The Irish Republican Army (IRA) (Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation descended from the Irish Volunteers, established 25 November 1913 and who in April 1916 staged the Easter Rising. The Irish Volunteers were recognised in 1919 by Dáil Éireann (its elected assembly) as the legitimate army of the unilaterally declared Irish Republic, the Irish state proclaimed at Easter in 1916 and reaffirmed by the Dáil in January 1919. Thereafter, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against British rule in Ireland in the Irish War of Independence from 1919–1921.

The original IRA split in 1922. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, members of the IRA who supported the Treaty formed the nucleus of the National Army founded by IRA leader Michael Collins. However, a high proportion of the IRA was opposed to the treaty.

The anti-Treaty IRA fought a civil war with their former comrades in 1922–23, with the intention of creating a fully independent all Ireland republic. Having lost the civil war, this group remained in existence, with the intention of overthrowing both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland and re-establishing the Irish Republic declared in 1919. Physical force Irish republicanism as an ideology had a long history, from the United Irishmen of the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, to the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 and the Irish Republican Brotherhood rebellion of 1867.

In addition, the methods of the IRA were to some extent inspired by the traditions of militant agrarian Irish secret societies like the Defenders, the Ribbonmen and the supporters of the Irish Land League.

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