Research Catalog

Title

IRA, the bombs and the bullets : a history of deadly ingenuity / A.R. Oppenheimer ; foreword by Richard English.

Author

Oppenheimer, A. R.

Publication

Dublin, Ireland ; Portland, OR : Irish Academic Press, 2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

English, Richard, 1963-

Description

xx, 387 p.; 25 cm.

Summary

"In this title, A.R. Oppenheimer tells how the Irish Republican Army became the most adept and experienced insurgency group the world has ever seen through their bombing expertise - and how, after generations of conflict, it all came to an end. The book is a comprehensive account of more than 150 years of Irish republican strategic, tactical, and operational details, and analysis of the IRA's mission, doctrine, targeting, and acquisition of weapons and explosives. As a leading expert on non-conventional weapons and explosives, Oppenheimer vividly presents the story behind the bombs - those who built and deployed them; those who had to deal with and dismantle them; and those who suffered or died from them. He analyses where, how, and why the IRA's 19,000 bombs were built, targeted and deployed and explores what the IRA was hoping to accomplish in its unrivalled campaign of violence and insurgency through covert acquisition, training, intelligence and counter-intelligence." "Beginning with the Fenian 'Dynamiters' in the second half of the nineteenth century, Oppenheimer fully describes and assesses the impact of the pre-1970s bombing campaigns in Northern Ireland and England and the evolution of strategies and tactics during the Troubles. He concludes with the decommissioning of an arsenal big enough to arm several battalions - which included an entire home-crafted missile system, an unsurpassed range of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and enough explosives to blow up several urban centres. The author scrutinises the level of deadly improvisation that became the hallmark of the Provisional IRA's expertise and ingenuity in its pioneering IED timing, delay and disguise technologies, and follows the arms race it carried on with the British Army and security services in a long war of mutual assured disruption. He also provides an insight into the bombing equipment and guns in the vast IRA inventory held at Irish Police HQ in Dublin."--Jacket.

Alternative Title

Irish Republican Army, the bombs and the bullets

Subject

• Irish Republican Army
• Bombs > History
• Bombings > Northern Ireland > History
• Bombings > England > History

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [373]-380) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Armed struggle : evolving strategies -- Dynamiters to city destroyers -- Spectaculars : we have only to be lucky once -- Amassing the arsenal -- Explosives : from gunpowder to magic marble -- Deadly ingenuity : the bomb technologies -- Mortars : a homemade missile system -- The engineers : if you hit target, there was elation -- The countermeasures arms race and the long walk -- Decommissioning : not a bullet, not an ounce -- Conclusion : is this the end?

ISBN

• 9780716528944 (hbk.)
• 0716528940 (hbk.)
• 0716528959 (pbk.)
• 9780716528951 (pbk.)

OCLC

• 233549934
• SCSB-12736385

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library