With relevance to tomorrow's Submarine Matters’ article:
“Provisional Irish Republican Army arms importation into Ireland for use in Northern Ireland began in the early 1970s. With these
weapons it conducted an armed campaign against the British state in Northern Ireland.
In the early stages of the Troubles, during the period
1969–1972, the Provisional IRA was poorly armed. They had access to weapons
remaining from the IRA's failed Border Campaign between 1956 and 1962, but
these weapons were outdated and unsuitable for a modern campaign.
To continue and escalate their armed campaign, the IRA needed
to be better equipped, which meant securing modern small arms.
The IRA's main gun runner in the United States was George
Harrison [not a Beatle of
course], an IRA veteran, resident in New York since 1938...In
1971, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had already seized 700 modern weapons
from the IRA, including 2 tonnes of high explosive and 157,000 rounds of
ammunition, most of which were of American manufacture.”
The FBI did much to arrest and disrupt US citizen exports of
arms by sea to the IRA in Northern Ireland.
Other exports by sea to the IRA came from a complex network
of suppliers including USSR and East German intelligence services using, or
working with, Middle Eastern and Western Euro-terrorist cut-outs. The USSR considered
aid as one way of boosting the USSR’s international revolutionary credentials.
USSR aid also weakened (if ever so little) the armed forces of a key NATO country
(Britain). USSR aid further complicated the British Government’s prolonged, overall
poor political record in Ireland.
The British Army was the largest and most visible British regular
armed force fighting in the Troubles but the
Royal Navy also played a part, little discussed in English - until tomorrow.
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