Category talk:Irish Republican Army

Change of title?
I've just set up a new category entitled Sinn Féin but am thinking whether it would be a better idea to combine it with this category as much of the same personalities and organisations are bound to end up on the two (e.g. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, Gerry Adams etc). The problem is how to best name this category. Irish republicanism is too broad a category. How about "Physical Force Irish Republicanism" or is that too long winded?--Damac 10:06, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Terrorism
I've seen the arguments on the edit history page, but I think adding this Irish Republican Army page to the terrorism through the decades lists is acceptable. Whether or not the IRA is considered a 'terrorist' organisation, a significant number of items on the list are indisputably terrorist acts: attacks on the civilian population designed to cause terror, such as the La Mon Restaurant Bombing, the Milltown Massacre, the Birmingham pub bombings or the Remembrance Day Bombing, or attacks against security forces which caused large civilian casualties too, such as the M62 Coach Bombing or the Guildford pub bombing. These actions were demonstrably terrorist, whatever the overall nature of the organisation. In addition, terrorism is listed as a category on the main Provisional Irish Republican Army, and all the events listed above are listed on the pages I linked too. I think that if people have a real problem with these categories, there should at least be a discussion before it is reverted.--Jackyd101 02:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Continuity IRA, Real IRA, etc
Any suggestions on how members of the Continuity IRA and Real IRA should be categorised?

There don't appear to be specific categories for either, and it seems to me to be unsatisfactory to categorise either of them under Category:Provisional Irish Republican Army members. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit unsure on that one myself. As far as I'm aware the only CIRA member we actually have an article on is Dáithí Ó Conaill who was a PIRA member as well, and I'm really not aware of any other members who are notable enough for articles so there's no real need for a seperate category. Real IRA is slightly more tricky.  While some members are confirmed ex-PIRA others either weren't or aren't confirmed, but the articles are slightly thin on the ground anyway. There's Seamus Daly who I need to do plenty of work on, Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell and I'm also working on a Colm Murphy article at present and will probably do a Sean Hoey one as well. McKevitt, Campbell and Murphy can all be sourced as ex-PIRA, so it seems to be a bit of a waste of a category for just Hoey and Daly.  Category:Northern Irish paramilitaries doesn't fit particularly well either as Daly is from County Monaghan, and I'm not convinved that him allegedly being involved in planning the Omagh bombing is enough to put him in that category. Perhaps the best thing to do is to rename Category:Real IRA actions to just Category:Real IRA and put the members in there?  One Night In Hackney 303 22:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thinking about it we could probably use a Category:Continuity IRA subcat as well. It would probably include Continuity IRA, Chronology of Continuity IRA actions, Dáithí Ó Conaill and Republican Sinn Féin in it?  One Night In Hackney 303 01:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that info; it seems to me to be sufficient to make those categories worth having. It's not that either of them appears likely at the moment to be heavily populated, but without them the articles may not be included in any IRA-related categories, or will be wrongly placed in PIRA, or will end up in a parent category which ought to be reserved for broader articles.
 * So I'd say go ahead and create both.  I won't do it myself, because I really only strayed into this area while trying to disperse articles from Category:Irish people, and I'm sure that the job would be done better by those such as yourself more familiar with the subject matter.
 * I was just about to press the save button when I realised that I hadn't responded to your point about Category:Real IRA actions. I would suggest leaving that for now (but making it a subcat of Category:Real IRA), because:
 * It's as much work to rename a category as it is to merge it later, so there's no benefit in starting by getting rid of it
 * Category:Real IRA actions is a subcat of Category:Irish Republican Army campaigns, which seem seems to me to need some parent cats which would not be appropriate for an category on the organisation. The parent cats don't seem very well organised at the moment, but I think there is a case for keeping two separate, and not just as a temporary measure.
 * Hope this helps! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Certainly does thanks, I always prefer to get a second opinion before messing about with categories. Categories have been created at Category:Real Irish Republican Army and Category:Continuity Irish Republican Army.  One Night In Hackney 303 17:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good! I have tweaked the indexing and add catmain to each of them. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

INLA
For the benefit of anyone wondering why the INLA cat is now a subcat of this one. The INLA split from the Official IRA, therefore if the PIRA splinter groups such as CIRA (and their splinter groups) and RIRA are in there, the INLA should be as well. One Night In Hackney 303  21:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Parent categories
I have removed this category from Category:Irish revolutionaries, which is a category for people, not for organisations or events, and it was causing all sorts of articles such as 1987 in the Irish Republican Army to be placed inappropriately under the Category:Irish people tree. However, I have added to Category:Irish revolutionaries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)