Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY • 287through political or diplomatic means. As the IRA’s approximately1,500 members were quite outnumbered by the Northern Irish policetogether with regular British forces and security forces in NorthernIreland, the IRA resorted heavily to terrorism aimed at inflicting maximumcasualties and targeted civilians as well as military personnel.The most recent period of IRA terrorism began in 1969 with covertaid, including arms, from the Irish Republic during the Fianna Failgovernment of Prime Minister Jack Lynch. Later Irish governmentsdesisted from covert support and took steps to intercept arms destinedfor the IRA being shipped through Irish territory. Libya providedarms and financial help intermittently, shipping five tons of arms fromTripoli on the Claudia that were seized by the Irish navy on 28 March1973. This shipment was followed by a shipment of 150 tons of Libyanweapons, including Czech-made Semtex explosives, aboard theEskund, seized by French customs and police on 1 November 1987.The revolutionary governments of Iran and Algeria also aided theIRA. The IRA developed contacts with the Basque Fatherland andLiberty group and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,as well as the Revolutionary Cells found in Germany. However,most of the IRA’s resources came from within the Irish community,through extortion and protection payments among the Irish Catholiccommunities in the northern six counties, bank robberies in bothNorthern Ireland and the Republic, and through appeals for donationsfrom people of Catholic Irish descent living in the United States andelsewhere, often through front organizations such as NORAID (theIrish Northern Aid Committee). On 29 September 1984, the Irish navyseized seven tons of arms on the trawler Marita Ann offloaded from aship that had transported them from the United States.IRA terrorism had several objectives: It was intended to raise tounacceptable levels the economic and political costs to Great Britainof maintaining troops in Northern Ireland. It sought to provoke Britishand Northern Irish military and police forces to violate the humanand civil rights of IRA suspects or of ordinary Catholics in the hopethat such abuses in turn would outrage Great Britain’s domestic civillibertarians and excite international condemnation. It was meant alsoto mobilize forcibly into the struggle the Northern Irish Catholicsover whom the IRA asserted its jurisdiction. This entailed summarypunishments against Catholics who themselves did not agree with theIRA political program or who were suspected of cooperating with