u/BulkyCard8872

IRA vol. John Crawley, former US special forces, is very critical of McGuinness:

>Martin McGuinness had an enormous reputation as our finest military thinker. I recall a senior British Army officer claiming he was so capable that he could have been trained at their academy at Sandhurst. As time went on, however, I found no evidence of this. In fact, I became increasingly frustrated by his military illiteracy. I couldn’t blame him for not having professional training but some of the stuff he came out with was baffling. I began to see a different side to him, a side that gave me my first niggling concerns about our prospects for victory.

Crawley was disappointed when in 1983 McGuinness wanted him to go to America to buy arms, instead of using his training and knowledge to enhance the IRA's effectiveness. McGuinness didn't understand why an army should rely on as few types of guns and calibres as possible:

>My heart fell as I examined [container of weapons from the US] the hodgepodge of deer-hunting rifles, shotguns and bolt actions that had been inscribed into his notebook. The next time I met Martin, I asked him about it.
‘Was that a junk load, Martin?’
‘Junk load?’
‘Yeah, bits and bobs gathered up to test the route before the good stuff is sent over?’
I could see a flash of annoyance in his eyes.
‘No, that was the shipment. Why?’
‘It was crap. Few of the weapons were military grade and there was a muddle of various calibres. One of the rifles was a Swiss Stgw 57 in an unusual calibre, which we almost certainly don’t have in stock. Furthermore, it came with only one magazine.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘Every gun shop in America sells the AR-15 rifle, and most sell the G3. It would be just as easy to buy military-grade weapons and standardise our logistics as it is to do what we’re doing now. Also, standardisation would greatly simplify training.’
Martin regarded me for a moment as if I had special needs. ‘A variety of weapons shows the people that the IRA can obtain a wide range of arms and get them into the country. It’s good for morale.’
I was incredulous. Clearly, the dolly mixture of bolt actions and deer-hunting rifles was part of an ingenious strategy that intellectual pygmies such as myself could not comprehend.

While you take what you can get, surely using many types of guns and ammo is a nightmare logistics wise? Yet McGuinness defended it as not as necessity but as actually desirable. McGuinness didn't understand how the RPG-7 worked and got angry when Crawley tried educating him:

>The soldier was in a concrete sangar that had been hit by an RPG-7 rocket. ‘Good job in Belfast yesterday,’ I commented. ‘It was surely,’ said Martin. ‘The rocket didn’t explode, though. The warhead went straight through the concrete and hit the soldier in the chest.’ It took me a moment to digest this. I thought he was pulling my leg... I told Martin that an RPG-7 warhead does not penetrate a target by kinetic energy but by the chemical energy of its shaped charge... An RPG warhead could not possibly penetrate a reinforced concrete fortification unless the explosive jet performs as designed.
Martin went silent. I could see he was seething, but he said no more about it.

According to Brendan Hughes, in 1987 McGuinness was pushing a fantastical "Tet Offensive" where the IRA would seize British Army bases:

>I remember arguing against operations [like Loughgall] going ahead. I sat in a house in Donegal along with Martin and the rest of the GHQ staff where they were planning... this major upsurge in the campaign, we were going to go in and take over (British) army billets and so forth, major operations involving major weapons. Gaddafi had come on board. ...What was lacking was the training but there was this sort of bullish attitude from people like McGuinness to push ahead with these operations. I argued against them because we didn't have the proper training. I had done a tour of the whole six counties, I went round and spoke to most of the operational companies... and I believed that the IRA wasn't ready for a major push... We were not ready for those type of operations. We didn't have the intelligence, we didn't have the organisation, we didn't have the discipline. But people wanted to go ahead with it, and one person in particular... Martin McGuiness... I believed that what we needed to do was to pull as many operators out of the North into the South, retrain them and beef the whole Army [IRA] structure up. The structure was not secure enough for these type of operations to take place

There are other black marks on McGuiness' record too, like losing an early shipment of Libyan weapons in the Hegarty affair in 1986 and a very large consignment on a beach in Donegal in 1988. While Hughes and Crawley later left the Provos, they both depict McGuinness as not understanding much of military logistics, weaponry or the nature of the army he was leading, and as too egotistical to accept advice. On the flipside his defenders would point to the many successful IRA operations under his time as Chief of Staff and Northern Commander.

Controversial topic no doubt but worth exploring.

The Army Council's Easter statement from 1987 was brimming with confidence. A few months earlier the IRA succeeded in delivering to Ireland the largest shipment of Libyan weapons yet and were planning their "Tet Offensive":

>We agree with the building of a popular republican party in the course of the armed struggle and we refuse to be over-euphoric with electoral victories or disillusioned or deterred by set-backs. The British will only be talked out of Ireland through the rattle of machine guns and the roar of explosives. And the Republic cannot be talked in but has to be painstakingly worked for... It has been a long, long time since the Irish Republican Army has felt so confident, so sure of victory, so happy about the future, even though for many of us the coming fight may mean imprisonment or death. We do not shirk from those necessary sacrifices because at the end of the day British rule will be finished in Ireland, once and for all.

>Now we will go and talk Britain out of Ireland our way, with the only words they understand.

>We will talk them out of their spy posts and bunkers and barracks and off the streets until they hear us and hear us right!

One year later though the IRA set a markedly different tone. Loughgall, Enniskillen, Gibraltar the loss of the final, biggest Libyan shipment. Sinn Féin and the SDLP had been in dialogue for months. In 1988's Easter statement there was no talk of forcing Britain out, but instead a "strategy for a peace" and "limited guerrilla warfare"

>Even British army generals are now admitting that there can be no military victory over the struggle of the Irish people for national self-determination. That message, however, has not been absorbed by Thatcher’s murder executive. We have a message for the British government: we will demoralize you, we will make the six counties into a millstone which will strangle you, and we will eventually defeat you.

>Our strategy is clear. It is to sap the political will of the British government and the British people to remain in Ireland. The means are limited guerrilla warfare against crown forces. It is not the intention of the Republican movement to become involved in confrontation with the forces of the 26 counties

>It is a tribute to this generation of Volunteers and political activists that our movement is recognized as being comprised of courageous people with a coherent political strategy for peace. 

Many books and documentaries have identified 1987-1988 as a crucial turning point in the conflict and its interesting to see it spelled out so clearly. Thanks to the Irish Republican Digital Archive for their recent upload of Easter statements.

From a 1983 interview by the Spanish magazine Interviú, with a senior INLA representative:

>Q. The lNLA has carried out various attacks against members of the protestant community, and even tried to shoot Reverend Paisley and his right arm Peter Robinson, although both have been considered as "untouchables" even by the IRA. Can you explain the motives?

>A. That is true. In the summer of, 1981, the INLA tried to execute the well-known unionist leader Reverend Ian Paisley, but the shots fired did not penetrate his bullet-proof car. Protestant politicians such as lan Paisley and Robinson have encouraged hatred between the two communities, organising bands of assassins made up of protestant unionists.

The INLA the attack on Ian Paisley is quite famous. It was widely reported and gets mentions in the book Deadly Divisons. I've never heard Peter Robinson was in the car though, and the INLA man here doesn't deny they tried to kill Robinson suggesting it was separate. Brendan O'Brien's book The Long War has a chat with former INLA men in the 1990s:

>They talked about an INLA shooting attack on Reverend Jan Paisley in the Markets area of Belfast, of attacks on Paisley’s deputy and Westminster MP, Peter Robinson, and on Unionist councillors.

If INLA men were reminiscing about an attack on Peter Robinson years later then it surely must have happened yet I can't find anything on the date, location, or means of this attempt.

Anyone have info?

obscure question but the book Deadly Divisions gives this story:

>Early in 1981 a Dublin Sunday newspaper had published a front page story alleging that the INLA had just received tons of weapons from Libya. Included with the supposed shipment were, according to the story, RPG7 rockets. A Steenson supporter went south to speak to Harry Flynn; he told Flynn that Belfast wanted the rockets. Flynn said that the story was a myth and that the INLA had never received tons of weapons from Libya. "We're going to shoot someone," he is alleged to have told Flynn. "Then shoot me, Flynn replied.

Yet a senior INLA member interviewed by Spanish magazine Interviú in spring 1983 said:

>
Q. Where do you get the arms you use?

>A. Mainly from the non-aligned countries. We have also received some lots from America. The typical INLA weapon is the Soviet attack rifle AK-47, or Kalashnikov. The AK-47 and the five-point star are our symbol. We also use M-16 American rifles - the traditional IRA weapon, Chinese SKS and Russian RPG-7 grenade-launchers.

He could of course be mistaken or bullshitting for propaganda's sake. That the INLA were never linked to an attack involving a rocket launcher would also suggest this is untrue. Anyone know more?