I’m watching a TV series that takes place at the tail end of The Troubles, in Derry. The main character and her family are Catholics, but they seem horrified at all of the violence and mourn the inconveniences caused by the IRA’s roadblocks, and seem to crave peace above all else.
Was this, by and large, the response of the Irish/Catholic people in the area at that time and place? Or did the IRA have the support of the people it supposedly represented?
According to this paper, which I found as the one source for the topic in Wikipedia, the support for violence was relatively low, but not zero, and of course varied through time.
In 1999, according to polling. The support for Republican use of violence (The IRA and others) was. 7.4% lot of sympathy, 34.6% some sympathy among Catholics and 0%, 10% among Protestants.
The only factual answer is that it depends on who you talk to. The IRA had solid support from many, but not all, Northern Irish Catholics, but by the end, there was an overwhelming desire for a peaceful resolution to the situation. It couldn’t go on forever as it had. I’m writing a screenplay about Northern Ireland at the beginning of the civil war in 1920, so I had to do a fair amount of research on the IRA and their protestant equivalents. I also visited Belfast in the 90s and saw the division in the city.
The was support for reunification of course, but the IRA at the time (there were, and still are are lots of variations in the groups calling themselves the ‘IRA’) were using the religious divide while being non religious (pretty much marxist) themselves. The IRA would kill catholics as easily as protestants, look up about the ‘Dissapeared’. Disappeared (Northern Ireland) - Wikipedia
When the British army were initially sent to NI catholics were mostly in favour, as they didn’t trust the protestant RUC as an unbiased police force.
The whole situation there is hideously complicated. Most people, whatever their beliefs, wanted to live a peaceful life. Under that though, there is the ingrained habit of a lifetime of, at the very least, tacit support for whichever “side” your family was on.
By the 90s, both sides had become criminal organisations. Or rather, organisations of criminals. They were strapped for cash as the Americans stopped contributing, so drugs and sex became a good source of income. As the “old guard” faded away, both sides were also recognising that the best way forward was political and this led to The Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Sadly, there are still elements on both sides that for reasons of their own, continue to espouse violence and there are many people who, while not active supporters, will not cooperate with any effort to apprehend them.
You have to understand that “The Troubles” had their roots in the same kind of prejudice that afflicted the Southern States of America. Except that the “victims” were not black, but Catholic. Prejudice against Catholics goes back a long way. Henry VIII broke with the Pope and in 1540 or thereabouts closed down and confiscated the lands and wealth of most monasteries in England and Wales. In 1605 Guy Fawkes failed to blow up the King and Parliament. On November fifth each year, this is celebrated throughout the UK. Some people burn effigies of Fawkes and some, the Pope, although modern politicians have become fashionable lately.
Are you asking about the IRA’s goals, or about their methods? Because there were a lot of folks who supported the goal of a unified Ireland, but without supporting the method of car bombs and shootings.
Repeated election results said that support for the various overt iterations/offshoots of the “physical force tradition” was always a minority.
One particular item I recall from the news at the time, was “kneecapping”. If the IRA suspected someone - usually Catholic - of ratting them out to the authorities, they would shoot the person in both kneecaps, because it did the most damage and from then on he was an effective warning to others.
I hung out with (well, drank with) a large group of Irish expats in the 1980’s and a common refrain was that there was ten times the support for the NRA is Boston than there was in Dublin or Cork.
The NRA is kinda thin on the ground in Ireland. The IRA on the other hand …
Over 30 years ago during the Rodney King riots there was someone bloviating about backing the police 100% in a Boston bar. I said I also supported the police 100%, including the RUC.
I had to leave for my own safety.
I remember at one point in the early 90s there was an American newspaper that catered to the Irish community over here, and its tagline, below the paper’s name (which I forget at the moment), was “The Voice of Irish Republicanism in America.” Certain letters in that phrase were bolded and of a greater point size, so that it was impossible not to notice the “I-R-A” subtext writ large.
OP, I assume you’re watching Derry Girls
Hehe, that’s immediately what I thought, as well.
ETA: A quick search seems to indicate that the paper was “The Irish People”
Me too. I noted recently that in Derry Girls Granda Joe dismissed his son-in-law (a southerner) as “yon effing Free-Stater”. I don’t know whether that was just the geography or if it meant Joe was or pretended to be a hardline republican as distinct from the compromisers of the southern political parties.
But then, Sister Michael was as dismissive of folk from Belfast. Or anywhere, really.
I forget where I saw it, but I read something recently to the effect that retroactive “support” for the IRA among Catholics on both sides of the border today is considerably higher than it was when the conflict was actually happening.
I remember there was a controversy about some Irish women’s sportsball team using a pro-IRA chant to get themselves worked up before a match, the point being that for (some) younger people, it’s now seen as a generic “Irish pride” thing rather than as a partisan expression.
How’d you guess? 
As I recall, ‘kneecapping’ was more linked the criminal underworld in NI than republicanism (although there was a connection there with all sorts of political gangs). The IRA would shoot dead anyone they really thought was a collaborator, although by the end of The Troubles they were supposedly riddled with MI5 informers.