Typical IRA victims would be Protestants living in isolated areas, at the peak of their earning power i.e. the breadwinners of their families and pillars of the community.  The IRA viewed these people as the greatest threat to their predominance. They were murdered often with some petty excuse such as a refusal to join an IRA sponsored strike or even turn a blind eye to the murder of their neighbour. IRA murder victims were usually carefully selected targets, systematically selected in a bid to weaken, intimidate and cleanse areas of non-Irish groups (most often Ulster-British or Protestants).  Just as they were selectively targeted the method of their murder was also employed to gain maximum impact. Most victims were shot in their own homes in front of their families in order to maximise the horror of the act.  Others were tortured, mutilated and often dumped or hung in public as a message to the wider community. Some victims were forced to act as human bombs while their wives and children were held at gunpoint to ensure they carried out the actions. Other victims bodies were gutted and filled with explosives to kill those who would come to retrieve their loved ones. These are the tactics of the so-called 'brave Irish revolutionaries' that Noraid assist. Noraid could rest assured that their victims were killed in the name of some far distant and romantic ideal - out of sight and out of mind.

In a typical murder on the 22nd of October 1993, a Protestant man: Mark White* was murdered in the driveway of his Belfast home. Mr White was 50yrs old and was described as a man who lived for his work with a childrens Diabetes charity. Described as a man who kept himself to himself, his only crime was that he was a Protestant, a community man and an easy target. Mr Whites killers waited outside his house for his return from work, they shot him a number of times at close range and then left him to die in a trail of blood as he attempted to crawl for help. *name changed to protect the family identity

Not all the victims have been Protestants or Ulster-British. The IRA are blatantly sectarian but a may hundreds of Catholics and Irish were also killed, they were denounced by the terrorists and given a traitors death.  

A young soldier, Captain Robert Niarac was a devout Catholic who at the start of the troubles spent his spare time among the Catholic community in South Armagh.  He was branded a traitor and was tortured, then killed by the IRA in that area. His killers gloated that they had dressed as a Priest in a final mockery in order to extort a confession and information from him.  His body was said to have been finally disposed of in an industrial meat grinder; in any case it has never been found.  Captain Niarac became one of Ulster's many 'disappeared': i.e. the Catholic's the IRA branded traitors and whose graves have never been found.

Throughout the past three decades such stories have been an almost daily event. For a watching world though, much news of this kind is never an issue and has never reached the wider media. Even in Ulster sectarian murder has become treated so commonplace that it was often relegated to the small columns inside the regional newspapers. Occasionally however so-called terrorist spectaculars jerk the conflict into the spotlight. One such incident is recorded below;

In 1993 IRA bombers exploded a bomb in a crowded shop on a busy street in Belfast. The fuse on the bomb was deliberately short to ensure a maximum number of victims and allowing no time for any escape. Such was the bombers enthusiasm for victims they miscalculated and cut the fuse too short with the result that one of them died also.  The other bomber was injured but lived to be tried and convicted of the multiple murder.  He was released from prison in May 2000, having served only 6 years, less than one year for each life he took. Victims suffer not only the pain of losing their loved ones but also the knowledge that there is little justice in the system for any who are captured.  The victims have little political influence, none in fact compared to the mountain of resources available to the terrorists through groups like Noraid.  

The portraits of some who were killed in defiance of the terrorists.