A History of Ireland in Song

Deaths in "the Troubles"

Some statistics on deaths caused by the contemporary conflict in Ireland. These figures run from 1969 to 1998. These figures include all deaths attributable to "the troubles", and not just those that occured in the Six Counties. My source is the CAIN project, who maintain a comprehensive database on all aspects of the conflict. See http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/.

Killings carried out by each Group by Community

(Only groups who killed 25 or more people are shown)

Organisation       Total Killings Protestant Catholic Not from 6 counties

IRA                1696 (49%)     790        338      568
INLA                110 (3%)       55         33       22
Official IRA         51             7         24       20
Real IRA             29            11         13        5
TOTAL Republican   1886           863        408      615

British Army        299 (9%)       32        258        9
RUC                  56             9         44        3
TOTAL Crown Forces  355            41        302       12

UVF                 396 (11%)      89        265       42
UFF                 149 (4%)       17        132        0
UDA                 102 (3%)       41         58        3
(unknown loyalist)  212 (6%)       50        212        7
PAF (loyalist)       37             0         37        0
TOTAL Loyalist      896           197        704       52

(unknown)            77            27         42        8
(others)            117            27         87        3
TOTAL other         194            54        139       11

TOTAL		  3,331

Note that the breakdown here is flawed in several regards.

The split by religion, while understandable and important, obscures more than it clarifies. Most importantly, those killed by the IRA should, instead or as well, be split down into the obvious three divisions: Crown forces (British army & RUC), Loyalist terrorists, civilians.
Secondly, those killed by the Crown forces are likewise not split into Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries, and civilians.
Thirdly, some killings attributed to loyalists are more likely to have been carried out by "proxies" for the British military, and should thus more properly be counted in the figures for the "British Army". For example, the figures above by "unknown loyalist" include the murder of Miriam Daly, assassinated after torture in the same wave of murders in which Bernadette McAliskey narrowly escaped death.

Deaths by Location

Antrim County      198
Armagh County      468
Belfast City East  128
Belfast City North 563
Belfast City South 213
Belfast City West  617
Derry City         227
Derry County       121
Down County        235
Fermanagh County   111
Tyrone County      337
26 Counties        105
Britain            125
Rest of Europe      18

TOTAL		 3,466

A History of Ireland in Song

Deaths in "the Troubles"

Killings carried out by each Group by Community

Deaths by Location

Further Reading