The Troubles: Former soldier charged with murder

The IRA had already concluded that they could not win by violence.
What they did, was exploit the cowardice of non military civilian politicians in the Labour party to extort a better deal than they should have got.

Mo Mowlam and Blair, surrendered.
They took the work of those who came before, claimed credit for it and pissed it up the wall.
Full disarmament was possible.
It could have been achieved and had that happened Lyra McKee would still be alive.

From 1998-2001 the Provos spoke of "putting weapons beyond use".
They did not hand over weapons to the authorities for destruction.
No photographs of weapons being destroyed were taken.

Full disarmament was avoided by the establishment of splinter groups.
"The Real IRA", "Continuity IRA", "New IRA", were founded and weapons moved from the Provisional IRA (itself a splinter group from the original IRA) into the inventories of those organisations.
The Provisional IRA were able to say "we are no longer armed", that didn't stop the other IRA's suddenly being.

Er, hello?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Irish_Republican_Army

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_Irish_Republican_Army

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Irish_Republican_Army

Where did the weapons used by splinter groups come from?
Easiest hypothesis, P-IRA.

Only P-IRA knew for certain how many weapons they had or where they were.
Easy enough to transfer some and still make a symbolic gesture.

Prior to 1987 the Provisional IRA were getting weapons from Libya, including semtex.

Then that year in a very short space of time things changed. One of the first of these big things to change that was the interception of the Eksund by the French. Tons of weapons were captured. It was also revealed just how many weapons had already got through.

The other really big thing was the remembrance day bombing.

Col Gaddafi's regime was disgusted with the IRA and withdrew support.

After that if IRA groups wanted arms, they had to look to existing stocks.

It's no coincidence that the IRA splinter groups were formed during the years P-IRA dragged their heels.

Weapons weren't all destroyed, a lot were transferred to the splinter groups, which are still out there, mostly drug dealing.

The Good Friday Agreement was a cop out, it could have been a lot better. But, weary of decades of war and desperate to look good, Labour surrendered.

Says the man who comes on this forum daily posting bitter petulant drivel from his ivory tower. You haven't caught anyone out on anything because you still can't get over the fact that a republican got let off the hook because of one of Tony Blairs get out of jail free cards .

 before we even investigate any of the other approx two hundred get out of jail free cases , where people like IRA gunman Mick  burns also hid behind one of Tony Blairs letters which caused chaos in justice being applied to his case.

  The families of John Downeys Hyde park victims dont care what other crimes downey may have been subsequently convicted of. They want criminal  justice for their loved ones , not someone else's , but won't get it because of Tony Blairs `wee mistake`. While you talk about justice on this thread for a despicable crime , let us not forget you are tacitly defending a man , Tony Blair , who has the blood of a million innocent Iraqis on his hands . For another one of his wee mistakes . 

 This old man is being thrown to the dogs because of events half a century ago , when he was sent as a frightened panicky young kid over to a cauldron of hate by your countries politicians who couldnt accept paddy didnt want them ruling his land. Its your politicians who should be in the dock , starting with scum like Blair.

 You are close to losing the province , which has one foot out the door already. There is no point in throwing this old man under a bus , except of course to save your politicians face , and give clowns like you something to virtue signal about.

you should read Tim pat coogans book on `the IRA ` Bancroft. He points out the billions in funding that came to the IRA from North America , while points out at the same time , the yanks old enemies , the Russians , sent the KGB to help train IRA men. The world was ganging up on you British at the time , but that was in large part because of the terrible pr Britain was getting .

The europeans , the Irish  , the yanks , as well as the aforementioned Trimble and labour mo Mowlam did a lot of the donkey work in terms of negotiating. I think personally its time to Draw a line under the whole sorry episode , apologise to the Irish , offer compensation , and start the process for a border poll.