PIRA emblem
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), nicknamed the Provos or simply the IRA, was an Irish republican paramilitary organization that operated in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2005. The organization was formed as the result of a split within the original IRA, with its members refusing to adhere to the leadership of Cathal Goulding's Official IRA leadership and forming its own governing body, the IRA Army Council. The PIRA focused on independence from Britain without caring for the OIRA's communist ideology, allying itself with the socialist Sinn Fein party and promoting the liberation of Northern Ireland and traditional nationalism instead of proletarian revolution. The PIRA sought to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and to protect the rights of Irish Catholics in the Protestant-majority region, and the PIRA was often known simply as the "Irish Republican Army" due to being a worthy successor. The "Bloody Sunday" massacre in Derry in 1972 resulted in the IRA launching an offensive against the British, and the IRA used both rural and urban guerrilla tactics against the British Army. During the 1980s, the IRA launched a bombing campaign on the British mainland, hoping to put political and economic pressure on the United Kingdom and force the British to consider a peace agreement. In July 1997, the Sinn Fein party was readmitted into peace talks, and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended "The Troubles". The group laid down its arms in 2005, but the Real IRA and Continuity IRA continued low-level insurgencies against the British and Ulster authorities.