Crackdown on the I.R.A.

With a ferocity that surprised even its own leaders, the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army was being hunted down last week not only in Ulster, where the I.R.A. has been on the defensive for some time, but in the Irish Republic and England as well. In part, the crackdown was a response to the widespread outrage that followed the pub bombings in Birmingham last month in which 21 people were killed and another 184 injured (TIME, Dec. 2). The campaign included arrests in Ulster and Britain of suspected I.R.A. supporters and a comprehensive new criminal bill in the republic aimed specifically at the Proves' gunmen. Even in the U.S., there was renewed scrutiny of arms funding through I.R.A.-front organizations. Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees, bluntly summed up the new mood when he pledged: "There will be relentless pursuit of criminals -- and no amnesty."

> In Britain, where Parliament recently passed emergency legislation out lawing the I.R.A. throughout the country and permitting authorities to arrest I.R.A. suspects without warrant, a newly formed police squad made its first significant headway against I.R.A. bomb units. Police arrested eleven suspects who were accused of involvement in the October bombing of a Guildford pub in which five died; six of those arrested were charged with murder. Of the five I.R.A. terrorist cells that the British believe are operating in England--two in London and three in the Midlands cities of Birmingham, Luton and Coventry --authorities think that one and perhaps two have been broken up by the arrests. Parliament, meanwhile, voted down by a margin of 369 to 217 a proposal to restore hanging as capital punishment for terrorists, although the final vote, as Home Secretary Roy Jenkins acknowledged, was "probably at variance with public opinion and dangerously so."

> In Dublin, the government proposed a new criminal-law bill that, amazingly enough, provides for trial in Ireland of any person charged with terrorist offenses in Ulster or elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The bill is chiefly designed to discourage the I.R.A. from using the republic as a secure haven for its attacks on the North.

> In Belfast, the British campaign to cripple the I.R.A. intensified. At least 16 suspected Proves were arrested in the bloody Ardoyne area. Police also raided a house in the Roman Catholic Lower Falls Road area and uncovered what they claimed was a central I.R.A. "factory" for explosives: fire bombs wired to watches and American-made booby traps as well as arms and ammunition. More important, they found and arrested Tommy Maguire, one of the Provisionals' top explosive experts, who had been at large since he escaped from Belfast's Crumlin Road jail four years ago.

> In the U.S., the second largest source of I.R.A. funds after Ireland itself, increasing attention is being paid to fund-raising activities among the 12.2 million Americans of Irish descent. Government sources in Dublin estimate that various individuals and groups in the U.S. have contributed $5 million or more to the Provos' war chest since the current troubles began in Northern Ireland six years ago, even though Dublin has tried to discourage such support throughout that period. There is still widespread sympathy for the cause, and open appeals for donations are sprinkled through Irish papers in the U.S. IT'S A SAD CHRISTMAS WHEN YOUR DADDY'S IN PRISON, reads an ad in the moderate Irish Echo for Eire Nua, (New Ireland), a Provisional front.

Several Americans have been arrested on charges of making illegal arms shipments to Ulster. The most celebrated case was that of the "Fort 'Worth Five," a group of New York Irish Americans who were imprisoned in Texas during 1972 and 1973 for refusing to testify before a grand jury concerning their alleged involvement in arms traffic to Northern Ireland via Texas; eventually, they were released. This year's pro-I.R.A. martyrs include the "Baltimore Four," two Irishmen and two Irish Americans who were convicted of conspiring to smuggle 158 rifles and other materiel from New York to Ireland.

Arms Traffic. A number of organizations, ranging from the respected 138-year-old Ancient Order of Hibernians to the relatively new American Committee for Ulster Justice and the National Association for Irish Freedom, have been active, in one way or another, on behalf of the Irish Catholic cause. The largest and probably most important American organization that supports the Provisionals is the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid), which has more than 70 chapters and claims a membership of more than 80,000. One of its officials testified before the U.S. Senate three years ago that American contributions do "not necessarily" go for guns but "might allow [Ulster Catholics] to purchase firearms wherever they might get them to defend the community [and] their families."

Noraid officials admit that some of their members may have been involved in arms traffic but insist that as an organization, their record is clean. Says Mike Flannery, 72, a national director of Noraid: "We do not have anything to do with arms in this organization. We have a job of relief to do, and we don't become implicated." Not that Flannery, an I.R.A. veteran who fought against the British in the 1920s, would not like to help. "If we had no law and I had the freedom to do it," he says, "I'd ship the whole U.S. arsenal over there."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.