the ranks of the Provisionals were filling up. The stories about the brutality which accompanied the internment process saw to that. These were augmented as the reports of the ‘deep interrogation’ method began to filter out a few days later. Recruits came forward in huge numbers to join both the Provisionals and the Officials, not only in Belfast and Derry, but in many rural areas where hitherto there had been little or no IRA support. McMillen and Sullivan had to abandon their attempts to restrict the Officials to a purely defensive role. The Provisional IRA had received an accession of
...more
