Have to agree with you. As far as I'm concerned the IRA in the post-1969 phase of its history ceased to exist around 1996/97 when the second ceasefire came into place.Originally Posted by Conor74
Since then, the organisation has existed in name more than ouvert activity. However, some of its members have since then realised that access to guns, local kudos, and the apparent backing of a large private army opens all sorts of doors and opportunities within the modern criminal world and allows you to throw a bit of weight around if you want. Hence the branching into knocked-off fags, smuggled fuel, drugs, pirated DVD's etc, and an increase in the use of 'punishment attacks' purely as a means of score settling for individuals. There is no doubt that certain senior IRA members are involved in these types of activity, and that the rest of the organisation is aware and tolerates it, regardless of any dismissals stated by Sinn Fein. That's not what the struggle for Irish freedom is or should ever be about. That's straight-forward mafia-style gangsterism.
The problem as I see it is that the balance of power in the relationship between the 2 strands of Republicanism (the Provos and SF) has recently shifted back in favour of the IRA. Up until recently, SF were able to keep the provos in check by-and-large, as pursuit of the 'democratic' aims that they'd all signed-up to was the key Republican objective. However - since SF became the biggest nationalist party, rather than cement the party's ascendency within the Republican relationship it's instead lead the IRA to realise that they can pretty much get away with anything they want these days, as no-one can exclude Sinn Fein from the peace process. And as there's no 'war' any more, the type of things some of the IRA's membership are getting away with are nothing short of gangsterism.
I reckon that the IRA is slowly morphing into a number of underworld criminal gangs that will carve-up certain lines of business/parts of the country between them and clean-up within organised crime activities. Whilst Jamaican yardies, Kosovan/Serbian/Kurdish/Albanian etc gangs rule the underworld in England because they have access to hardware and aren't afraid to use it, there's no criminal organisation in Western Europe that could seriously hope to mount a turf battle against the IRA. It would be suicide. I can therefore see The Provos morphing into self-serving gangs who exploit this fact for personal gain (using chunks of the current IRA arsenal that they've got squirrelled away).
Therefore - how long is it going to be before the former-IRA is involved in lucrative but despicable trades like people smuggling (modern-day slavery).
Not only is the war over, but so to is the modern-day IRA. Patrick Pearse and Michael Colins must be turning in their graves.....
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