The Provisional IRA in the Republic of Ireland was very active in the country during the Troubles (1969–1998). The country was seen as a safe haven for IRA members who used it to flee from British security forces, organize training and homemade weapons, and conduct attacks on British or Loyalist targets in nearby Northern Ireland, England, and even continental Europe. Irish authorities viewed armed activity by Irish republican militants in their country as a major security risk and took steps to mitigate it. They censored representatives of such militants from appearing on television or radio by Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, introduced the non-jury Special Criminal Court to easily prosecute the militants, and made it illegal to be members of certain Republican militant organisations.
Despite this, sympathetic Irish citizens and their territory itself provided the most external support to the IRA more than any nation, group or organisation. Nearly all of the PIRA finances that were used in its armed campaign came from criminal or legitimate activities in the Republic and Northern Ireland. Hundreds of training camps, safe houses, supply routes, and bomb factories were established in the Republic, with most being assisted for the IRA by Republic citizens. Many of the PIRA founders were from the Republic, and thousands of Republic residents joined the IRA as volunteers during the 1969-98 period. In spite of the harsh measures taken by the Irish government, there is little to no evidence these had any detrimental effect on IRA activities in the Republic.[n 1][2][3]
The Republic also had to deal with mostly small but hundreds of attacks by loyalist and republican paramilitaries in its territory, including bombings, prison escapes, kidnappings, and gun battles. The largest loss of life both in its territory and the entire conflict came on 17 May 1974, when the Glenanne gang–an informal alliance of loyalist militants and British security forces–exploded no warning bombs in the cities of Dublin and Monaghan; 33 civilians were killed and 300 others injured.
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