The IRA Border Campaign 1956-1962

In the years following Independance the anti treaty IRA was consigned to
increasing irrelevance and isolation. It refused to rcognise both states on the
island seeing them as a betrayal of the 1916 ideal. By the 1940 the IRA had seen
a brutal suppression by the Fianna Fail governmant during World War Two.
Fianna Fail would not tolerate the IRA drawing the ire of an embattled Britian on
Ireland. De Valera didn’t finch from interning IRA men during WWII.The older
generation that saw the war of independence was now beyond action. They were
seen as ideologues without any real impact on the Ireland of the time.
This began to change with the influx of young idealistic men in the republican
movement. This new influx brought new ideas and the desire to do something
practial about British Rule in Northern Ireland.The partition of the country was
theorised as a sore on the whole country. This sore was the sole cause of
economic stagnation in Ireland. If an united Ireland was a achieved then that
would solve our problems. The economic policies of successive Irish government
were not consided to have played a part in these problems. The presence of the
British state in the north eastern part of the island was seen purely as a act of
British aggression against Ireland. An imperial entity that acted as way of
mantaining imperial control over not just northern Ireland but the whole Island.
It was held against the will of the majority of the people of the island. That was
the essiencial point for the IRA. The presense of the convinced unionists in the
northern Ireland didn’t enter the thinking of the IRA all that much. The british
army was an occuping force and so it should be driven out. Unionist being in IRA
ideology Irishmen should stand aside to leave them drive a foreign aggressior
out of the Island.
The birth of the new era in the IRA was the succession of the three “Macs” to the
leadership. Tomas Mac Curtain, Tony Magan and Padraig McLogan. Tony Magan
was elevated to the Army Council in September 1948. He was a bachelor farmer
from County Meath. He had characteristics common in many IRA men from the
era. He was sincerely Catholic and a fluent Irish speaker. His devotion to the
cause was such that he sold his farm. The money from this sale was seed fund for
the border Campaign or Operation Harvest as it was called by the IRA.
Tomas MacCurtain was the son of Tomas MacCurtain the lord mayor of Cork who
murdered during the war of independence. MacCurtain was a devoted
republican. He had refused to recognise the Irish Free State. He was fined 40
shilling for violently protesting the visit of WT Cosgrave to the Cork. He lived by
the belief that no State on the Island of Ireland was an inheritor of the true
republicanism. He had been on hunger strike and refused to wear prisoners
clothes. MacCurtain had been convicted of the murder of Detective Garda John
Roche. This won he no sympathy for Irish people in the Republic.
The Third Mac was Padraig McLogan. McLogan was not on the Army Council he
was a from Armagh. He had been on hungery strike. He was on the Army
executive from 1925-1938. He was an absentionait MP in the Stormont
Parliment in the Thirties. He was link between the older war of independence
generation and the younger generations.
Under the three Macs the IRA moved away from attacking the Irish Free State. In
1949 the IRA appealed for funds. The appeal stated that the “primary object” of
the IRA was a “successful military campaign against the British Army of
Occupation in the Six Counties”. The IRA was signaling that it was preparing for a
renewed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. The Irish Rupublic
would no longer be subjected to IRA subversion. “In view of the fact that any
disturbance in the 26 counties area would hinder the achieving of this object the
Army has definately ruled out any kind of aggressive military action in the 26
counties” 1 The note continues to annouce an appeal for funds to undertake this
goal. The MacCurtain appeal was a sign of things to come. Army Order No. 8 in
1954 committed the IRA to waging war solely against Northern Ireland.
The IRA were not the only ones in mid-century Ireland thinking about partition.
It was the constant policy of Irish governments to lobby in international forums
against partition. Both the strongly republican Fianna Fail and moderate Fine
Geal governments made the ending of parition their primary foreign policy. This
was the political consesus in Dublin at the time. There was a mass meeting on the
13 May 1949 where all the party leaders spoke in protest at the Ireland Act 1949.
The Ireland Act was passed in Westminister after the declaration of the Republic.
It gave Irish citizans the de facto rights of a commonwealth citizen. But it
reafirmed the status of Northern Ireland in the UK. This was the definative
affirmation of partition that was unacceptable to all Irish parties.
As part of the this campiagn against partition propraganda films were shot in
secret. One film compares two street in Fintona Co. Tyrone. Mill street is
populated with nationalist families. The voiceover tells us that most the families
are large and the houses small. Two thirds of the town are nationalist we are
told. Mill street is contrasted with Craigavon Park. It is unionist and unionist it
must stay the voice over tells us. Not one house went to a nationalist. The houses
are modern semi-detached houses. The neat gardens of the Craigavon Park are
constrasted with rutted street the nationalists live on. The film makes the point
that partition is unnatural, undemocratic and discriminatory. The film was made
to educate the public about the evils of partition. But it is at pains to to say that it
does not want to rouse sectarian hatreds. 2
The IRA was also outraged by the sealing of partition. They applyed their own
logic to the situation and decided that the only course of action was armed assult
on the northern state. They like the government propragandists were anxious to
make distincions between been anti partition and being sectarian. Their
manifesto of 1949 reaffirms the traditional republican thinking. It emphatises
that the partition of the country occured in Westminster without the
representation of the Irish MPs. They are asserting their belief that partition is
undemocratic. The illegistmacy of both states on the island is reaffirmed. “While
any sod of Irish territory remains occupied by the army of a foreign country, it
cannot be truthfully stated the Republic of Ireland has been restored” 3. The focus
is every much on driving out the British from Northern Ireland. The IRA belief
that sitting Dail was illegitmate is down played. True republican will fight on to
drive out foreign rule from the country.
In forties and fifties the IRA had an influx of new recruits. They were inspired by
the recollections of the war of independence that appeared in the press and in
books. The government propreganda that was produced at the time made being
1
Brian Hanley, The IRA: A documentary History 1916-2005 (Dublin: Gill &
Macmillian, 2010), 121
2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=#769950
3
Hanley, The IRA, 123
anti partition a moral issue. These young men reasoned that the only way to
remedy the evil of partition was physical force against an imperialist army.
During the 1950s the IRA began rearming. Raids were undertaken in Derry.
Omagh Essex Berkshire and Armagh. They stole rifles and submachine guns. The
raids were the first sign of the IRA’s intent.
The guns were needed for a renewed campaign that had been in gestation since
the 1930s. Tom Barry the IRA hero from the 1930s had proposed an attack on
Northern Ireland.4 Sean Cronin was the man that created a plan to do this. Taking
his lead for the war of independence he proposed that there be flying columns.
These flying columns would attack areas in Northern Ireland. They would make
them ungovernable for Stormount. The people in the “liberated” areas would
come to agree with the rebels. Similar to the manner in which the electorate
voted for Sinn Fein after the Easter rising. A document found at the time out lines
Cronins plan. It was found in Cronin’s flat. The offences against the state act had
been invoked by the Costello government. Republican activists were rounded.
The document in Cronins flat was fifteen pages long and was headed the “General
Directive for the Guerrilla Campaign”. The document outlined how the IRA
would “break down the enemy’s administration in the occupied area until he is
forced to withdraw his forces. Our method of doing this guerrila warfare within
the occupied area and propaganda directed at its inhabitants. In time as we will
biuld up our forces, we hope to be in a position to liberate large areas and tie
these in with other liberated areas- that is areas where the enemy’s writ no
longer runs”5.
6

4
Henry Patterson, The Politics of Illusion: Republicanism and Socialism in Modern
Ireland (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1989), 72
5
J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA 1916-1976 (Dublin: The Academy
Press, 1979), 300-301
6
Barry Flynn, Soldiers of Folly: The IRA Border Campaign 1956-1962 (Cork: The
Collins Press, 2006), 15-17