S-Plan
| 'Sabotage Campaign' | |
|---|---|
 The aftermath of an IRA bike bomb in Coventry on 25 August 1939 |
|
| Location |
England |
| Planned by |
Seamus O'Donovan, Seán Russell, Joseph McGarrity |
| Target | Civil and military infrastructure of the United Kingdom |
| Date | 16 January 1939 – March 1940 |
| Executed by |
 Irish Republican Army (IRA) |
| Outcome | IRA campaign fails |
| Casualties | 7 killed 96 injured |
The S-Plan or Sabotage Campaign or England Campaign was a campaign of bombing and sabotage against the civil, economic, and military infrastructure of the United Kingdom from 1939 to 1940, conducted by members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was conceived by Seamus O'Donovan in 1938 at the request of then IRA Chief of Staff Seán Russell. Russell and Joseph McGarrity are thought to have devised such a strategy in 1936.
Following a power struggle within the IRA during the mid-1930s, Seán Russell was reinstated to the IRA in April 1938 and elected to the IRA Army Council in absentia. At a subsequent IRA General Army Convention, Russell and his supporters secured enough support to get a controlling majority vote within the Army Council. It was at this time that Russell began the process of preparing for a campaign of attacks on British soil - a strategy he had decided upon from the mid-1930s onwards.
Seamus (Jim) O’Donovan had been asked by Seán Russell directly after his election to IRA Chief of Staff in 1938 to formulate his ideas on the possibilities of successful acts of sabotage on British soil. O’Donovan was the former Director of Chemicals of the "old IRA" and an acknowledged expert in the use of explosive material. He had not been active in politics since retiring from public life in 1923. Russell's request followed directly from him taking on the role of IRA Chief of Staff of the "new IRA" army council. The notes which O'Donovan created for Russell became the S-Plan or Sabotage Plan.
On 17 December 1938, the Wolfe Tone Weekly newspaper published a statement issued by a group signing itself the "Executive Council of Dáil Éireann, Government of the Republic". This group perceived itself to be the legitimate government of the 32-County Irish Republic and refused to recognise the legitimacy of partition. In the statement, seven Second Dáil TDs declared that they had delegated what they believed to be their governmental "authority" to the Army Council.
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