AI Summary
5 min readIn the summer of 1970, a new factor entered the already volatile equation of Northern Ireland: the Provisional Irish Republican Army. The original IRA had largely abandoned violence after a failed border campaign in the early 1960s, turning instead to Marxism and academic activism. During the street battles of 1969, the graffiti in Belfast read "IRA = I Ran Away." This infuriated older veterans—cultural conservatives and devout Catholics—and younger militants who had seen action in Derry and Belfast. They believed the IRA had vacated its historic role as defender of the Catholic population. In December 1969, a secret meeting of disaffected men in Belfast agreed to split from the Marxist leadership and establish their own rival army council. They called themselves the "provisional" IRA, a deliberate echo of the 1916 Easter Rising's provisional government. The original IRA lingered on as the "Official" IRA, but it was the Provisionals, or "Provos," who would dominate the headlines for the next three decades.
The Provos' Strategy and the British Response
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What you'll learn
- 1 (04:01) **The Troubles Go Global** - Senator Ted Kennedy compares Northern Ireland to Vietnam in a 1971 speech, signaling how toxic the conflict has become for Britain's international image
- 2 (07:55) **Setting the Stage: Summer 1970** - Ted Heath becomes Prime Minister with no knowledge of or interest in Northern Ireland, inheriting a deteriorating security situation
- 3 (12:11) **The Birth of the Provisional IRA** - Disaffected IRA veterans and young militants split from the Marxist leadership in December 1969, forming the "Provisionals"
- 4 (15:40) **The Provo Mindset** - The Provisional IRA was not a defensive organization; its leaders were long-standing paramilitaries who believed in using force for a United Ireland
- 5 (21:17) **Arming the Provos** - The Provisional IRA gets guns from the Republic of Ireland government and Irish American supporters, including through NORAID
- 6 (23:13) **Heath's First Catastrophic Mistake** - The new Prime Minister refuses to ban traditional Orange Order marches, leading to the first major Provo street battle
- 7 (25:10) **The Falls Curfew** - Just days later, the British Army makes an even bigger mistake, turning the Catholic community against them
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Show Notes
What was the Provisional IRA, and why did they return to the fray at the high point of The Troubles in Northern Ireland? How did a series of bloody battles, including the Short Strand Battle, brutally intensify tensions between the British Army and Catholic communities? And, how did the conflict spiral into attacks on civilians…?
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the violent escalation of The Troubles.
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