.
The IRA targeted for assassination those Catholics who did join.
Beginning in November 1975, the gang started abducting and murdering Roman Catholics ; apparently in retaliation for the killing of four British soldiers by the Provisional IRA that same month.
Membership of Trinity College Dublin is still forbidden for Catholics and membership of the IRA and Communist organizations remain mortal sins.
None of the victims had any connection to the IRA, and there was suspicion among some of their families that the murders were not properly investigated because those being killed were Catholics.
It was alleged by Harnden that IRA Chief of Staff Seamus Twomey, on the suggestion of Brian Keenan, ordered that there had to be a disproportionate retaliation against Protestants in order to stop Catholics being killed by loyalists.
0.863 seconds.