page_title: Provisional Irish Republican Army
section_title: 1969 split
hierarchical_section_title: Provisional Irish Republican Army / History / 1969 split
caption_attribution_description: Provisional IRA badge
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: Traditional republicans formed the "Provisional" Army Council in December 1969, after an IRA convention was held at Knockvicar House in Boyle, County Roscommon. The two main issues were a motion to enter into a "National Liberation Front" with radical left-wing groups, and a motion to end abstentionism, which would allow participation in the British, Irish and Northern Ireland parliaments. The traditionalists refused to vote on the "National Liberation Front" and it was passed by twenty-nine votes to seven. The traditionalists argued strongly against the ending of abstentionism, and the official minutes report the motion passed by twenty-seven votes to twelve. IRA Director of Intelligence Seán Mac Stíofáin announced that he no longer considered that the IRA leadership represented republican goals, however there was no walkout. Those opposed, who included Mac Stíofáin and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, refused to go forward for election to the new Executive.
  While others canvassed support throughout Ireland, Mac Stíofáin was a key person making a connection with the Belfast IRA under Billy McKee and Joe Cahill, who had refused to take orders from the IRA's Dublin leadership since September 1969, in protest at their failure to defend Catholic areas in August. Nine out of thirteen IRA units in Belfast sided with the Provisionals in December 1969, roughly 120 activists and 500 supporters. The first "Provisional" Army Council was composed of Seán Mac Stíofáin, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, Paddy Mulcahy, Sean Tracey, Leo Martin, Dáithí Ó Conaill and Joe Cahill. The term "provisional" was chosen to mirror the 1916 Provisional Government of the Irish Republic, and also to designate it as temporary pending reorganisation of the movement. Although this reorganisation eventually happened in 1970, the name stuck. The Provisional IRA issued their first public statement on 28 December 1969, stating:
  We declare our allegiance to the 32 county Irish republic, proclaimed at Easter 1916, established by the first Dáil Éireann in 1919, overthrown by force of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed six-county and twenty-six-county partition states.
  The Sinn Féin party split along the same lines on 11 January 1970, when a third of the delegates walked out of the Ard Fheis in protest at the party leadership's attempt to force through the ending of abstentionism, despite its failure to achieve a two-thirds majority vote of delegates required to change the policy. Despite the declared support of that faction of Sinn Féin, the early Provisional IRA was extremely suspicious of political activity, arguing rather for the primacy of armed struggle. What would become the Provisional IRA received arms and funding from the Fianna Fáil-led Irish government in 1969, resulting in the 1970 Arms Crisis in which criminal charges were pursued against two former government ministers and others including Belfast IRA volunteer John Kelly. Roughly £100,000 was donated by the Irish government to "Defence Committees" in Catholic areas and, according to historian Richard English, "there is now no doubt that some money did go from the Dublin government to the proto-Provisionals". The Provisional IRA maintained the principles of the pre-1969 IRA; they considered both British rule in Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Ireland to be illegitimate, insisting that the Army Council was the only valid government, as head of an all-island Irish Republic. This belief was based on a series of perceived political inheritances which constructed a legal continuity from the Second Dáil. By 1971, the Provisionals had inherited most of the existing IRA organisation in Northern Ireland, as well as the more militant IRA members in the rest of Ireland. In addition, they recruited many young nationalists from Northern Ireland, who had not been involved in the IRA before but had been radicalised by the violence that broke out in 1969. These people became known as "sixty niners", having joined after 1969. The Provisional IRA adopted the phoenix as the symbol of
caption: An IRA badge – the phoenix is frequently used to symbolise the origins of the Provisional IRA
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