IRA

Not long after the Troubles in Ireland began, the Irish Republican Army split and the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA were born.

Bobby Sands , a member of the Provisional IRA , died in the Maze Prison near Belfast, where for two months he had been leading his final hunger strike.

In this bad season for Northern Ireland, the perceived intransigence of Margaret Thatcher 's British government helped the IRA to increase its support.

The sentence for terrorist killing which had kept Judith Ward in prison for eighteen years was overturned on appeal.