S-Plan
[5] Seamus (Jim) O'Donovan had been asked by Seán Russell directly after his election to IRA Chief of Staff in 1938 to formulate his ideas on the possibilities of successful acts of sabotage on British soil.
[6] On 17 December 1938, the Wolfe Tone Weekly newspaper published a statement issued by a group signing itself the "Executive Council of Dáil Éireann, Government of the Republic".
[7] This announcement, coming immediately prior to the S-Plan attacks,[8] sought to present the actions of the IRA as those of a legitimate, de jure government.
In early 1938 IRA leaders Moss Twomey and Jack McNeela were sent to Britain to assess the movement's strength there in spring 1938 and reported that: "In general it can be said that the state of the organisation in units which exist is poor and loose, and militarily should be described as almost elementary.
Excerpt from the ultimatum: I have the honour to inform you that the Government of the Irish Republic, having as its first duty towards its people the establishment and maintenance of peace and order here, demand the withdrawal of all British armed forces stationed in Ireland.
The occupation of our territory by troops of another nation and the persistent subvention here of activities directly against the expressed national will and in the interests of a foreign power, prevent the expansion and development of our institution in consonance with our social needs and purposes, and must cease.The Government of the Irish Republic believe that a period of four days is sufficient notice for your Government to signify its intentions in the matter of the military evacuation and for the issue of your Declaration of Abdication in respect of our country.
On Sunday, 15 January, with no reply from the British Government, a proclamation was posted in public places throughout Ireland announcing the IRA's declaration of war on Britain.
This proclamation was written by Joseph McGarrity, leader of Clan na Gael in the United States, and was signed by six members of the Army Council: Stephen Hayes, Patrick Fleming, Peadar O'Flaherty, George Oliver Plunkett, Larry Grogan and Seán Russell.
The seventh Army Council member, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, refused to sign as he believed the IRA was not ready to begin the campaign.
This proclamation also called upon Irishmen both at home and "in Exile" to give their utmost support to compel the withdrawal of the British from the island of Ireland so that a free Irish Republic could be established.
These signatures were sealed with the blood of the immortal seven, and of many others who followed them into one of the most gallant fights in the history of the world; and the Irish Nation rose from shame to honour, from humiliation to pride, from slavery to freedom....""Unfortunately, because men were foolish enough to treat with an armed enemy within their gates, the English won the peace.
The armed forces of England still occupy six of our counties in the North and reserve the right 'in time of war or strained relations' to reoccupy the ports which they have just evacuated in the southern part of Ireland.
They constitute the rallying centre for the unbought manhood of Ireland in the fight that must be made to make them effective and to redeem the nation's self-respect that was abandoned by a section of our people in 1923.
As a political force in Éire, the IRA simply does not count.Hoare explained that up to the present the perpetrators of these attacks had restricted themselves to damaging British property, however recently the government had been notified that the campaign was about to intensify with no regard being paid to human life.
They had collected detailed information about important bridges, railway lines, munition dumps, war factories and airfields and even engaged in a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
[54] There is solid evidence from the Abwehr war diaries that methods employed by IRA units carrying out the S-Plan generated only annoyance and frustration in Germany.
Attacks against mostly civilian targets, while causing panic and loss of confidence in the authorities, were not perceived as helpful to damaging British capability for waging war.
:[56] "The Pfalzgraf Section very urgently requests its Irish friends and IRA members to be so good as to make considerably better efforts to carry out the S-plan, which they received some time last summer, and to be more effectual against military as opposed to civilian objectives.
In June 1940 Time reported that: Increases in the security surrounding important infrastructure targets in Britain also had a major effect on IRA team's ability to conduct operations.
It is also clear that the campaign generated a good deal of anti-Irish sentiment, which increased the British public's suspicion of Irish people in general.
The death of Seán Russell on 14 August 1940, (he had already been effectively incommunicado since April 1939), and the succession of Stephen Hayes as IRA Chief of Staff also contributed to the petering out of the attacks At the time, the author of the S-Plan, Seamus O'Donovan noted his views on the S-Plan campaign in his diary entry for 23 August 1939 as: "hastily conceived, scheduled to a premature start, with ill-equipped and inadequately-trained personnel, too few men and too little money.... ..unable to sustain the vital spark of what must be confessed to have fizzled out like a damp and inglorious squib"[62]Reflecting in the 1960s, O'Donovan assessed the results of the campaign even more critically: "It brought nothing but harm to Ireland and the IRA.
The Bill gave the UK's Home Secretary powers to exclude and deport persons who were suspected of being connected with the IRA, or to make them register with the police.
[66] Allowed to expire in 1953 and repealed in 1973, it was reintroduced in 1974 as the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act to combat the successor to the S-Plan: Provisional IRA attacks on British soil.
