Why were PIRA so useless at protecting Catholics?

bayern282

Having read widely about the Troubles from all aspects and angles this has always intrigued me. PIRA actually killed more Irish Catholics on the island then the British Army, Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries combined.

When the likes of the UDA's C Company were terrorising Nationalist communities, why didn't they do more to stop them?, they were a far more sophisticated and potent terror group than any of the Loyalist ones so surely they had the means and capabilities to do so.

If you're wondering about my viewpoints, I'm not especially Republican in the sense that I'd rather have a peaceful divided island than a warring UI, there needs to be a ''united northern ireland'' before a UI can come about.

Exile 1798

bayern282 wrote: »

Having read widely about the Troubles from all aspects and angles this has always intrigued me. PIRA actually killed more Irish Catholics on the island then the British Army, Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries combined.

When the likes of the UDA's C Company were terrorising Nationalist communities, why didn't they do more to stop them?, they were a far more sophisticated and potent terror group than any of the Loyalist ones so surely they had the means and capabilities to do so.

If you're wondering about my viewpoints, I'm not especially Republican in the sense that I'd rather have a peaceful divided island than a warring UI, there needs to be a ''united northern ireland'' before a UI can come about.

CAIN - which is maintained by the University of Ulster, is the most comprehensive & reliable database of Troubles casualties. It shows that the British Army, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and Loyalist paramilitaries combined killed 1030 Irish Catholics during the Troubles and that the Provisional IRA killed 343.

* Approx 128 of the 1030 were IRA members
* I don't know how many of the 343 Catholic killed by the PIRA were RUC/UDR - I would estimate perhaps 20-30. I could find out by digging further into the numbers put I don't have the time at present.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/crosstabs.html

Enter "Organisation" as the first variable and "Religion Summary" as the second.

HellsAngel

bayern282 wrote: »

Having read widely about the Troubles from all aspects and angles this has always intrigued me. PIRA actually killed more Irish Catholics on the island then the British Army, Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries combined.

This is a myth doing the rounds, I presume from certain unionist posters on this and the politics forum. Do you have any reliable links with stats to back this up ? ? If not could yet another useless thread be closed down as it's based on hearsay with no evidence to back it up like the The GAA - A Good or Bad Influence in Ireland thread a few days ago :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Exile 1798 wrote: »

CAIN - which is maintained by the University of Ulster, is the most comprehensive & reliable database of Troubles casualties. It shows that the British Army, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and Loyalist paramilitaries combined killed 1030 Irish Catholics during the Troubles and that the Provisional IRA killed 343.

* Approx 128 of the 1030 were IRA members
* I don't know how many of the 343 Catholic killed by the PIRA were RUC/UDR - I would estimate perhaps 20-30. I could find out by digging further into the numbers put I don't have the time at present.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/crosstabs.html

Enter "Organisation" as the first variable and "Religion Summary" as the second.

And as well as the 20 - 30% who were in the RUC/UDR/Brits, how many were Catholic informers, rivals in the Stickies ( Offical IRA ), IPLO and other such groups etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_ira
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_People's_Liberation_Organisation

jonniebgood1

bayern282 wrote: »

Having read widely about the Troubles from all aspects and angles this has always intrigued me. PIRA actually killed more Irish Catholics on the island then the British Army, Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries combined.

You need to post where you read this or some supporting figures as a basis for starting this conversation.

Victor

Given that there was mixed communities and no real front line in Northern Ireland, protecting any particular individual or group was alsways going to be difficult.

bayern282 wrote: »

Having read widely about the Troubles from all aspects and angles this has always intrigued me. PIRA actually killed more Irish Catholics on the island then the British Army, Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries combined.

No, that sentence should read "PIRA actually killed more Irish Catholics on the island then the British Army, Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries each." - which isn't necessarily a meaningful statistic.

The IRA killed 343 Catholics from Northern Ireland. Other republic paramilitaries 106, loyalist paramilitaries killed 727, British security forces 303, Irish security forces 1. The killer of 42 Catholics were unknown.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/tab2.plOrganisation Summary Catholic Protestant nfNI Totals
British Security 303 43 17 363
Republican Paramilitary 449 981 630 2060
Loyalist Paramilitary 727 231 58 1016
not known 42 32 11 85
Irish Security 1 4 5
TOTALS 1522 1287 720 3529


http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/cgi-bin/tab2.plOrganisation Catholic Protestant nfNI Totals
(RUC) 44 8 3 55
(USC) 1 1
(REP) 16 72 1 89
(LOY) 199 42 6 247
(BA) 253 32 12 297
(UVF) 276 105 45 426
(SE) 3 3
(IRA) 343 795 573 1711
(nk) 42 32 11 85
(OIRA) 23 6 23 52
(UDA) 57 53 3 113
(UFF) 128 18 1 147
(INLA) 34 54 25 113
(RHC) 5 5 3 13
(UDR) 5 2 1 8
(RAF) 1 1
(PAF) 37 37
(PAG) 5 5
(PLA) 3 3
(IA) 1 1
(RepAF) 24 24
(PRA) 4 4
(CRF) 3 3
(IPLO) 10 12 22
(GS) 1 3 4
(LRDG) 2 2
(IPLOBB) 2 2
(DAAD) 5 5
(BP) 1 1
(LVF) 12 6 18
(rIRA) 13 11 5 29
(RHD) 6 2 8
TOTALS 1522 1287 720 3529

Fratton Fred

To make those figures more informative, would it not make sense to count civilians only?

If a member of the IRA or UVF was killed then the chances are they were Catholic or Protestant, but there is no way their death could be classed as sectarian killing.

Cork boy 55

What about IRA guys who blew themselves up by accident are they counted as catholics killed by IRA there are scores of them

Exile 1798

Victor, can you tell me how you managed to post those tables here? I've tried and failed to do the same.

CAIN is invaluable, but the annoying thing is that one can't post links directly to the tabulations and cross tabulations you create (your links for example don't lead to the tables you created)

Exile 1798

HellsAngel wrote: »

And as well as the 20 - 30% who were in the RUC/UDR/Brits, how many were Catholic informers, rivals in the Stickies ( Offical IRA ), IPLO and other such groups etc

I meant 20 - 30 individuals out of the 343 not 20 - 30%. That would be far to high.

20 - 30 individuals is perhaps conservative, but as I'm only making an educated guess I must be. The RUC were around 93% Protestant and the UDR 95% throughout most of the Troubles, so even though Catholics in them killed by the IRA were given more prominence in the media, in total numbers there couldn't have been terribly many.

Victor

Exile 1798 wrote: »

Victor, can you tell me how you managed to post those tables here? I've tried and failed to do the same.

[noparse]Organisation Summary Catholic Protestant nfNI Totals
British Security 303 43 17 363
Republican Paramilitary 449 981 630 2060
Loyalist Paramilitary 727 231 58 1016
not known 42 32 11 85
Irish Security 1 4 5
TOTALS 1522 1287 720 3529 [/noparse]

The individual pieces of data need to be separated by a single tab.

HellsAngel

Exile 1798 wrote: »

I meant 20 - 30 individuals out of the 343 not 20 - 30%. That would be far to high.

20 - 30 individuals is perhaps conservative, but as I'm only making an educated guess I must be. The RUC were around 93% Protestant and the UDR 95% throughout most of the Troubles, so even though Catholics in them killed by the IRA were given more prominence in the media, in total numbers there couldn't have been terribly many.

Not sure of the percentages, but Catholics in the RUC were a primary target for the IRA whether people agree or not, as they were seen as bigger turncoats coming from the nationalist community. Likewise they possibly were a greater danger as they still had family members in the nationalist communtiy who might gather information for them and pass it on etc So there fore I would say their were a lot more than just 20 - 30 individual RUC Catholic members killed.

As for the UDR, apart from the first few months of it, their were about as many Catholics in it as their predecessors the B Specials.

Exile 1798

Okay, further to post 2 about how many of the Catholics (Irish, Northern) killed by the IRA were members of of the RUC/UDR, and a few other inquiries about the exact number of Catholic civilians, Catholic IRA members and other Catholic Republican's who make up that 343.

Of the 343:

164 civilians
3 British Army (presumably from NI, but in BA units other then the UDR)
1 IRAF
21 RUC
123 IRA
4 Official IRA
9 UDR
4 Civilian Political Activist
4 Prison Officer
2 ex-UDR
2 ex-RUC
2 ex-British Army
1 ex-Prison Officer
2 ex-IRA
1 IPLO - Belfast Brigade.

*All definitions are CAIN's

Organisation by Status where Religion Summary is 'Catholic' http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/selecttabs.html

snafuk35

Ok so can someone answer the question why the PIRA failed to protect the lives of Catholics?

Avoid derailing the thread by posting statistics and just explain why?

Victor

snafuk35 wrote: »

Ok so can someone answer the question why the PIRA failed to protect the lives of Catholics?

Quite simply because they didn't know who is going to kill who and they can't be everywhere at the same time.

This question is on a par with "Why can't the police* stop all murders before they happen?" or "Why can't shop security stop all shop lifting?".

Just to get back to the original post:

Why were PIRA so useless at protecting Catholics?

PIRA actually killed more Irish Catholics on the island then the British Army, Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries combined.

The above two statements don't sit well together. Surely they were effective if relatively fewer of the killings were done by others? However, the basic premise of the statement is wrong, so that doesn't apply.

When the likes of the UDA's C Company were terrorising Nationalist communities, why didn't they do more to stop them?, they were a far more sophisticated and potent terror group than any of the Loyalist ones so surely they had the means and capabilities to do so.

Like what? Sure, "they were far more sophisticated and potent terror group", but they weren't necessarily a particularly good security organisation for whole communities.**

If two Loyalists in a car drive through a nationalist area and shoot a random person, assuming they are likely to be a Catholic, how could anyone stop that without a vast on-going operation?


* I'm not comparing the IRA to the police.
** However, they were capable of mounting certain security operations, but they couldn't protect whole areas - "no go" areas for the security forces or Loyalists were relatively limited.

jonniebgood1

Right so - I have tried to let the OP back up his thread (i.e. his title). He has not done this so the thread is now closed. The history forum is not meant for speculative opinion. I will give people benefit of doubt where possible but while I dont like stopping discussions it is sometimes nesessary. Such as now.

If anyone has a problem with this (OP) they can PM me.

Moderator