Introduction

Abstract

The IRA’s assault on the Northern Irish state between 1956 and 1962 is generally known as the ‘Border Campaign’. Most of its attacks and all of its fatalities occurred along the land frontier between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. In contrast the Provisional IRA’s campaign during the Troubles is most associated with the devastating attacks in Londonderry and Belfast. Yet from the earliest days of the Troubles the IRA campaign had a much broader territorial dimension. This was in part a reflection of the fact that the IRA itself was a 32-county organisation with its leadership based in the Irish Republic, and that right from the start of serious unrest in the North this unrest had serious reverberations in the Republic, both in the heart of government and the security forces and in the increasing significance of the border counties for the sustenance of the campaign in the North.