Northern Campaign (Irish Republican Army) - Significance of The IRA's Activities in The Period

Significance of The IRA's Activities in The Period

The events labeled the Northern Campaign 1942–1944 can only be called a 'campaign' within the context of a republican interpretation of the IRA's activities. The statements emanating from the IRA Army Council during the period seek to portray the IRA as protector of the Irish Republic from 1922 onwards. In the mind of IRA volunteers, the Irish Republic was yet to be established. The IRA would use this reasoning to justify future efforts to destabilise and launch attacks within the United Kingdom.

Additionally, the IRA was seen by many of the base community as operating in league with the Axis (see below). This was seen by the nationalists in Ulster as abetting the enemy who bombed Ireland. In the republic, this was seen as a violation of Éamon de Valera's rigorous adherence to neutrality.

With the death of Kerins in June 1944, the IRA no longer had a Chief of Staff, there was no longer a GHQ, or even an IRA Army Council, there wasn't even a band of men to lead and call the IRA. Internment by the Government of Éire had almost wiped out the organisation both as an effective fighting force, and as an organisation willing & able to fight. The IRA was to come to see this as a bitter betrayal by their fellow countrymen.

The Irish Minister of Justice, Gerald Boland, was heard to boast during the period that "the IRA was dead and he had killed it".

Naturally the IRA had assisted in its own near extinction—as late as 1947, 25 IRA "lifers", (prisoners serving life sentences), remained in British prisons. Until 1950, 12 IRA volunteers remained in Crumlin Road Prison, Belfast, serving sentences for IRA involvement, and it wasn't until the change of Government in Éire in 1948 that the last IRA internee's were released from Portlaoise Prison.

Under this climate of fierce scrutiny by the authorities, and without increases in IRA recruitment to offset losses, the series of attacks labeled the Northern Campaign died in the winter of 1942 within three months of it beginning. The first attack, a failure even before reaching the objective, had not been followed up with anything substantive or spectacular. IRA units along the border who were meant to wage a series of sporadic attacks against border targets found they could no longer operate. The IRA Army Council, lacking imagination and room for manoeuvre, found itself isolated from its base community and volunteers. The IRA was entirely crippled.