The IRA

            Ireland has been under formal rule by Britain since roughly the sixteenth century. Since that time, similar to many developing nations around the world, there has been a population of the ruled that contest the legitimacy of that control. The significant population of that type of movement in Ireland is generally referred to as the Irish Republican Army. For nearly two centuries a number of uprisings occurred with the goal of achieving an independent Irish Republic. A violent campaign of violence peaked between 1919 and 1921 (Munck, 1985) as a result of a virtual civil war in Ireland. Because of the mounting violence, Britain had proposed a treaty that would award Ireland partial independence leaving Northern Ireland still under full British rule. This section called Northern Ireland was essentially a by-product of that war. Parliaments were established for both the Irish Free Republic and for Northern Ireland in Belfast (White, 1995). This treaty not only partitioned the state of Ireland, it separated the organization once known as the Irish Republican Army and its representative political party known as Sinn Fein. One side that supported this treaty was led by Michael Collins. He " took the pragmatic view that it was the evacuation of the British army that counted and that this would create the freedom to achieve freedom (Porter, 1998)" The anti-treaty faction was lead by Eamon de Valera and refused to accept the legitimacy of the Free State of Ireland that resulted from the treaty which passed. The ensuing civil war ended in 1923 with de Valera's followers establishing a new party called Fianna Fail (Porter, 1998). .
             The Turmoil of Twenty Years: 1960-1980.
             Up until the 1960's, the political violence that persisted between Britain and Ireland was relatively calm. During that time however, there were severe social epidemics that began to fuel more unrest. Unemployment was at a critical level, which caused snowballing effects such as poverty and violence, not unlike the depression the United States was suffering at the time (Thompson, 1989).