page_title: Provisional Irish Republican Army arms importation
section_title: Other arms sources
hierarchical_section_title: Provisional Irish Republican Army arms importation / Other arms sources
caption_attribution_description: English: FN FNC
context_page_description: Provisional Irish Republican Army arms importation into Ireland for use in Northern Ireland began in the early 1970s. With these weapons it conducted an armed campaign against the British state in Northern Ireland.
context_section_description: As well as these major sources of arms, the IRA also bought weapons on a smaller scale from various arms dealers in continental Europe. In the 1970s, some guns were purchased by Dáithí Ó Conaill in Czechoslovakia and in the 1980s, Belgian FN FNC rifles were obtained, probably smuggled through the Netherlands. 
  There was contact between the IRA and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and specifically the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine  (PFLP), starting from the mid-1970s which included the training of IRA volunteers. At one stage, the PLO offered weapons and training to the IRA, but they declined on the grounds that it was impossible to smuggle arms out of the Levant region and Palestine in specific without alerting Israeli intelligence. Tim Pat Coogan wrote that assistance from the PLO largely dried up in the mid-1980s after the PLO had forged stronger links with the government of the Republic of Ireland. AG-3 rifles from Norway were also secretly obtained.
caption: FN FNC
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