Fresh graffiti seen on a wall in the Catholic nationalists Springfield Road area of west Belfast, warns the public that this part of the area is controlled by the IRA. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is any of several armed movements in Ireland in the 20th and 21st centuries dedicated to Irish republicanism, the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic. It was also characterised by the belief that political violence was necessary to achieve that goal. The original Irish Republican Army formed by 1917 from those Irish Volunteers who refused to enlist in the British Army duri
Fresh graffiti seen on a wall in the Catholic nationalists Springfield Road area of west Belfast, warns the public that this part of the area is controlled by the IRA. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is any of several armed movements in Ireland in the 20th and 21st centuries dedicated to Irish republicanism, the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic. It was also characterised by the belief that political violence was necessary to achieve that goal. The original Irish Republican Army formed by 1917 from those Irish Volunteers who refused to enlist in the British Army during World War I, members of the Irish Citizen Army and others. During the Irish War of Independence it was the army of the Irish Republic, declared by Dáil Éireann in 1919. Some Irish people dispute the claims of more recently created organisations that insist that they are the only legitimate descendants of the original IRA, often referred to as the "Old IRA". The playwright and former IRA member Brendan Behan once said that the first issue on any IRA agenda was "the split". For the IRA, that has often been the case. The first split came after the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, with supporters of the Treaty forming the nucleus of the National Army of the newly created Irish Free State, while the anti-treaty forces continued to use the name Irish Republican Army. After the end of the Irish Civil War, the IRA was around in one form or another for forty years, when it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA in 1969. The latter then had its own breakaways, namely the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, each claiming to be the true successor of the Army of the Irish Republic. • The Irish Republican Army (1917–22) (in later years, known as the "Old" IRA • The Irish Republican Army (1922–69) – the anti-treaty IRA which fought and lost the civil war and which thereafter refused to recognise either the Irish Free State or Northern Ireland, The Official IRA (OIRA), the remainder of
Size: 5760px × 3840px
Location: BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND
Photo credit: © Irish Eye / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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