Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign 1969–97
| Provisional IRA campaign | ||||||||
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| Part of the Troubles | ||||||||
 IRA members showing an improvised mortar and an RPG (1992) |
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| Belligerents | ||||||||
 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) |
 British Armed Forces Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) |
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| Casualties and losses | ||||||||
| IRA 293 killed over 10,000 imprisoned at different times during the conflict |
British Armed Forces 656 killed RUC 272 killed |
Loyalist paramilitary groups 44 killed | ||||||
| Others killed by IRA 621–644 civilians 1 Irish Army soldier 6 Gardaí 9 other republican paramilitaries |
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Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Volunteer Force
From 1969 until 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) conducted an armed paramilitary campaign primarily in Northern Ireland and England, aimed at ending British rule in Northern Ireland in order to create a united Ireland.
The Provisional IRA emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in 1969, partly as a result of that organisation's perceived failure to defend Catholic neighbourhoods from attack in the 1969 Northern Ireland riots. The Provisionals gained credibility from their efforts to physically defend such areas in 1970 and 1971. From 1971–72, the IRA took to the offensive and conducted a relatively high intensity campaign against the British and Northern Ireland security forces and the infrastructure of the state. The British Army characterised this period as the 'insurgency phase' of the IRA's campaign.
The IRA declared a brief ceasefire in 1972 and a more protracted one in 1975, when there was an internal debate over the feasibility of future operations. The armed group reorganised itself in the late 1970s into a smaller, cell-based structure, which was designed to be harder to penetrate. The IRA now tried to carry out a smaller scale but more sustained campaign which they characterised as the 'Long War', with the eventual aim of weakening the British government's resolve to remain in Ireland. The British Army called this the 'terrorist phase' of the IRA's campaign. The IRA made some attempts in the 1980s to escalate the conflict with the aid of weapons imported from Libya. In the 1990s they also began a campaign of bombing economic targets in London and other cities in England.
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