Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Peacemaker67 (talk · contribs) 06:26, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Initial review section

Well done on this article, it takes considerable skill to produce an article that is well-balanced and neutral on such a controversial subject, and I don't think I've seen your work before. Full disclosure up front, I am more than passingly familiar with the 1996 Osnabruck mortar attack, and I may be considered involved to some extent, so will be asking another editor for a second opinion once I've finished. Some initial comments, which I'd ask you to address before I go through in detail:

• even with a controversial article, there is really no reason for the citations of everything in the lead and infobox. See MOS:CITELEAD. They break up the flow of the most-read part of the article and clutter the infobox. As long as all the information is reliably cited in the body, they can be dispensed with except for highly controversial material or direct quotes. I don't see anything that meets those criteria;

• I'm happy to remove the cites from the lead, although personally I think they contribute to the stability of the article by preventing people adding their own opinion to various sentences. I will remove them later today. FDW777 (talk) 08:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• I've written plenty of controversial articles that attract POV-pushers, and citations don't discourage them. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:55, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• per MOS:SURNAME, please trim the first names of people mentioned for the second and subsequent time, unless they have the same surname; and

• There's one small but significant reason I didn't do that, Seán Mac Stíofáin who is referred to repeatedly in the article. I thought the casual reader might be confused if we refer to him as Mac Stíofáin and think it's someone with the given name of "Mac", but if you still think they need to go please say so. FDW777 (talk) 08:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• Well, it doesn't apply to any of the others, and I don't see that happening in his case. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:55, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• Hopefully all done, if there's someone I've overlooked please say. FDW777 (talk) 11:45, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• the IRA campaign against the British Army in West Germany/Germany in the late 80s/1990 is largely overlooked, including the various 1988 attacks, the killing of Heidi Hazell in 1989, killing of Major Michael John Dillon-Lee in Dortmund in 1990, and the killing of the two Australian lawyers in the same year;

• It's covered more in the campaign article at Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign#Elsewhere. Were those attacks more significant than many others included at {{PIRA}} that don't make it onto this article? How much do you want adding? FDW777 (talk) 08:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• It is not about a particular attack, this is a summary article, and it should summarise all aspects of the IRA campaign, including in Continental Europe. The treatment of Germany is currently wanting, with only the Osnabruck attack mentioned (no-one even died or was wounded in that attack, it was mostly cars and the chapel that got damaged). It wouldn't take much to summarise the Germany campaign in a sentence or two. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:55, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• Added a sentence, if you need more just say so. The reason for including Osnabrück later wasn't because I think it's particularly significant, it's that I didn't want to say the IRA was only active in England between February and October 1996, the period it was not carrying out attacks in Northern Ireland. If I'd left out Osnabrück completely and said attacks were only in England someone was bound to come along and say "aha, you missed out this bombing in Germany". FDW777 (talk) 11:45, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• Due to the length of time the IRA was operating, several photographic captions could do with the year added; and

• Added one, I can't see any others that are obviously in need of a year. If I've overlooked any, just say. FDW777 (talk) 08:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• The Provoland picture was apparently taken in 2010. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:59, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• Is the date the picture was taken significant though? That sign was described as vintage in 2004, and it looked a bit weather-beaten even then. I'm not even convinced it adds much to the article anyway. FDW777 (talk) 11:45, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• at the point in the article that you have decided to use IRA to refer to this organisation, use the formulation "IRA (used hereafter to refer to the Provisional IRA)" of words to that effect.

• There isn't really a point where I made that decision. Uses of Provisional depend on context, for example the sentence The Provisional IRA maintained the principles of the pre-1969 IRA needs the use of "Provisional". Even in the last section of the article at Provisional Irish Republican Army#Splinter groups "Provisional" is still used to differentiate from "Real" and "Continuity" and the 2008 group who called themself simply "the IRA". If there is a specific place you have in mind for that clarification to be added, just say. FDW777 (talk) 08:30, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• Basically with the exception of the Splinter groups section at the end, from the point it says that PIRA became the dominant organisation at the bottom of the second para of the Initial phase section, there are very few uses of Provisional IRA, except where comparing with the Official IRA in the ideology section and one example in the Categorisation section which probably isn't actually needed. The rest are article links in templates. The other option is to use Provisional IRA throughout, which seems excessive. You could do it with a note. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:55, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• Note added. FDW777 (talk) 11:45, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Once these issues have been addressed, I'll make some other comments. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:52, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

• I've been asked to provide a second opinion on this. I intend to do so in the next couple of days, but it may take me a while to get through the article. (t · c) buidhe 06:56, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Buidhe. If you could wait until I've finished, that would be great. I don't want you to have to do the heavy lifting here given I took it on. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:01, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

OK, here are my thoughts on another run through:

Lead

• suggest "It also carried out a bombing campaign in Northern Ireland and England against military, political, and economic targets, and British military targets in Germany."

• It wasn't just Germany. See 1988 IRA attacks in the Netherlands and attack in Belgium, in addition to the "Death on the Rock" killings in Gibraltar. Would you prefer the later sentence The IRA's armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe to be merged into the previous one, so the latter one would read The IRA's armed campaign caused the deaths?

• I think if you are introducing the bombing campaign at that point, then mainland Europe should be mentioned there. The latter mention of the armed campaign is already fine. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• Done. FDW777 (talk) 13:22, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• I think the lead and body should have something about the attitude of other countries to the IRA in terms of whether any other countries sanctioned them or labelled them as terrorists

• Other than America (which had a mixed message, refusing to extradite IRA members until into the 1980s when an extradition treaty was changed by Reagan) there's not much written about what other countries officially thought. The IRA slipped through the post-9/11 crackdown when a lot of countries started introducing lists of formally designated organisations. See Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army/Archive 11#US categorisation and Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army/Archive 11#Couple of sentences removed regarding the US stance at that time.

• So, nothing more in International Politics and the Northern Ireland Conflict by Alan Macleod? Weren't there European Parliament debates in the 1980s? Possibly a mention of the Congressional Irish Caucus in the US? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• The gist of what's available on Google Books preview for Macleod is that in ~1972 the US administration performed a bit of a u-turn and decided to refuse visas to suspected IRA members, although this suspicion had to be based on US intelligence not "undocumented assertions of local police authorities". This was largely to prevent IRA members speaking at fund raising events and to preserve US neutrality in the Northern Ireland conflict. This has to be balanced against the cases of Joe Doherty, Desmond Mackin and Peter McMullen, all of whom fought wholly or partially successful cases against extradition from the US to the UK claiming extradition was blocked due to their offences being of a "political character" (Mackin was deported to Ireland, Doherty eventually deported back to the UK for illegal entry, McMullen eventually extradited to the UK in ~1987 after the extradition treaty was changed). You also have to look at the Joe Cahill visa situation in 1994, with Bill Clinton responding to the visa request with "Have you seen this man's record?", prompting Taoiseach Albert Reynold's reply of "Sure, there's no saints in the IRA". I can find no trace of those European Parliament debates in the references I've checked. I've checked Google Books as best I can (but the generic nature of the search terms doesn't make things easy) and can't find anything relevant. What I did find was things like the 1983/4 Haagerup committee (which the UK government and unionists objected to as it considered them to be meddling in internal UK matters) which recommended a power-sharing solution, and was adopted by the European Parliament in March 1984. There was various other mentions such as the ECHR case over the "Hooded Men" during internment in 1971 and whether their treatment amounted to torture or "inhuman and degrading treatment" (a difference Peter Taylor describes as purely semantics). There's also intervention during the 1976-81 prison protest and the 1982 call for the use of plastic bullets by the security forces to be banned. There's also the 1977 European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, which was to do with extradition. But I'm not finding much that screams "this has to be included in the IRA article". Tonge says of the EU Historically, the EU eschewed direct political input into the conflict in Northern Ireland". I could include a mention of Congressional Irish Caucus at Provisional Irish Republican Army#Support from other countries and organisations, but if you're meaning the Friends of Ireland (U.S. Congress) I think it's difficult including them alongside the likes of George Harrison and NORAID, since they were about conflict resolution not taking sides. But if we're going to include that, it would seem odd not to include Bill Clinton given his hands-on involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process? Or is his involvement better off dealt with at that article and the Troubles article? It's a difficult balancing act, as there's been a lot written about the peace process (for example just one aspect of it, the long, winding road to the IRA decomissioning its weapons has been documented and analysed at length) but the article can't go on for paragraph after paragraph about decommissioning or similar post-ceasefire issues at the expense (there would be a WP:SIZERULE issue at some point) of when it was killing people in gun and bomb attacks.

• I'm not going to insist on it at GAN, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have a sentence or two about US visa controls on IRA members, extradition of IRA members, and the ECHR internment case, as they are directly about the members of the IRA itself, not about the Troubles in a more general sense, where some of the other material might be better located. You certainly will need to incorporate such information if this is going to Milhist ACR or FAC eventually. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:01, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• I'm happy to add a couple of sentences about the US situation, it's just easier to present some information to potentially include first rather than start writing and it end up being tangential to what you want adding. I'll add them later. The ECHR internment case is of less direct relevance to the Provisional IRA. See Five techniques for more information on this. The reason it's not potentially particularly relevant to the Provisional IRA is it's unclear how many of the 14 suspects were Provisional IRA members, Official IRA members, or simply people thought to have information. If you see for example Independent and Guardian articles detailing who the Hooded Men are, there's not even a mention of the IRA.
• Added a sentence about visas with an explanatory note, let me know if that's ok

• On re-reading the lead, I think it needs a couple of additional sentences, one about the interaction between the IRA and revolutionary/terrorist groups outside of Ireland (and support from Libya, and another about the support for the IRA in the US. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:01, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Body

• "The [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|original IRA]] was formed in 1913,"

• Done, but I assumed you meant Irish Republican Army (1919–1922)? If this affects "unlink the anti-Treaty IRA" please say so.

• Yes, wrong link. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• by the Dáil Éireann

• It isn't "the Dáil Éireann", see Talk:Dáil Éireann#"The Dáil Éireann" nonsense and Special:Contributions/178.40.136.239. "the Dáil" would be correct (for example "the Dáil debated whether to accept the treaty"), but not "the Dáil Éireann"

• Sorry, but that makes no sense, in particular when there is no contextual information about what the Dáil Éireann is. It could be a person as far as a casual reader would be able to tell without clicking on the link. It is a proper name and is begging for the definite article, or it needs to be reformulated to give a hint it is a deliberative body. ie something like "the 1919–1922 Dáil Éireann". Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• I assumed when you said by the Dáil Éireann you wanted the sentence to read that followed the Declaration of Independence by the Dáil Éireann in 1919? Although you get the occasional use of "the Dáil Éireann", it's not standard to use that construction in English. I'm not an expert on whether proper names need the definite article, but it seems to vary from one similar entity to another. For example the London Stadium, but not the Wembley Stadium. Nobody in Ireland would say the Croke Park. I've added the revolutionary parliament immediately before, hopefully that explains things?

• It'll do. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:01, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• link Northern Ireland

• Done.

• unlink the anti-Treaty IRA

• Done, but unclear why since it's the first mention in the body (the previous links are in the infobox and lead)

• Sorry, re-instate that, see earlier mistake. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• "the IRA focused on overthrowing the Northern Ireland state" this is the defeated anti-Treaty IRA, right? Perhaps this could be clarified, like "the surviving elements of the anti-Treaty IRA" focused...? Also, is Northern Ireland a "state" per se? The UK doesn't have "states", so is it a country, province or region?

• None of those fit the sentence particularly well either. I think it was @Scolaire: that wrote that sentence, but I assume in that context state is used in a state (polity) way. Perhaps link that?

• It is commonly referred to as a province in reliable sources [1], but "political unit" would be fine. ie "the IRA focused on overthrowing the Northern Ireland political unit" Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

• Done. Regarding "province" or anything else, see Northern Ireland#Descriptions, there is no consensus among academics as to whether it's a province, region, country or something else. A search for the specific phrase "partitioned into two states" (including Ireland to avoid any similar disputes) brings up a host of results on Google Books. I still think "state" is a much better term than "political unit".

• mention home rule and link Parliament of Northern Ireland when talking about the "de facto single-party system", which is the formulation I suggest. De-italicise de facto, as per MOS:FOREIGNITALIC, de facto appears in multiple English language dictionaries like Merriam-Webster

• Mention home rule at that point? The obvious place to introduce home rule at all would be right at the start before the Easter Rising due to the Home Rule Crisis, but it depends how much you want adding.

• perhaps add home rule here "which remained under [[home rule]] as part of the United Kingdom under the [[Government of Ireland Act 1920]], caused"

• I understand now. I'm used to thinking of home rule in a Home Rule Crisis context, with Unionists being bitterly opposed to home rule. Half done for now, including the Government of Ireland Act 1920 as well means it's probably better to split the ever expanding sentence, and I'll need to check footnotes/references go to the correct place.
• Reworded the sentence completely.

• Regarding "single-party system", I don't have any specific objection to changing it to that phrase, I was about to. However with "Northern Ireland became a de facto single-party system", it seems odd to refer to Northern Ireland as a "system". I did try and re-write it to focus on the parliament (the "system") but that causes problems with Catholics seeing themselves as second-class citizens, as that should be within the state not the parliament. So if you have any input as to what to do, please say so. FDW777 (talk) 22:53, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

• I don't love "state" in this context, as it is unclear, but I'm not going to die in a ditch over it. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:01, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• suggest "the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a [[paramilitary]] group which killed three people"

• Done.

• suggest "Ulster Protestant Volunteers, another paramilitary group, led by Protestant religious leader Ian Paisley."

• Done.

• a phrase explaining "The Twelfth" would be good, perhaps "Marches marking the Ulster Protestant celebration, [[The Twelfth]], in July 1969..."

• Done.

• "in the Catholic Bogside area of Derry"

• Done.

• any info available about the number of Protestant homes affected by the Northern Ireland riots of August 1969?

• I'll do some research when I get back from shopping.
• The Troubles has a referenced sentence reading 154 homes and other buildings were demolished and over 400 needed repairs, 83% of the buildings damaged were occupied by Catholics, incorporate some/all of that here or do I need to read a lot of books instead?
• Added some extra detail from the pre-existing reference, which only covers demolished buildings and ones requiring "major repairs" (I assume the discrepancy is because the reference cited at the Troubles includes "minor" repairs as well). I'll leave it up to your discretion as to whether we need to include more detail or not.

• "Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland"

• Are you sure that's needed? I like to think the reader realises things occur in Ireland unless specified otherwise.

• Really? Why would they do that? Things occur in both Ireland and NI in this article. My view is that if I need to click on the link to find out whether it is in Ireland or NI, it needs the country/province as well. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:21, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• I assumed you meant Ireland the island, not Ireland the state. If you'd said "Republic of Ireland", which I've added, I'd have understood sooner.

• link Parliament of the United Kingdom and Oireachtas

• I assume you mean in the sentence "British, Irish, and Northern Ireland parliaments"? Oireachtas is tricky, since abstentionism (at least at that point in history) is always talked about in a Dáil Éireann context, not a Seanad Éireann context. I think linking either in that sentence has a touch of WP:EGG about it, but happy to link if really needed.

• Well, there is nothing to indicate that abstentionism only relates to the Irish lower house, the Oireachtas is the whole Irish parliament AFAIK, and it isn't linked earlier, so it needs to be here. If abstentionism only relates to the Dáil, then use that rather than Irish. Perhaps a note that abstentionism only related to the Dáil might help. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:21, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• It's not a case of abstentionism only relating to the Dáil, it's just that references never, ever talk about it in relation to the Seanad. Seanad Éireann "elections" are a complicated business, as the article says it is not directly elected but consists of a mixture of members chosen by various methods, most of them by the vocational panels which consist of TDs (members of Dáil Éireann), outgoing senators and members of city and county councils. That doesn't really have the same publicity appeal as standing in a Dáil election. The only exception I can obviously find is Liam Kelly (Irish republican) (who'd left the IRA at this point anyway to form his own organisation), who abstained from the Northern Ireland parliament (due to rejecting British sovereignty over any part of Ireland) while attending the Seanad (as he recognised the Republic of Ireland and its constitution).

• refused to vote→abstained

• I think "refused to vote" is potentially better, due to the sentence before and after talking about abstentionism.

• OK. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:21, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• Happy to amend it if needed. If you look at the sentence in isolation obviously abstained makes much more sense, but I think having two different types of abstaining in the space of a few consecutive sentences is potentially confusing.

• are Paddy Mulcahy and Sean Tracey notable as known members of the Army Council during the Troubles? Redlinks?

• There's very little information about them in the books I have, they seem to appear virtually from nowhere and disappear again just as quickly.

• link Sinn Féin at first mention in the body, and perhaps like this "The Irish republican political party, Sinn Féin, ..."

• Done.

• suggest "the party's highest deliberative body, the [[ard fheis]], ..."

• Done.

• link Kevin Barry

• MOS:PARTIALNAMELINK suggests not to do that, saying Do not place a link to a name within another name and not to write [[Christopher Columbus|Columbus]] Avenue. I assume the same applies to Kevin Barry Hall?

• OK, but why mention where the meeting was then? It does seem like unnecessary detail. Perhaps a note? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:21, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• Removed. I think I was trying to avoid the rather vague wording of "These members reconvened at another place" that I'd previously amended at the Sinn Féin article.

• "Second Dáil of 1921–1922"

• Done. FDW777 (talk) 10:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Down to the Initial phase section. I'll be doing in this in a few tranches. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:41, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Seems a sensible approach. FDW777 (talk) 10:07, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

• "to inflict such heavy casualties on the British Army"

• Done

• were the 342 suspects arrested on 9 August 1971 alone?

• That seems to be the case, based on a quick check on Google Books and various news articles which say 342 were arrested on the first day. I'll investigate properly later, in case it's one of those details that's not strictly correct but gets widely reported.
• Richard English's book says 342 in the first twenty-four hours, whether he means 9 August or a literal twenty-four hour period is open to interpretation. I've amended to use that wording, hopefully that's ok?

• "the next three days" meaning 9-11 August 1971?

• Yes and no, potentially. According to CAIN's Sutton database for 1971 there were 22 deaths between 9 August and 12 August. However the sole death for 12 August says he died two days after being shot.

• "IRA recruitment was further increased"

• Done.

• Parliament of Northern Ireland is duplinked here

• Already fixed. That had crept in due to a previous change.

Down to The Long War. More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:53, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

• suggest "and Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), a part-time element of the British Army,..."

• Done.

• suggest "and reduce the number of British soldiers recruited from outside of Northern Ireland being killed"?

• Done.

• you could be more specific and say "were successively elected to the British House of Commons"

• Done.

• suggest stating the total casualties of the Chelsea bombing, because it currently doesn't gel with "military targets" when you don't mention the 23 soldiers wounded

• Done.

• "on Lieutenant General [[Steuart Pringle]]"

• Done.

Down to Peace process. More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:41, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• comma after "interested in peace"

• Done.

• link Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at first mention in the body

• Done.

• is "Totally Unarmed Strategy" meant to be ironic?

• The impression I get is that the use of Tactical Use of Armed Struggle/Totally Unarmed Strategy was double-speak, to avoid either a split in the IRA or the pan-nationalist coalition. They were saying to the IRA rank-and-file "don't worry, we can go back to war" while saying to the SDLP, Fianna Fáil et al "don't worry, we're committed to peace".

• could you add in when home rule was re-instated at an appropriate point?

• Done with an explanatory note at the point of suspension. Since it was in 2007 there doesn't seem an appropriate point in the body.

• perhaps introduce the creation of the PSNI at the appropriate chronological point in the narrative and say that it replaced the RUC?

• Explanatory note added.

• General de Chastelain

• Done.

• "the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, ..."

• Done.

Down to End of the armed campaign. More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:42, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• what did the IRA mean by "dumping" weapons? Destroying them, discarding them or handing them in?

• None of the above. It meant returning the weapons to centralised arms dumps (ASUs would have their own local arms dumps hidden in the homes of sympathisers or elsewhere) to simplify the decommissioning process. Since there's no articles here or on Wiktionary explaining what an arms dump is, I decided to remove the phrase completely since it's probably redundant to the subsequent full decomissioning.

• I'm not sure how "However, this was the first time that an Irish republican paramilitary organisation had voluntarily decided to dispose of its arms" is consistent with the preceding two sentences. Weren't the previous actions voluntary? In what way?

• I had actually thought that references say the 2005 completion of decommissioning to be the crossing of the Rubicon (in that they only saw the IRA as disarmed when the process was complete), but the first couple I checked including the one cited do see 2001 that way. Moved the text earlier, with some moved into an explanatory note rather than the article body.

• "decommissioning" is very vague, what does it mean in practice? Destruction? Securing in a facility they don't have access to? The linked article is singularly unhelpful.

• You sound just like Ian Paisley! Due to a confidentiality agreement the amount of weapons decommissioned and the method in which it was done has never been publicly revealed, simply that they were put "beyond use". Early in the process, in May 2000 for example the IICD inspected some arms dump and installed some means of monitoring (Further inspections took place in October 2000 and May 2001, both verifying the weapons remained out of use, I think one reference speculated some sophisticated locking device). The generally accepted thinking is the actual decommissioning (as opposed to the monitoring) involved disassembling the weapons and covering them in concrete (presumably poured straight into the underground arms dumps). Or slightly differently, Boyne says There was speculation that arms were placed in a trench, and a corrosive substance poured over then, followed by the pouring of cement

• no mortars were decommissioned? Weird given their importance as an IRA weapon for stand-off attacks on military bases.

• I think The weaponry, estimated by Jane's Information Group, decommissioned as part of this process included might be too vague, since Oppenheimer's list is in a table titled Decomissioned Tranche of Weapons, September 2005. de Chastelain did state to the press that mortars had been decomissioned (Boyne, page 411) but the reference isn't clear if he's referring to the September 2005 event or an earlier one. If he was referring to the September 2005 event, it's curious that Jane's ignored it. Amended text to clarify.

• say that the Gardaí are the police service in the Republic of Ireland

• Done.

• suggest "the IRA obtained a large array of weapons such as: surface-to-air missiles; M60 machine guns; ArmaLite AR-18, FN FAL, AKM and M16 rifles; DShK heavy machine guns; LPO-50 flamethrowers; and Barrett M90 sniper rifles."

• Done.

• "which by the 1990s were on a level comparable to military models" really? I don't think so in terms of range (the Mk 15 used at Osnabruck had a range of about 250 m, a WWII 120 mm mortar had a range of about 6 km) and accuracy. But what Ackerman is actually saying is their quality (ie the engineering) was comparable. This needs to be added, ie "which by the 1990s were built to a standard comparable to military models" or words to that effect

• Done. The Ackerman text pre-dated my involvement with the article. As it was as online article I'd assumed its original addition would have been scrutinised and I didn't properly check the text.

• Two important aspects of the IRA's choice of mortars were that they could be used as a stand-off indirect fire weapon and therefore fired from out of line of sight of the targeted barracks or OP, and that they could be fired on a timer, thus avoiding the crew being detected and captured.

• Added some details. You might query the use of "generally" in "generally fired indirectly". This is because the Mark 12 mortar fired horizontally (although Oppenheimer says the Mark 12 was actually incorrectly called a mortar as it was more like a direct-fire missile. Happy to amend if needed?

• "Mortars were useful to the IRA as they could hit targets at short range, which could lead to effective attacks in built-up urban areas" I'm not sure about the logic of this. I would have thought their main usefulness was as a stand-off weapon delivering a relatively large amount of explosive, and per my point immediately above. Ackerman says some of this, when talking about the differences between military mortars and PIRA mortars and the latter's specific tactical requirements, including range, remote firing and abandonment after a single use.

• Removed, see also details added in relation to comment immediately above.

• "The mortars were often self-made", but Ackerman says that "the PIRA never procured commercially available mortars" on p. 23, and they were never used by the PIRA either.

• Done.

• "by counter-terrorism expert Andy Oppenheimer"

• Done.

Down to Casualties. More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:05, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• the 100 IRA members killed by their own bombs info is repeated

• Done.

• were the General Army Conventions still called ard fheis?

• No, ard fheis is the term for political party conferences, it's a term used by a variety of Irish parties, not just Sinn Féin

• "counties of Donegal, Leitrim, Cavan, and Monaghan, and Louth,"

• Done.

• move the link to Clandestine cell system up to "introduction of cell structures"

• Done.

• which command was responsible for operations outside of Ireland/NI? In the UK and mainland Europe?

• Neither, technically speaking. The England Department (called that by Martin Dillon and potentially a few others, but not called that universally) was directly under GHQ and not part of the Northern/Southern Command split. However in the 1990s the South Armagh Brigade took a leading role in IRA activity in England (particularly the major bombings), and they were part of Northern Command

• link ASU in the narrative

• Done, it was removed after being added as a "main article" link at the top of the section

• why was the South Armagh Brigade different? Because it was on the border/difficulties for security forces operating there?

• There's probably more about it in Leahy and potentially some others, but the Harnden page cited talks about slowly introducing new recruits into IRA activity, contrasting it to urban areas like Belfast where new recruits were dropped in at the deep end. He also talks about operational security and operating on a strict need to know basis and there being fewer arrests, plus they were happy to call off an operation at the slightest hint of being compromised. Although Harnden doesn't mention this, some others do (with the caveat they aren't contrasting them to the South Armagh Brigade) talk about Belfast volunteers and their loose talk in republican drinking clubs. Leahy also says the general pattern in most rural areas was that they vetted their own recruits and maintained a degree of autonomy, which was a crucial security measure, in a Stakeknife context, pointing out the South Armagh Brigade never allowed the Internal Security Unit to investigate in their area which may have contributed to their security, especially if Stakeknife is the person he is generally thought to be. I'm pretty sure elsewhere in his book Harnden talks about the lack of "boots on the ground" being one factor as to why the security forces found it difficult to recruits informers in South Armagh. There's actually a lot more in Leahy. He talks about rural volunteers knowing everyone in the locality, close family ties, their semi-autonomous nature, and he also points out the terrain helped. He quotes a British army soldier as saying rural areas were better at preventing infiltration … If you saw somebody loading chemical drums into … a van, it is very difficult to hide that in a city … Doing that in a rural area is a lot easier. He does also point out the border helped the IRA, as you originally suggested. He also quotes Séanna Walsh as saying as rural areas avoided arrests, they didn't need to add new people to the ranks, which carried a risk of infiltration. Also without arrests there was less opportunity for people to be "turned", so there were fewer opportunities to recruit informers.
• Lengthy note added.

• "Former IRA volunteer Tommy McKearney"

• Done.

• link BBC

• Done.

• suggest "General Sir Mike Jackson" that is how he is commonly referred to, and just link Mike Jackson

• Done.

• attribute "by the end of the year the IRA in Belfast had over 1,200 volunteers", as it could be read that the British Army estimates this

• Done.

• suggest "By the late 1970s the IRA had restructured the organisation, with the British Army estimating..."→"After the late 1970s restructure, the British Army estimated..." as this just repeats what we already know

• Done.

• link only James Glover's name

• Done.

Down to Support from other countries and organisations. More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:42, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

• link LPO-50 flamethrower

• Not done. Linked in earlier section "Weaponry and operations"

• "two tonnes of the plastic explosive Semtex", also the caption says several tons, I would change that to "over two tonnes"

• Done.

• link Basques

• Earlier link of Basque separatist moved forward, unless you want a Basque people link in there at some point too?

• "In 1973 it was accused" who? the IRA?

• Yes, fixed.

• "with volunteers attending training camps"

• Done.

• "were arrested and accused training Colombian guerrillas" of? with?

• Of. Done.

Sectarianism

• the non-sectarian stuff is not balanced and needs counter-weighting with other views other than White and Kowalski. For example, Steve Bruce calls the claim laughable, and Timothy Shanahan discusses this in some detail starting on page 32, providing three significant examples of sectarian violence by the IRA, and concludes that "Regardless of how sectarian IRA violence in fact was, it is safe to say that it was considerably more sectarian than the standard republican narrative concedes". This view needs to be represented in the article alongside the non-sectarian view.

• It's covered in more detail at Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign#Sectarian attacks. The contrary viewpoint isn't excluded, it's stated as fact in the first sentence - however some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks, followed by Of those killed by the IRA, Malcolm Sutton classifies 130 (about 7%) of them as sectarian killings of Protestants

• That is far from adequate in this, the summary article, when you consider what Shanahan and Bruce say. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:45, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

• It's stated as fact the IRA engaged in sectarian killings. Bruce's counter-point is to Bell, but Bell's claim isn't in the article. Even the points that are included are clear as not applying to the whole of the IRA - Many in the IRA opposed . . . but others, and the IRA was generally not a sectarian organisation and that was mostly blind. Patterson says the IRA's campaign was unavoidably sectarian, and McKearney acknowledges that Protestants viewed this as a sectarian attack on their community. Every single point includes that there were sectarian elements within the IRA, or that Protestants viewed the IRA's campaign as sectarian FDW777 (talk) 09:57, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

• Bell's claim might not be in the article, but several who see the IRA as essentially non-sectarian are, including a former volunteer, and that isn't balanced. What is there isn't strong enough on the counter-argument, and mostly reflects what is essentially a republican view, that of course the Protestants thought it was sectarian, because they were the ones in the UDR and RUC who were being targeted. Shanahan lists three major events that he considers support Bruce's view (Kingsmill massacre, La Mon restaurant bombing and Remembrance Day bombing), and I think they should be specifically mentioned as examples of sectarian attacks by the IRA, attributed to Shanahan. The article should also include Shanahan's statement to the effect that that the IRA was significantly more sectarian than republicans claim, attributed to him. He also talks about the motives for sectarian IRA attacks: a predictable consequence of being a Catholic defence force; relative availability of targets; and the political benefits of targeting Protestants. Given what he says, I am a bit leery of the fact that Shanahan hasn't been used at all in this section, given he examines this issue in some detail, and has some interesting things to say that contrast with what is currently there. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:26, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• Article - The IRA publicly condemned sectarianism and sectarian attacks, however some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks
• Bruce - claimed that ‘there was never any great element of sectarianism in the Provisionals’ campaign’ . . . Steve Bruce didn’t hesitate to call all such claims ‘laughable’ [because the IRA did carry out certain sectarian attacks]
• Shanahan - "Regardless of how sectarian IRA violence in fact was, it is safe to say that it was considerably more sectarian than the standard republican narrative concedes [because the IRA did carry out certain sectarian attacks]}}
• The IRA publicly condemned sectarianism and sectarian attacks covers claimed that ‘there was never any great element of sectarianism in the Provisionals’ campaign’ and the standard republican narrative
• however some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks covers Steve Bruce didn’t hesitate to call all such claims ‘laughable’ [because the IRA did carry out certain sectarian attacks] and Regardless of how sectarian IRA violence in fact was, it is safe to say that it was considerably more sectarian
• What you are asking to be included as opinion is already stated as fact in the very first sentence. Shanahan doesn't need to be used since his central point (the IRA did carry out some sectarian attacks) is stated as fact in the very first sentence.

I don't think so. I'm going to seek additional opinions on this at Milhist. The relevant portion of Shanahan's book is here. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:43, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The relevant part of O'Leary's book begins here and continues for several pages. Yet O'Leary isn't cited in that paragraph either. FDW777 (talk) 13:25, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Shanahan's view is that None of these three operations involved attacks on the security forces. All of those killed were Protestants. That the La Mon restaurant bombing is a deliberate sectarian attack is not supported by any other author. I suggest reading the article, and the details about telephone warnings, vandalised phone boxes and people being stopped at checkpoints. Far from being a deliberate attack on Protestants (did the bombers ask all the 450 people inside the hotel if they were Protestant when planting the bomb? All, or almost all, the dead were members of the Irish Collie Club, is that an exclusively Protestant organisation?), it was an attack on commercial premises as part of the economic bombing campaign that went tragically wrong (see for example Ross, F. Stuart (2011). Smashing H-Block: The Rise and Fall of the Popular Campaign Against Criminalization, 1976-1982. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 9781846317439, page 46 The La Mon House Hotel near Comber in County Down had been targeted by the IRA as part of its firebomb campaign against commercial targets. However it was an 'operation' that went horribly wrong). Similarly the Remembrance Day bombing the IRA stated it was an attack on a military patrol, that involved the bomb exploding at the wrong time for reasons that are disputed. The backlash to the bombing was disastrous for the IRA, the idea that it was a deliberate sectarian attack is not one supported by academic consensus. There is no need to even bother attributing Kingsmill to Shanahan since that is universally agreed to be a deliberate sectarian attack, added that to the section. It was hinted at already, but not specifically mentioned, I have rectified that. FDW777 (talk) 09:38, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

The claims being made here about Shanahan's views about La Mon being fringe or undue are just wrong. For example, see Ulster Loyalism After the Good Friday Agreement: History, Identity and Change p. 202 here. With respect to the sectarianism of the IRA, Bruce is widely cited, see Native Vs. Settler: Ethnic Conflict in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa p. 56 here. Smith also has interesting things to say about IRA sectarianism and the advantages it gave the IRA in Fighting for Ireland?: The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement here. Tonge also states in Northern Ireland that the mid-1970s phase of IRA operations was "nakedly sectarian", see this. For example, the La Mon bombing, while being a monumental cock-up, stigmatised the IRA with the sectarian label. This needs to be explained, as it undermined the "military" face of the conflict that the IRA was attempting to portray. This is explained in Moloney here. There is also the conflict between McKee and Adams about the former's encouragement of sectarian killings, which is also in Moloney. Finn, p. 134, also says the IRA was tainted by sectarian killings here. Laqueur, pp. 327–328, reinforces that sectarian elements were prominently involved in the IRA struggle, but that official pronouncements (which he describes as fictional), said the opposite here. Sanders, p. 149, writes of growing IRA sectarian violence, giving as examples the Tullyvallen Orange Lodge killings in late 1975 and the Darkley Pentecostal Church massacre here. O'Day, p. 98, describes the differing views on the sectarianism of the IRA. I acknowledge that O'Leary is critical of Bruce, but that doesn't mean that we just take his views and reflect them in the article. The argument that the IRA was sectarian is not a fringe view, there are ample examples of sectarianism by the IRA, and we should be comparing and contrasting the different views, as expressed by a range of authors writing in this space. The current section just doesn't do enough of this, and should be more balanced with a range of differing views, and therefore more densely cited. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

and thus there was the strong likelihood that those present in the hotel that evening would have been members of the Protestant community, am I supposed to take this nonsense seriously? How about the "strong likelihood" that if it hadn't been for a vandalised phonebox and a UDR checkpoint the telephone warning would have been delivered earlier and nobody would have been present in the hotel? Can you provide a single reference, other than Shanahan, that says La Mon was a deliberate attempt to kill Protestant civilians instead of an attack that went tragically wrong? I refuse to take anyone seriously that cites the Darkley killings as evidence of IRA sectarianism. FDW777 (talk) 23:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Re: Moloney and Adams/Mckee. Covered at end of Provisional Irish Republican Army#Initial phase with and McKee was criticised for allowing the IRA to become involved in sectarian killings (as well as The IRA was also involved in tit for tat sectarian killings of Protestant civilians a few sentences before). I had to skirt around mentioning Adams directly since he denies IRA membership, he's covered by "younger generation" in the preceding sentences. FDW777 (talk) 23:51, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I will summarise my points for you. It is stated as fact, in several places in the article, the IRA engaged in sectarian killings.

• The IRA was also involved in tit for tat sectarian killings of Protestant civilians
• McKee was criticised for allowing the IRA to become involved in sectarian killings
• The IRA publicly condemned sectarianism and sectarian attacks, however some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks

It's further stated how many were classed as sectarian killings, according to one estimate.

• Of those killed by the IRA, Malcolm Sutton classifies 130 (about 7%) of them as sectarian killings of Protestants

The Sutton extract even defines what a sectarian killing is, Deliberate killings of Protestant civilians. The key word of course being "deliberate", since by definition a sectarian killing (at least in relation to The Troubles) is the deliberate killing of a Protestant (or Catholic in the case of loyalists) simply because of their religion. So while Shanahan (and everyone else who writes about Kingsmill, which is why there's no dispute about it being a blatantly sectarian massacre) has a point about Kingsmill, his other examples aren't reasonable since, by definition (see for example Oppenheimer to name but one, quote available on request), bombs are indiscriminate weapons. As O'Leary says (and he doesn't just talk about Bruce, but deals with the situation in depth), That said, it would be a very strange reading of the data to suggest that all IRA killings of Protestant civilians through explosions were deliberate and sectarian, whereas all killings of Catholic civilians through explosions were accidental, while earlier acknowledging the placement of bombs in certain locations predictably kills more people from a particular community—that is, deaths from bombings were often neither indiscriminate nor unintended. And apologies for this particularly lengthy quote, but The datasets therefore suggest that republicans partially fulfilled their primary objective of fighting “a war of national liberation,” as opposed to a sectarian war, though they did engage in sectarian killings. Many unionists, however, interpreted all killings of Protestant members of the local security forces as sectarian. There is no statistical evidence, however, that republicans targeted Protestant members of the security forces more than the much smaller number of Catholic members. As observed by Robert White, using the IIP’s database, the IRA’s killing of all civilians, Protestant and Catholic, in explosions fell significantly from 1979 onward, with the notable exception of the Enniskillen bombing (see Table 1.1.8). The ratio of Catholics to Protestants killed in this way, in this period, by the IRA was just over 42 percent—that is, a proportional outcome for the relevant civilian blocs rather than a disproportionate number of Protestants—which is what one would have expected from sectarian targeting of bombs. (Obviously the Enniskillen bombing is the Remembrance Day bombing referred to by Shanahan). Those are the cold, hard, facts of the situation. The IRA killed Catholic civilians as well as Protestant civilians, and the percentages mirror the overall demographics of Northern Ireland. As O'Leary notes, it's a strange interpretation of the data to conclude that all Protestant bomb deaths were deliberate yet all Catholic bomb deaths were accidental. I note Tonge, who you quoted above as saying the IRA's campaign was "nakedly sectarian" in the mid-1970s , also says the IRA rarely chose to attack Protestants just because they were Protestants. Is that really not covered by some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks? FDW777 (talk) 20:58, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

The mainstream viewpoint that the IRA did engage in sectarian killings is stated as fact in the very first sentence, and the most high-profile undisputed example is mentioned, as is one estimate of the total. Providing references that support the assertion that the IRA did engage in sectarian killings doesn't change anything, because we've already stated it as fact in the first sentence of the section so that viewpoint is already included. I'm happy to discuss specific changes to the section, whether it be removal or addition, but the general arm-waving is getting nowhere. FDW777 (talk) 20:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree it is getting nowhere. I have developed the view that dismissal out of hand is effectively your response to everything I raise about IRA sectarianism, when I linked half-a-dozen sources that show that IRA sectarianism is far more complex than it is portrayed in the article, you dismissed one of the sources (a book written by a widely published and cited associate professor of political science at Texas A&M who specialises in Northern Ireland and is published by a university press) based on your own opinion about an attack he describes as sectarian, effectively ignoring the rest of the sources that clearly make the point that the issue is far more complex than currently portrayed in the article. While my startpoint for GANs is that at this level of review it is not the reviewers job to suggest wording, I do on occasion attempt to assist the nominator with rewording sections that I consider need a rewrite. In this case, your responses thus far give me absolutely no confidence that you would adopt any of my suggestions on this aspect of the IRA. You have effectively dismissed pretty much everything I have said. There is no way I am passing this as a GA unless a consensus of uninvolved editors can be developed that says that what is currently in the article about IRA sectarianism is sufficiently neutral to meet GA criteria #4. The 3O request fell on deaf ears (I am not surprised, there are few editors that want to stick their head above the parapet on controversial subjects, particularly those that are under an ArbCom case), so given the current arbitration remedy for The Troubles states that all editors on Troubles-related articles are directed to get the advice of neutral parties via means such as outside opinions, the only way I can see to get the consensus needed to get either determine that this should be failed on criteria #4 or passed is an RfC. I will draft one in the next few days and post it. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:35, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I refer you to buidhe's comments below of FYI, after reading the exchanges above and considering it, I think that the sectarianism aspect is already covered sufficiently and NPOV in this article and DagosNavy's comments at Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army#Sectarian attacks of Furthermore, he is a tiny minority point of view to take in consideration. As for Shanahan remarks, they are in line with the first statement of the section, this is, the conflict between the mainstream IRA view against sectarianism and the realities on the ground, that pushed some of their members to carry out retaliatory attacks to the point to became involved in tit-for-tat violence. No matter how "biased" the section looks, we must follow WP:WEIGHT, and according to this WP guideline, a myriad of sources assert that the IRA did not commit systematic sectarian violence like their Loyalist counterpart. If A, B, C and D call it a dog, there is no point in citing E claiming the thing is a cat just because things seem to be "unbalanced". I haven't dismissed everything you've said, I've refuted it. You keep banging a drum that sectarian attacks are downplayed yet ignore it's stated as fact in no less no than three places that the IRA did engage in sectarian attacks, selectively cite references (Tonge), and ignore that the mainstream consensus does not accept that certain bombings were deliberate attacks designed to kill Protestant civilians. I've asked you to make specific suggestions, you refuse. FDW777 (talk) 08:02, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

You (presumably) refer to Andrew Sanders saying you dismissed one of the sources (a book written by a widely published and cited associate professor of political science at Texas A&M who specialises in Northern Ireland and is published by a university press) based on your own opinion about an attack he describes as sectarian, did you even bother to read what I said? It was I refuse to take anyone seriously that cites the Darkley killings as evidence of IRA sectarianism. I didn't dismiss Sanders based on my own opinion about an attack he describes as sectarian, but because he's made a mistake (or perhaps you have made an erroneous assumption, since he doesn't specifically attribute Darkley to the IRA. I will confess to only looking at Google Books just now, the Australian Google Books link you provided didn't let me view the page but I knew Darkley wasn't even IRA without checking). I purposely linked the Darkley killings in my post, since as the article makes clear the attack was carried out by a faction of the Irish National Liberation Army, apparently in an attack unsanctioned by the leadership. Thus I didn't dismiss Sanders based on my opinion, but because an attack he cites wasn't carried out by the IRA!! It isn't even one of the attacks that are seen as being carried out by the IRA using a covername, but by a totally different organisation. FDW777 (talk) 08:25, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, after some thought, I'm going to suggest a rewrite of the section incorporating the additional sources I've identified, attempting to reflect a wider range of views on IRA sectarianism and sectarian attacks, and see what transpires. I'll post it when I've finished. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:52, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

OK, sorry about the delay, RW stuff has been taking priority for quite a while. After some thought, I'm going to suggest a rewrite of the section incorporating the additional sources I've identified above, attempting to reflect a wider range of views on IRA sectarianism and sectarian attacks, and see what transpires. Here is what is there now and what I suggest:

Sectarian attacks (current version)

The IRA publicly condemned sectarianism and sectarian attacks, however some IRA members did carry out sectarian attacks. Of those killed by the IRA, Malcolm Sutton classifies 130 (about 7%) of them as sectarian killings of Protestants, 88 of them committed between 1974 and 1976. Unlike loyalists, the IRA denied responsibility for sectarian attacks and the members involved used cover names, such as "Republican Action Force", which was used to claim responsibility for the 1976 Kingsmill massacre where ten Protestant civilians were killed in a gun attack. They stated that their attacks on Protestants were retaliation for attacks on Catholics. Many in the IRA opposed these sectarian attacks, but others deemed them effective in preventing similar attacks on Catholics. Robert White, a professor at the Indiana University, states the IRA was generally not a sectarian organisation, and Rachel Kowalski from the Department of War Studies, King's College London states that the IRA acted in a way that was mostly blind to religious diversity.

Protestants in the rural border areas of counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, where the number of members of the security forces killed was high, viewed the IRA's campaign as ethnic cleansing. Henry Patterson, a professor at the University of Ulster, concludes that while the IRA's campaign was unavoidably sectarian, it did not amount to ethnic cleansing. Although the IRA did not specifically target these people because of their religious affiliation, more Protestants joined the security forces so many people from that community believed the attacks were sectarian. McKearney argues that due to the British government's Ulsterisation policy increasing the role of the locally recruited RUC and UDR, the IRA had no choice but to target them because of their local knowledge, but acknowledges that Protestants viewed this as a sectarian attack on their community.

References

Sectarianism and sectarian attacks (proposed version)

Sources have drawn conflicting conclusions about the sectarianism of the IRA. The IRA publicly condemned sectarianism, the sociologist Robert White considers that the IRA was not a sectarian organisation, and the historian Rachel Kowalski states that the IRA acted in a way that was mostly blind to religious diversity. In contrast, the philosopher Timothy Shanahan considers that the IRA was "considerably more sectarian than the standard republican narrative concedes", and the journalist Thomas G. Mitchell observes that the wide range of targets considered acceptable for attacks by the IRA gave Protestants good reason to consider the IRA to be just as sectarian as the loyalist paramilitaries. The sociologist Stephen Bruce considers that the republicans were just as sectarian as the loyalists, and further, labels the claim that the IRA was not sectarian as “laughable”.

The IRA also publicly condemned sectarian attacks, denied responsibility for them and the members involved used cover names. However, Shanahan observes that despite these condemnations and denials, there were many examples of sectarian attacks by the IRA, and highlights several examples, including the 1976 Kingsmill massacre, where IRA members using the cover name "Republican Action Force" separated Protestant and Catholic textile workers travelling on a bus, and shot the Protestants, killing ten.. The IRA stated that their attacks on Protestants were retaliation for attacks on Catholics, and although many in the IRA opposed these sectarian attacks, others deemed them effective in preventing similar attacks on Catholics.

The political scientist Jonathan Tonge considers the mid-1970s phase of IRA operations to have been "nakedly sectarian". According to the political scientist Michael Smith, there are substantive indications the organisation "contrived to turn a blind eye" to sectarian attacks, highlighting those during the 1975 ceasefire as an example. The historian Henry Patterson concludes that the IRA's campaign was unavoidably sectarian. Of those killed by the IRA, Malcolm Sutton classifies 130 (about 7%) of them as sectarian killings of Protestants, 88 of them committed between 1974 and 1976.

Protestants in the rural border areas of counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, where the number of members of the security forces killed was high, viewed the IRA's campaign as ethnic cleansing, but Patterson rejects this. Although the IRA did not specifically target these people because of their religious affiliation, more Protestants joined the security forces so many people from that community believed the attacks were sectarian. McKearney argues that due to the British government's Ulsterisation policy increasing the role of the locally recruited RUC and UDR, the IRA had no choice but to target them because of their local knowledge, but acknowledges that Protestants viewed this as a sectarian attack on their community.

References

• Oppose the main difference that I see between both versions is that the proposed version is longer and includes an excessive number of quotes/opinions from individual writers. Since the article is currently 9906 words, we should be trying to trim rather than expand. (t · c) buidhe 03:49, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Good grief. Why on earth that is a criteria to oppose is beyond me. The subject is complex and covers a long period of time. The current section is not neutrally written, the question is disputed and the additional information from a wider range of sources balances it. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:03, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I could also support some concise combination of the above, that discarded the less prominent opinions. (t · c) buidhe 04:07, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Which ones would you suggest? None of the opinions are from people with a merely a passing interest in the IRA. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:13, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Oppose At 20:58, 16 January 2021 I pointed out your selective quoting of Tonge, providing a phrase on the same page as the "nakedly sectarian" part. The passage in full reads ...the IRA rarely chose to attack Protestants just because they were Protestants. As such, the 'defence' was not under direct attack most of the time. When notable exceptions occurred, such as during the latter half of 1971 and the IRA's nakedly sectarian phase of the mid-1970s... We already document this mid-1970s phase as being sectarian, since the article states Of those killed by the IRA, Malcolm Sutton classifies 130 (about 7%) of them as sectarian killings of Protestants, 88 of them committed between 1974 and 1976. You cannot use Tonge's "nakedly sectarian" quote without using his quote from earlier in the same passage that the IRA rarely attacked Protestants just because they were Protestants, and that such attacks were exceptions.

At 13:25, 3 January 2021 I directed you to O'Leary's analysis of casualties and sectarianism, pointing out the analysis lasts for several pages of his book, considerably more than the people whose "analysis" (for want of a better word) lasts less than a paragraph. Yet for some reason O'Leary's in-depth analysis does not get mentioned?

Bruce (largely quoted in Shanahan, but I've included the original passage in full and underlined the part missed out by Shanahan) says When the IRA launched its bombing campaign, the targets were not only representatives of the British state but ordinary Protestants. The bombs of 1971 were placed inside and outside pubs and clubs in Protestant areas and were only as selective as the establishments in question were 'select'. That is, they were intended to kill Protestants and they did just that. Shanahan says of Bruce's opinion, Bruce doesn’t elaborate, but three examples out of many that could be chosen will suffice to substantiate this point. This is strange, since Bruce did elaborate by stating he was referring to the 1971 bombs, yet Shanahan excluded the part where Bruce did elaborate. Returning to Bruce's point, you'd think the way he talks pub and club bombings were the norm, but were they? The first documented pub bombing was an IRA bomb planted outside the Bluebell Inn on 20 September 1971, which injured 27 people. This was followed by another IRA bomb at Four Step Inn on 29 September, this killed 2 people. This was followed by a UVF bomb on the Fiddler's House Bar on 9 October, this killed 1 person. Then on 2 November the IRA's Red Lion Pub bombing killed 3 people and injured 26. The last pub bombing of 1971 was the UVF's McGurk's Bar bombing which killed 15 people and injured 17. All these events happened in Belfast. In 1971 there were 1,515 attempted bombings, 1,022 resulting in an explosion. By every account on the Troubles, the IRA was responsible for the majority of bombings. Even if we take "majority" to mean simply 51% in this case, that's still over 500 IRA bombs exploding in 1971. Three of those bombs, all in Belfast, were left inside/outside pubs. Yet the way Bruce writes you'd think there were bombs going off inside/outside pubs all the time and across Northern Ireland, but it's clear they were the exception (as suggested by Tonge) not the rule.

Shanahan starts by saying According to the standard republican narrative, Provisional IRA violence, unlike state and loyalist violence, is not sectarian in nature. He then starts talking about how Bell's 1976 statement was wrong. Bell's book was published on 5 February 1976, a mere month after the first incident Shanahan cites to discredit Bell, and two years and eleven years respectively before the other two incidents he cites. I'm not an expert on the timescales involved in book publishing, but the most obvious answer, one that Shanahan appears to have overlooked, in that Bell's book was written before the January 1976 incident. There's also cherry picking regarding which quotes from Shanahan are included, since his analysis is more about the comparison of how sectarian IRA violence was in comparison to loyalist violence, not looking at IRA violence in isolation.

The inclusion of quotes from Shanahan, Bruce, et al, adds nothing to the article that is not already stated. It is already stated as fact that despite the IRA's denial, the IRA did on various occasions engage in sectarian attacks, particularly in the mid-1970s. So what do these quotes actually add? There's no need for this desperate attempt to try and prove a point that's already been stated as fact. FDW777 (talk) 11:42, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Review continued

• "Former IRA volunteer McKearney"

• Done.

• "RUC's Drugs Squad"

• Done.

• "official police force—the Royal Ulster ConstabularyRUC"

• Done.

• say that Nairac was an undercover British Army intelligence officer

• Done.

• it there any estimate of the numbers of informers killed by the IRA?

• There was an unreferenced total in the article, see Talk:Provisional Irish Republican Army/Archive 11#Sentence about informers removed, hopefully temporarily. The generic nature of the terms makes searches difficult, so unless it's something I find in the course of other research it's difficult to come up with anything

• briefly say what the Mitchell Principles were

• Done.

• move the See also link to a main template at the top of the History section

• Done.

Brief pause before I do toolkit checks and check the image licensing. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:41, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Image review

• the infobox image licence doesn't provide any information about the original film from which the image was screenshot, and the NFUR isn't for this use but for showing the mortar

• Removed.

• a better infobox image would be the PIRA badge

• Done.

• I'm going to ask Buidhe for an opinion on the Flickr licences for File:Martin McGuinness MLA (cropped).jpg and File:Birmingham pub bombings plaque Birmingham England.jpg when she does her second opinion review
• There is no source info for File:AR-18.jpg to explain why it is using that licence

• Changed to image with hopefully full information

• That seems ok to me. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

• same for File:Semtex H 1.jpg

• Original uploader at de wikipedia only appeared to have made about a dozen edits, and unclear which US government website the image originally came from. No objection if it needs to be removed.

• I'll ask Buidhe to opine on it. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

• File:Easter Proclamation of 1916.png needs an original source. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

• The authors of the proclamation were executed in 1916, it's PD no matter what website it came from originally.

Source review

• you only have to author-link an author the first time (see Bowyer Bell, Coogan etc)

• MOS:REPEATLINK says it's ok to repeat links in citations, as they stand alone (basically meaning you're not supposed to read the section containing them). That's why they are repeated, so people hovering over footnotes get relevant links to click on all the time, not just if they happen to hover over a footnote with the links in.

• space after the colon in "Alternative Policing Styles:Cross-Cultural Perspectives"

• Done.

• on face value, all the sources seem reliable, although I am not familiar with some of the publishing houses. On this occasion, while it is definitely not a requirement, including the location of publication would be helpful to establish how many of the sources are Irish

• There's not that many, and of the ones there are I'm hoping people would realise Irish Academic Press is an Irish publisher. I'm not sure if it's an issue, since there's far more British publishers.

OK, that's me done. Once you've addressed my remaining comments and I've done a check over the changes, I'll reping Buidhe for her second opinion review. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:00, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

That took a bit longer than I thought, Buidhe. Not everything is quite addressed, but we're very close, so if you could start having a look when you have some time, it would be greatly appreciated. There are a couple of image licensing queries that I'd like your input on, if you don't mind. Thanks for agreeing to do this, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe

Flickr looks OK to me. In the first case, based on the account content I'm fully willing to accept that this is the official Flickr for the party and that therefore they have the rights to the image. For the second one, we usually accept average quality photographs of public places as the person's own work regardless of whether they are originally posted to Flickr or Commons. (t · c) buidhe 02:39, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Other comments:

• Footnote states, "Irish republicans do not recognise any of the Irish states since 1922, but declare their allegiance to the Republic of 1919–1922". I thought this was the position of Irish republican legitimism, rather that Irish republicanism in general which only rejects British rule.

• Amended.

• "However, on several occasions, the British authorities have recognised the IRA's policing role." What does this mean?

• Difficult to tell what the reference cited means as it's only snippet view on Google Books, I believe it's potentially redundant to the rest of the paragraph which gives specific examples of that, so I am happy to remove it if that's the best option?

That's what I would do. (t · c) buidhe 15:59, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Removed.

• "Alleged involvement in crime" If RS say it's known to be involved in crime, then misleading to say "alleged". (We're talking about an organization, not a specific living person).

• Amended.

• "Supporters argue that as the IRA was a clandestine organisation..." supporters of what?

• Amended.

• "It is estimated that, by the 1990s, the IRA needed £10.5 million a year to operate", "It was estimated that the IRA carried out 1,000 armed robberies in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, mostly of banks and post offices." whose estimates?

• Amended one, the second is more difficult. Connolly says The IRA conducted an estimated one thousand armed robberies in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, small post offices being a favorite target, giving Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA, 465 as a citation. Bell says The most spectacular source, as was the case with many revolutionary organisations, was armed robbery, bank and trains and small businesses. A steady source was found in raids on small post offices in Northern Ireland-over a thousand successful armed robberies and still others aborted. So any suggestions on alternate wording would be good?

I would credit it to Bell. (t · c) buidhe 16:00, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Amended.

• "The Official IRA had been seen as existing for the purpose of defence while the Provisional IRA was seen as existing for the purpose of attack, increased recruitment and defections from the Official IRA to the Provisional IRA led to the latter becoming the dominant organisation." Seen by whom?

• Amended.

Disclaimer, I actually know little about this topic beyond the research I did to write Paramilitary punishment attacks in Northern Ireland. (That section of the article looks pretty accurate to me). The article overall seems to be quite well written and balanced. (t · c) buidhe 04:04, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Additional commentary

Placing on hold while the last comments are addressed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:11, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

On 9 January 2021 I asked for a formal third opinion about the issue of how the sectarianism of the IRA is treated in the article. If no-one steps up to do that within a fortnight of my posting the request (23 January), I will withdraw it and initiate an RfC to gain a community consensus about it. Given the importance of the issue to the IRA, I will not be passing the article unless an uninvolved 3O is provided or community consensus is achieved that considers the current treatment of the issue in the article is acceptable. Obviously, if the 3O considers changes are needed or the RfC consensus is that changes are required, it will not be passed until those changes are made. The review will remain on hold until the issue is resolved. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:39, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

The Third Opinion request has been removed as stale in accordance with the instructions at the Third Opinion page. The request may be relisted, but if no 3O volunteer has taken it by now, doing so would probably be futile. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC) (3O Volunteer)

FYI, after reading the exchanges above and considering it, I think that the sectarianism aspect is already covered sufficiently and NPOV in this article. (t · c) buidhe 19:36, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Final assessment against the criteria

OK. This has taken far too long to finalise, and it is clear that my concerns about the article meeting criteria #4 Neutrality (regarding sectarianism), will not be addressed by the nominator. In over 350 Good Article nomination reviews, I have never struck such a level of intransigence from a nominator when a serious concern has been raised about an article. In these circumstances, I feel I have no choice but to fail it on criteria #4. For the record, in my view it meets all the other Good Article criteria. Good luck with it. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:44, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Instransigent for pointing out your highly selective quoting of Tonge and complete failure to cite the detailed analysis by O'Leary? Wow. FDW777 (talk) 08:11, 9 March 2021 (UTC)