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The Border Campaign (12 December 1956 – 26 February 1962) was a campaign of guerrilla warfare (codenamed Operation Harvest) carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against targets in Northern Ireland, with the aim of overthrowing British rule there and creating a united Ireland.〔''Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA'' by Richard English (ISBN 978-0-19-517753-4), page 73〕 Popularly referred to as the Border Campaign, it was also referred to as the "Resistance Campaign" by some republican activists.〔As found in the IRA statement ending the Campaign in February 1962, presented in J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army, 1979.〕〔Similarly, Sean Cronin, IRA Chief of Staff at various points during the campaign, titled his account of the 1956-57 period "Resistance - The story of the struggle in British-Occupied Ireland,"Book reprinted in IRIS - The Republican magazine, issue number 20, summer 2007, ISSN 0790-7869, under the pen-name Joe McGarrity〕 The campaign was a military failure, but for some of its members, the campaign was justified as it had kept the IRA engaged for another generation.〔see Tim Pat Coogan, "Jail journal of a 'last hurrah' republican," The Sunday Business Post Online, 13 January 2008.〕 This was the third Irish republican campaign against the Northern Ireland polity. The first took place during the Irish War of Independence, the second took place from 1942–1944, and a fourth was to take place from 1969–1997. ==Background== The Border Campaign was the first major military undertaking carried out by the IRA since the 1940s, when the harsh security measures of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland governments had severely weakened it. In 1939 the IRA tried a bombing campaign in England to try to force British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. From 1942-1944 it also mounted an ineffective campaign in Northern Ireland. Internment on both sides of the border, as well as internal feuding and disputes over future policy, all but destroyed the organisation. These campaigns were officially called off on 10 March 1945. By 1947, the IRA had only 200 activists, according to its own general staff.〔Patrick Bishop, Eamonn Mallie, The Provisional IRA,Corgi 1988, ISBN 0-552-13337-X p. 37.〕 In principle, the IRA wished to overthrow both "partitionist" states in Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the government in Dublin, both of which it deemed to be illegitimate entities imposed by Britain at the time of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922. However, in 1948 a General Army Convention issued General Order No. 8, prohibiting "any armed action whatsoever" against the forces of the Republic of Ireland, amounting to a ''de facto'' recognition of the state. Under the new policy, IRA volunteers who were caught with arms in the Republic of Ireland were ordered to dump or destroy them and not to take defensive action.〔J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army, 1979, p. 266.〕 From then on, armed action was focused on Northern Ireland, which was still part of the United Kingdom and which was dominated by Protestant unionists. The idea of a campaign launched from the Republic against Northern Ireland, first mooted by Tom Barry in the 1930s, gained currency within IRA circles as the 1950s went on.〔Bowyer Bell, p. 246.〕 In 1954, after an arms raid at Gough Barracks in Armagh, a speaker at the Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown repeated that IRA policy was directed solely against British forces in Northern Ireland. IRA Chief of Staff Tony Magan set out to create "a new Army, untarnished by the dissent and scandals of the previous decade," according to J. Bowyer Bell.〔J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army, 1979, p. 246〕 One of its advisers was a retired British Major-General, Eric Dorman-Smith. The IRA was officially "apolitical," existing only to overthrow the "British-imposed political institutions" in Ireland. However Magan believed that a degree of political mobilization was necessary and the relationship with Sinn Féin which had soured during the 30s was improved.〔''The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party'', Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, ISBN 1-84488-120-2, pp. 3〕 At the 1949 IRA Convention, the IRA ordered its members to join Sinn Féin, which would become the "civilian wing" of the IRA.〔J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army, pp. 247-48.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Border Campaign (Irish Republican Army)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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