IRA Army Council Correspondence

Collection

Identifier: MSE/IR 1100

Staff Only
Please use the Collection Organization below to place requests

Scope and Contents

The IRA Army Council Correspondence comprises 18 folders of letters relating to the movements and decisions made by the Irish Republican Army Council. Correspondence covers topics including but not limited to Frank Ryan’s time in the U.S., strikes, the British Steamship Line boycott, resignations, planning and meetings, funding, An Phoblacht, raids and arrests, the death of Luke Dillon, movements of volunteers, U.S. members, rifles, and the publication and distribution of letters and articles. Included in many letters is discussion around a tampered envelope and ways to establish different communication setups. Additionally, there is correspondence discussing the possible publication of an article on Russia and religious persecution. Formats include newspaper clippings and letters on official IRA letterhead.

Dates

Creation: 1924-1931

Creator

Irish Republican Army. Council (Organization)
Irish Republican Army (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Biographical / Historical

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) Council was the decision making body of the Irish Republican Army from 1922-1969. Created officially in 1919, The IRA was a republican paramilitary group dedicated to achieving complete independence from Britain and a reunification of Ireland. Successors to the Irish Volunteers, the group was an armed military organization whose goal was to nullify Britain’s power and force negotiations about Northern Ireland joining a united Ireland.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 assigned a degree of independence to Ireland but retained six Northern counties of Ireland under rule in the United Kingdom. The treaty spurred on the Irish Civil War (1922-1923), which resulted in a split within Ireland between those who opposed the treaty and the newly formed Provisional Government of Ireland (1922). The IRA became known as the Anti-treaty IRA with members who remained being heavily opposed to the agreements made in the treaty.

After the Irish Civil War, the IRA elected Moss Twomey (1897-1978) to be the new Chief of Staff (1926-1936). He moved the IRA toward more left-leaning ideologies and in his early days worked on a reorganization of the IRA. Between 1925-1931, the IRA was involved in espionage to spy on the United States and the United Kingdom on behalf of the Soviet Union. Many involved in the IRA viewed the Irish Free State that was established with the signing of the treaty to be a pretense of democracy. They organized many strikes, campaigns, and plans for insurrection with the aim to free Ireland from British rule.