Playing the 'Green Card' - Financing the Provisional IRA: Part 2

This is the second of two articles detailing aspects of the financial operations of the Provisional IRA (PIRA). While the first article highlighted some of the socio-organizational factors both underpinning and limiting the nature and extent of certain fundraising activities by the PIRA, this article presents details of activities traditionally elusive to empirical enquiry. Two case studies conducted between 1996 and 1999 - of domestic money laundering and money-lending activities by the PIRA in the Republic of Ireland - are summarized here and highlight a number of themes deserving of further exploration. These include the opportunistic nature of some PIRA strategies, the entrepreneurial nature of its financial investments, and significantly, the relatively unsophisticated nature and mixed successes of some of its money-laundering practices. Based on the analysis presented, the emergent challenges posed by such activities for counter-terrorist, societal, and civil efforts, while numerous, are not insurmountable in light particularly of the PIRA's failure to effectively manage its financial activities as successful as it might be assumed.