People of Ireland: what is your opinion of the IRA? please include wether you are Northern or Not?

Question

People of Ireland: what is your opinion of the IRA? please include wether you are Northern or Not?

Answer 1

Well it depends if your talking about the old time ira or the ira today, If the old time i suppose they were just trying to keep their country theirs, The way the uvf were trying to keep ulster british. But if you mean the ira today then i dont know because i hate all terrorist organizations/paramilatrys. And im from the North by the way.

Answer 2

What IRA, sure dey dont exist any more bay. (hee hee)

Answer 3

UP THE IRA

Answer 4

I am from the Mid-West of Ireland.

Peoples opinions differ...some will say they are heros, others will say that they are terrorists.

The original IRA won us our freedom and enslavement from Britain back in the 1920s, we finally got our Irish Free State (except the 6 counties in the north)

But the civil rights moment in the 70s sparked up the conflict between the IRA and the Ulster Unionists.

The Protestants controlled the north. The passed this law where catholics had barely no rights, they lived in poverty and were thrown into jail left, right and center.

Basically the IRA hit an all-time low. They were desperate and started bombing. There was much blood shed on both sides. It even went as far as London and during the 80s (when we were in an economic depression) many Irish had moved to England in search of work.

It got ugly. I suggest you read up about the Birmingham 6 (the British police jailed 6 Irish men for the bombing and killing of English, but they were innocent men)

But now, the conflict is over. Peace is now between the north and south (hopefully for a long time)

To answer your question- I understand what the IRA was trying to achieve but I do not approve of the blood split between the 2 sides..

Answer 5

I live in the north. The IRA is the paramilitary wing of Sinn Fein (apparently). Before the peace process, it was awful for everyone, as there was a bomb 1 day, then retalliation, then more , and so on....

but now, Sinn fein are working with the british and are reaching compromise, therefore they dont actually bomb, as sinn fein dont want to.

But there are people who are not happy that Sinn fein has colluded with the british, and they have broken away and formed a splinter group the Real IRA or (R)IRA/ RIRA.

There are no bombs or shootings of policemen or anything, but you do get the occasional bomb scare - 1 on thursday last week.