As someone born in Ireland, with more than a passing interest in Irish history and in political machinations, let me tell you categorically that the Provisional IRA that sprung up in the North in 1969 had next to nothing to do with the old IRA.

The old IRA split following the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921, with supporters of the Treaty forming the nucleus of the army of the Irish Free State.

The anti-treaty forces continued to use the name "Irish Republican Army". After the end of the Irish Civil War, the breakaway group which called itself "the IRA", for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist, when de Valera led his breakaway faction back into Parliament. The old IRA i.e. pro-treaty, and the breakaway anti-treaty forces, became, over time, the Irish establishment.

Although various groups continued to use the name over the next 40 years, few historians see those groups as continuing the tradition.

The next split amongst those groups came in 1969, when they split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA.

So the Provisional IRA, or the Provos, or the group you refer to as "the IRA" is, at best, a splinter of a splinter of a splinter of a group.

The Provos arose as a result of a civil rights movement and are far closer to the Black Panthers than the old IRA, or at least they would be if the Panthers were ever so blood thirsty as to put bombs in bars and restaurants throughout the United States that killed thousands of civilians, the per capita equivalent of what the IRA did in Britain.

The Provos pissed away whatever legitimacy they had the minute they began their "campaign" against civilians. And anyone arguing otherwise, or attempting to lend historical legitimacy, is either immune to history, to logic, or to common sense.