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La Mon Restaurant Bombing
The La Mon restaurant bombing was an incendiary bomb attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 17 February 1978 and has been described as one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles. It took place at the La Mon House hotel and restaurant in Comber, County Down, near Belfast. The IRA left a large incendiary bomb, containing a napalm-like substance, outside one of the restaurant's windows. There were 450 diners, hotel staff and guests inside the building. The IRA said that they tried to send a warning from a public telephone, but were unable to do so until nine minutes before the bomb detonated. The blast created a fireball, killing 12 people and injuring 30 more, many of whom were severely burnt. Many of the injured were treated in the Ulster Hospital in nearby Dundonald. A Belfast native, Robert Murphy, received twelve life sentences in 1981 for the manslaughter of those who were killed. Murphy was freed from prison on licence in 1995. Bombing Warnings ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe. Sometimes described as an Asymmetric warfare, asymmetric or Irregular warfare, irregular war or a low-intensity conflict, the Troubles were a political and nationalistic struggle fueled by historical events, with a strong Ethnic conflict, ethnic and sectarian dimension, fought over the Partition of Ireland, status of Northern Ireland. Unionism in Ireland, Unionists and Ulster loyalism, loyalists, who for Plantation of Ulster, historical reasons were mostly Ulster Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newtownards
Newtownards (; ) is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtownards (civil parish), Newtownards and the historic Barony (Ireland), baronies of Ards Lower and Castlereagh Lower. Newtownards is in the Ards and North Down Borough Council, Ards and North Down Borough. The population was 29,677 in the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. History Irish settlement In 540 AD, Finnian of Moville, St. Finian founded Movilla Abbey, a monastery, on a hill overlooking Strangford Lough about a mile northeast of present-day Newtownards town centre. "Movilla" (''Magh Bhile'') means "the plain of the sacred tree" in Irish language, Irish, which suggests that the land had previously been a sacred Celtic paganism, pagan site. It became a significant Christian settlement – a centre for worship, study, mission and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unionism In Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition that professes loyalty to the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England, Scotland and Wales. The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestantism in Ireland, Protestant minority, unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Parliament of Ireland, Irish parliament. Since Partition of Ireland, Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an United Ireland, all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of the Good Friday Agreement, 1998 Belfast Agreement, which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly. As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Iri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sectarianism
Sectarianism is a debated concept. Some scholars and journalists define it as pre-existing fixed communal categories in society, and use it to explain political, cultural, or Religious violence, religious conflicts between groups. Others conceive of sectarianism as a set of social practices where daily life is organized on the basis of communal norms and rules that individuals strategically use and transcend. This definition highlights the co-constitutive aspect of sectarianism and people's agency, as opposed to understanding sectarianism as being fixed and incompatible communal boundaries. While sectarianism is often labelled as religious or political, the reality of a sectarian situation is usually much more complex. In its most basic form, sectarianism has been defined as, 'the existence, within a locality, of two or more divided and actively competing communal identities, resulting in a strong sense of dualism which unremittingly transcends commonality, and is both culturally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IRA Army Council
The IRA Army Council was the decision-making body of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group dedicated to bringing about independence to the whole island of Ireland and the end of the Union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The Council had seven members, said by the British and Irish governments to have included Gerry Adams, the former president of Sinn Féin. The Independent Monitoring Commission declared in 2008 that the council was "no longer operational or functional," but that it had not dissolved. Background Origins The Army Council of the IRA split in December 1969 and a "Provisional" Army Council emerged as the head of the newly formed Provisional Irish Republican Army. Legal status The IRA was a proscribed organization under the terms of the Offences Against the State Acts passed between 1939 and 1998 in the Republic of Ireland and under equivalent anti-terrorist legislation in the United Kingdom, making membership of it a criminal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (; born Peter Roger Casement Brady; 2 October 1932 – 5 June 2013) was an Irish republican political and military leader. He was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from 1958 to 1959 and again from 1960 to 1962, president of Sinn Féin from 1970 to 1983, and president of Republican Sinn Féin from 1987 to 2009. Early life Ó Brádaigh, born Peter Roger Casement Brady, was born into a middle-class republican family in Longford that lived in a duplex home on Battery Road. His father, Matt Brady, was an IRA volunteer who was severely wounded during an attack with the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1919. His mother, May Caffrey, was a Cumann na mBan volunteer and graduate of University College Dublin, class of 1922, with a degree in commerce. His maternal grandmother was a French-speaking Swiss Lutheran. His father died when he was ten, and was given a paramilitary funeral led by his former IRA colleagues. His mother, prominent as the Secretary for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( ; ; ) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The History of Sinn Féin, original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. Its members founded the revolutionary Irish Republic and its parliament, the First Dáil, and many of them were active in the Irish War of Independence, during which the party was associated with the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922). The party split before the Irish Civil War and again in its aftermath, giving rise to the two traditionally dominant parties of Irish politics: Fianna Fáil, and Cumann na nGaedheal (which merged with smaller groups to form Fine Gael). For several decades the remaining Sinn Féin organisation was small and often without parliamentary representation. It continued its association with the Irish Republican Army (1922–1969), Irish Republican Army. Another split in 1970 at the start of the Troubles led to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McGurk's Bar Bombing
On 4 December 1971, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, detonated a bomb at McGurk's Bar in Belfast, Northern Ireland, frequented by Irish Catholics–nationalists. The explosion caused the building to collapse, killing fifteen Catholic civilians—including two children—and wounding seventeen more. It was the deadliest attack in Belfast during the Troubles. Despite evidence to the contrary, the British security forces asserted that a bomb had exploded prematurely while being handled by Irish Republican Army (IRA) members inside the pub, implying that the victims themselves were partly to blame. A report later found that the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the police force in Northern Ireland at the time, were biased in favour of this view and that this hindered their investigation. The victims' relatives allege that the security forces deliberately spread disinformation to discredit the IRA. In 1977, UVF member Robert Campbell was sentenced to l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Provisional Irish Republican Army Campaign 1969–1997
From 1969 until 1997,Moloney, p. 472 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 to 1972, 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 feasibil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Provisional IRA In The Republic Of Ireland
The Provisional IRA in the Republic of Ireland was very active in the country during the Troubles (1969–1998). The country was seen as a safe haven for IRA members who used it to flee from British security forces, organize training and homemade weapons, and conduct attacks on British or Loyalist targets in nearby Northern Ireland, England, and even continental Europe. Irish authorities viewed armed activity by Irish republican militants in their country as a major security risk and took steps to mitigate it. They censored representatives of such militants from appearing on television or radio by Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, introduced the non-jury Special Criminal Court to easily prosecute the militants, and made it illegal to be members of certain Republican militant organisations. Despite this, sympathetic Irish citizens and their territory itself provided the most external support to the IRA more than any nation, group or organisation. Nearly all of the PIRA finances tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Republic Of Ireland
Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. Its capital city, capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island, with a population of over 1.5 million. The sovereign state shares its only land border with Northern Ireland, which is Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, St George's Channel to the south-east and the Irish Sea to the east. It is a Unitary state, unitary, parliamentary republic. The legislature, the , consists of a lower house, ; an upper house, ; and an elected President of Ireland, president () who serves as the largely ceremonial head of state, but with some important powers and duties. The head of government is the (prime minister, ), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blast Bomb
An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mechanism. IEDs are commonly used as roadside bombs, or homemade bombs. The term "IED" was coined by the British Army during the Northern Ireland conflict to refer to booby traps made by the IRA, and entered common use in the U.S. during the Iraq War. IEDs are generally utilized in terrorist operations or in asymmetric unconventional warfare or urban warfare by insurgent guerrillas or commando forces in a theatre of operations. In the Iraq War (2003–2011), insurgents used IEDs extensively against U.S.-led forces, and by the end of 2007, IEDs were responsible for approximately 63% of coalition deaths in Iraq. They were also used in Afghanistan by insurgent groups, and caused over 66% of coalition casualties in the 2001–2021 Afghanistan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
