page_title: Provisional Irish Republican Army
section_title: End of the armed campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Provisional Irish Republican Army / History / End of the armed campaign
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: pancéřovka RPG-7 English: RPG-7 with warhead detached
context_page_description: The Irish Republican Army, also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It saw itself as the military force of an all-island Irish Republic, and as the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.
  The Provisional IRA emerged in December 1969, due to a split within the previous incarnation of the IRA and the broader Irish republican movement. It was the minority faction in the split, while the majority continued as the Official IRA. The Troubles had begun shortly before when a largely Catholic, nonviolent civil rights campaign was met with violence from both Ulster loyalists and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, culminating in the August 1969 riots and deployment of British troops.
context_section_description: On 28 July 2005, the Army Council announced an end to the armed campaign, stating that it would work to achieve its aims solely by peaceful political means. The Army Council stated that it had ordered volunteers to dump all weapons and to end all paramilitary activity. It also announced that the IRA would complete the process of disarmament as quickly as possible.
  This was not the first time that an organisation calling itself the IRA had issued orders to dump arms. After its defeat in the Irish Civil War in 1923 and at the end of its unsuccessful Border Campaign in 1962, the IRA issued similar orders. However, this was the first time that an Irish republican paramilitary organisation had voluntarily decided to dispose of its arms. On 26 September 2005, the IICD announced that "the totality of the IRA's arsenal" had been decommissioned. The IRA invited two independent witnesses to view the secret disarmament work: Catholic priest Father Alec Reid and Protestant minister Reverend Harold Good. Among the weaponry, estimated by Jane's Information Group, to have been decommissioned as part of this process were:
  1,000 rifles
  2 tonnes of Semtex
  20–30 heavy machine guns
  7 surface-to-air missiles (unused)
  7 flamethrowers
  1,200 detonators
  11 rocket-propelled grenade launchers
  90 handguns
  100+ hand grenades
  Having compared the weapons decommissioned with the British and Irish security forces' estimates of the IRA's arsenal, and because of the IRA's full involvement in the process of decommissioning the weapons, the IICD arrived at their conclusion that all IRA weaponry has been decommissioned. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, said he accepted the conclusion of the IICD. Since then, there have been occasional claims in the media that the IRA had not decommissioned all of its weaponry. In response to such claims, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) stated in its tenth report that the IRA had decommissioned all weaponry under its control. It said that if any weapons had been kept, they would have been kept by individuals and against IRA orders.
  In February 2015, the Garda Commissioner stated that Gardaí have no evidence that the IRA's military structure remains or that the IRA is engaged in crime. In August 2015, the PSNI chief constable stated that the IRA no longer exists as a paramilitary organisation. He said that some of its structure remains, but that the group is committed to following a peaceful political path and is not engaged in criminal activity or directing violence. However, he added that some members have engaged in criminal activity or violence for their own ends. The statement was in response to the recent killings of two former IRA members. In August Kevin McGuigan was shot dead, believed to be a revenge killing by former IRA members over the shooting death of former Belfast IRA commander Gerard Davison three months earlier. The chief constable stated there was no evidence that the killing of McGuigan was sanctioned by the IRA leadership. In response, the British government commissioned the Assessment on Paramilitary Groups in Northern Ireland, which concluded in October 2015 that the IRA, while committed to peace, continues to exist in a reduced form.
caption: The RPG-7
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