The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

there is a substantial pool of young Fianna aspirants, nurtured in a climate of violence, eagerly seeking promotion to full gun carrying terrorist status and there is a steady release from the prisons of embittered and dedicated terrorists.

Leadership: PIRA is essentially a working class organisation based in the ghetto areas of the cities and in the poorer rural areas.

Nevertheless there is a strata of intelligent, astute and experienced terrorists who provide the backbone of the organisation.

The fear of a possible return to Protestant rule and oppression will underpin this kind of support for the Provisionals for many years to come.

This self-contained market town in the shadow of Sliabh Gullion Mountain had been a Catholic and Gaelic stronghold for centuries.

This was partly because ‘Cross’, as it is known, had a reputation for being a Nationalist stronghold, which led the RUC Special Branch to make the same sort of assumptions that had led to the out-of-date internment lists being prepared.

However, perceptions were altered by the internment era with its rough-handed searches, planting of weapons in houses, where they could be ‘discovered’ in subsequent visits, and abrasive encounters at checkpoints.

From then on, Crossmaglen became a no-man’s-land to the security forces. The army post in the town could only be serviced by helicopter.

In between inveighing against their tormentors in ‘bandit country’, as the security forces’ spin doctors christened South Armagh, Unionist apologists changed the argument sometimes to say that it was the security provided by the Republic which made South Armagh so dangerous.

So deep is the clan tradition that even the writ of the IRA leadership sometimes has to contend with the authority of the local chieftains.

The phrase ‘Tell Them Nothing’ hangs invisible and omnipresent over the fields of South Armagh.

This gave completely the opposite impression: IRA volunteers were risking their lives for ‘pay’ of only £20 a week.

The General defined the Provisionals’ other main illegal source of income as ‘protection payments from shops and businesses and fraud involving dole money and “lost” pension books’.

However, this said, it has to be pointed out that the IRA in Collins’ time also partly financed itself by a system of levies, which, despite some abuses, were generally paid willingly enough. The same sort of system existed in the Glover period. While there was some extortion, most of the contributions to the IRA were voluntary.

Glover went on to claim that ‘terrorists can live there without fear of extradition for crimes committed in the North. In short the Republic provides many of the facilities of a classic safe haven so essential to any successful terrorist movement.