British victory United Kingdom Several thousand troops 2,800 The Border campaign (12 December 1956 – 26 February 1962) was a guerrilla warfare campaign (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.

8, prohibiting "any armed action whatsoever" against the forces of the recently proclaimed 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.

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.

[8][9][10] 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.

[11] 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.

[15] By 1955, splits were occurring in the IRA, as several small groups, impatient for action, launched their own attacks in Northern Ireland.

[17] In addition, another twenty organisers were sent to various locations within Northern Ireland to train new units, gather intelligence and report back to the leadership in Dublin.

(see The Troubles in Ulster (1920–1922)) On 12 December, the campaign was launched with simultaneous attacks by around 150 IRA members on targets on the Border in the early hours.

[21] A BBC relay transmitter was bombed in Derry, a courthouse was burned in Magherafelt by a unit led by an 18-year-old Seamus Costello,[22] as was a B-Specials post near Newry and a half-built Army barracks at Enniskillen was blown up.

[25] On 14 December: an IRA column under Seán Garland detonated four bombs (one of which blew in the front wall) outside Lisnaskea RUC station before raking it with gunfire.

On 21 December: In response to the statement the government of Northern Ireland under Basil Brooke used the Special Powers Act to intern several hundred republican suspects without trial.

[31] Shortly afterwards, the Republic's government, led by John Costello of Fine Gael, feared that the IRA's action would drag it into a diplomatic confrontation with Britain.

Clann na Poblachta (led by former IRA Chief of Staff Seán MacBride) withdrew its support for the government in protest over this policy.

On 11 November: The IRA suffered its worst loss of life in the period when four of its members died preparing a bomb in a farm house at Edentubber, County Louth, which exploded prematurely.

[34] Following their release, some of the interned leaders met Sean Cronin in a farmhouse in County Laois and were persuaded to continue the campaign "to keep the flame alive".

[36] Wallace Clark recalled that by this stage the campaign resembled a 'phoney war' at times, as 'casualties remained providentially light' and normal life carried on 'almost uninterrupted'.

[37] In the summer of 1958, two IRA men were killed in separate gun battles with the RUC on the border in County Fermanagh, Aloysius Hand in July and James Crossan in August.

That the IRA's campaign had run its course by 1960 is testified by the fact that the Republic of Ireland's government closed the Curragh Camp, which housed internees in the South, on 15 March 1959 (judging them to be no further threat).

Minister for Justice, Charles Haughey reactivated the Special Criminal Court, which handed down long prison sentences to convicted IRA men.

In a press release issued that day, drafted by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh who consulted with several other persons including members of the Army Council, the IRA Army Council stated: The leadership of the Resistance Movement has ordered the termination of the Campaign of Resistance to British occupation launched on 12 December 1956.

All arms and other matériel have been dumped and all full-time active service volunteers have been withdrawn... Foremost among the factors motivating this course of action has been the attitude of the general public whose minds have been deliberately distracted from the supreme issue facing the Irish people – the unity and freedom of Ireland.

It calls on the Irish people for increased support and looks forward with confidence – in co-operation with the other branches of the Republican Movement – to a period of consolidation, expansion and preparation for the final and victorious phase of the struggle for the full freedom of Ireland.The statement was released by the Irish Republican Publicity Bureau and signed "J. McGarrity, Secretary.

The border campaign was considered a disaster by some IRA members, not least because it enjoyed practically no support from the nationalist population of Northern Ireland.

Many of those involved with the border campaign felt that their lack of support was due to a failure to address the social and economic issues faced by ordinary people.

[clarification needed] The larger unionist population in Northern Ireland was further alienated from Irish republicanism by the campaign, and considered that its internment policy had worked.