A timetable of the IRA's terrorist campaign

The IRA has been responsible for death and terror both in Northern Ireland and on mainland Britain for more than three decades.

In October, 1968, a civil rights march in Londonderry ended in violence and by the following August, London had sent the Army into the province to try to control escalating disorder.

At the same time, nationalist hardliners formed the Provisional IRA.

Since its creation, the group has been responsible for at least 162 deaths in bombings and major shootings.

Victims range from soldiers and police to members of the public but many more have died in sectarian killings over the years.

The 70s, as with the decades to follow, were punctuated by terrorist atrocities which shocked the world, destroyed relationships between the Protestant and Catholic communities, and regularly derailed efforts to normalise society in the province.

On February 22, 1972, less than a month after Bloody Sunday, seven people were killed and 15 hurt when a bomb exploded at the Parachute Brigade HQ at Aldershot, marking the start in earnest of the IRA’s campaign in mainland Britain.

On July 21, so-called Bloody Friday, 11 people were killed and 130 injured when the IRA detonated 26 bombs in Belfast.

On March 8, 1973, four car bombs were placed in London. Two were defused after 10 of the IRA team were caught at Heathrow but the other two, including one outside the Old Bailey, exploded, killing one man and injuring 180 others.

On February 4, 1974, 12 people died when a bomb exploded on a coach packed with soldiers on the M62 near Leeds.

Later that year two bombs were planted in pubs in Guildford, Surrey, killing two soldiers and three members of the public as well as injuring 50 others.

The Birmingham pub bombs. November 21, 1974. 21 killed in IRA bombing of two pubs in the city.

After the collapse of the IRA ceasefire in 1974/75 fresh campaigns began, including a series of bombs by the so-called ‘‘Balcombe Street Gang’’.

The four-strong unit also killed Guinness Book of Records co-editor Ross McWhirter after he offered a reward for their capture.

After a botched attack on a Mayfair restaurant, the four took hostages in an apartment on Balcombe Street, London, but gave up after six days.

They were charged with 10 murders and 20 bombings and jailed for life. They also admitted the Guildford attacks during their trial.

The Kingsmills massacre. January 5, 1976. Ten protestant workers shot dead when their works minibus was ambushed at a bogus road block at Kingsmills near Bessbrook in South Armagh.

La Mon House massacre. February 17, 1978. Twelve protestants killed when IRA fireball bomb exploded at restaurant near Comber, Co Down.

Warrenpoint massacre. August 27, 1979. Eighteen soldiers killed on Bank Holiday Monday by double IRA bombing in the Co Down coastal resort.

Hours earlier Lord Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb which blew apart his fishing boat off the Co Sligo coast in the Irish Republic where he had a holiday home. Three others died with him.

There were deaths too among the terrorists themselves.

In May, 1981, Bobby Sands died on hunger strike in the Maze Prison, the first of 10 IRA and INLA inmates to starve themselves to death in pursuit of recognition as political prisoners.

But they were quick to take their revenge.

In the Hyde Park bombing of July 20, 1982, 11 soldiers were killed and 50 people injured in attacks on the Household Cavalry in Rotten Row and at the bandstand in Regent’s Park.

The IRA’s bombing of London store Harrods on December 17, 1983, killed six people, three of them police, and injured 90.

On October 12, 1984, an IRA bomb killed five people and injured 30 when the terrorists planted a bomb at the Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party conference. The bombers’ main target, Lady Thatcher, escaped uninjured.

The Poppy Day massacre of November 11, 1987, saw 11 die when the IRA bombed the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Enniskillen.

On February 7, 1991, the IRA fired mortar bombs at Downing Street during a Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister John Major. No-one was hurt.

On April 10 the next year, three people died when an IRA bomb exploded outside the Baltic Exchange in the City of London.

And on April 24, 1993, an IRA truck bomb devastated the Bishopsgate area of London’s financial centre, killing one and injuring 44, as well as causing damage running into hundreds of millions of pounds.

A month earlier, the terrorists had detonated the Warrington bomb which killed three-year-old Jonathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Parry.

Back in Ulster, October 23 that year saw the Shankill Road bombing, when 10 people died when an IRA bomb exploded in a shop in west Belfast.

After the Anglo-Irish agreement, further diplomatic initiatives came and went, but the first real breakthrough came on December 15, 1993, when John Major and Irish Premier Albert Reynolds signed the Downing Street Declaration.

The declaration offered that if the IRA quit the violence for three months, then Sinn Fein could eventually join the political process.

On August 31, 1994, the IRA announced a ceasefire, a move mirrored on October 13 by the Combined Loyalist Military Command.

But efforts to arrange talks between the British and Irish governments, the democratic parties and Sinn Fein were repeatedly undermined by concerns over the arms decommissioning issue.

On January 24, 1996, the newly established International Body on Decommissioning proposed six principles of democracy and non-violence as conditions for entry to all-party talks.

But there were setbacks. On February 9, 1996, the IRA ended its ceasefire with the Docklands bombing in London, killing two and injuring 100.

The terrorists accused the Government of dragging its feet on all-party talks. A string of attacks followed, including the bombing, on June 15 in Manchester, which injured 200. On July 19, 1997, the IRA announced it was restoring its ceasefire the following day. Sinn Fein entered the all-party talks on the province’s future on September 9.

On April 10, 1998, the all-party talks produced the Good Friday peace agreement. It committed participants to a ‘‘total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences on political issues’’.

The IRA has stood by its 1997 ceasefire statement of no military operations however they have been blamed for continuing punishment shootings and beatings and the murdering of drug dealers in Northern Ireland.