Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign
From 1969 until 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) conducted an armed paramilitary campaign primarily in Northern Ireland and England, aimed at ending British rule in Northern Ireland in order to create a united Ireland.
IRA members showing an improvised mortar and an RPG (1992)
Gelignite was a common explosive obtained by the IRA in the Republic of Ireland for use in Northern Ireland. For example, it was behind the 48,000lbs of explosives detonated in Northern Ireland in the first six months of 1973 alone.
An AK-47 rifle, over 1,000 of which were smuggled by Muammar Gaddafi to the Provisional IRA in the 1980s
Samples of Semtex-H and C4 plastic explosives
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who was twice chief-of-staff of the pre-1969 IRA during the Border campaign of 1956–1962, was a member of the first Army Council of the Provisional IRA in 1969.
Martin McGuinness was part of an IRA delegation which took part in peace talks with British politician William Whitelaw, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in July 1972.
Memorial to the victims of the Birmingham pub bombings, which killed twenty-one people in November 1974
IRA political poster from the 1980s, featuring a quote from Bobby Sands written on the first day of the 1981 hunger strike
