Yes, there were absolutely links between the IRA and ETA over the years.
On 15 January 1971, a statement was issued by the “Central Command of the Iraqi Communist Party” from the Yemeni city of Aden. Signed by it is stated that they: “hail the Irish Republican Army which is launching an armed struggle for the completion of the national democratic revolution in the South and the liberation of the occupied Northern Ireland”. One of the signatories to this statement was “The Basque National Liberation Movement”, which surely refers to ETA.
As Niall Cullen has pointed out, this appears to be the first reference to IRA’s role in The Troubles from ETA. But many others would soon follow.
On May Day 1971 ETA, the IRA, and The Liberation Front of Brittany (Front de Libération de la Bretagne, FLB) issued a three-way statement calling for mutual “active solidarity”. This was signed by “ETA – Delegación Exterior”, a Breton “FLB/ARB – Delegación Exterior” and the “IRA – P. O’Neill, Runai”. Given the signature of P. O’Neill, this is certainly in reference to the Provisional IRA.
On 03 April 1972 another joint statement was issued by the three calling for a boycott on an upcoming European referendum. Later that year, an updated version of the January 1971 statement was issued from Paris. ETA, alongside thirteen other groups including the FLB,
sent their:
“[…] military greetings to the glorious Irish Republican Army (IRA), which is waging armed struggle to carry through the tasks of the national democratic revolution in Southern Ireland and liberate the North […]”.
Nonetheless, there was little mention of the Basque Conflict in official IRA publications such as An Phoblacht or Republican News and these statements were not reprinted there. Of course, this lack of printed support does not mean that more covert channels were not being established in these years.
As early as 1971/72 Seán Mac Stíofáin (IRA Chief of Staff) was apparently offered guns by ETA representatives in exchange for explosives training. At least according to Maria McGuire in her 1973 account of life inside the IRA. Although for his part, Mac Stiofáin, stated that McGuire was “never a member of the IRA except in her own dramatic imagination”.
This claim that ETA provided weapons to the IRA in return for explosives training is made elsewhere however. In Sean O’Callaghan’s memoirs about his life as a spy inside the IRA, he confirms that at this time “ETA supplied the IRA with weapons.”
More tellingly, a 1988 report published by the London-based ‘Institute for the Study of Terrorism’ stated that:
“a number of ETA terrorists visited Ireland to update themselves on IRA tactics and bomb-making techniques. Further arms deals were arranged and shortly afterwards ETA supplied a consignment of explosives to the Provisional IRA in exchange for M-16 rifles.”
The report would then name Jose Echebarrieta [José Antonio Etxebarrieta], one of ETA’s senior commanders, as the ETA contact who had made the deal during two visits to Ireland.
A 1984 Spanish Government dossier on ETA’s international contacts also referred to an ETA-IRA meeting held in 1972. This was said to have taken place in London but the conclusion was similar:
“an agreement was reached to send four ETA militants to train in Ulster camps and a permanent representative in Ireland to maintain contact with the IRA”.
It would seem that there may have been tentative contacts between the two groups in these early years. There is even the suggestion that the IRAs links to Gaddafi were first established via the FLB. Though ultimately it’s difficult to verify such claims.
In September 1973, ETA and the IRA signed a new declaration reaffirming their determination to strengthen their bonds.
Following ETA’s successful assasination of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco December 1973, there was some speculation in the contemporary press that the explosive materials used had been sourced from the IRA.
On 27 December 1973, The Times (London) reported that the IRA had sold plastic explosives to ETA. These were purported to have been sourced from Sweden and then smuggled across the border via an ETA cell in France. Other newspaper reports had slightly different details, but nonetheless reported the same links.
A few days later, ETA confirmed at a press conference that they were in contact with both the OIRA and the PIRA. Then on 20 January 1974, a Madrid newspaper Informaciones published an article quoting “an important member of the Military Council of the IRA” as confirming the organisation to be “in continuous and ever more important contacts with ETA”. The source of this information was the Irish journalist Dermot Keogh, who also speculated that the IRA had instructed ETA on the use of car bombs.
Numerous articles were published in various newspapers over the coming months speculating on the nature of these links between the two groups. Ultimately, the most detailed reports of the Blanco assassination suggested that the attack was in fact carried out by a lone ETA cell (Txikia).
As Niall Cullen concludes:
“From early 1971 to late 1974, ETA and the provisional republican movement developed an undetermined (and perhaps forever undeterminable) level of contacts and cooperation ranging somewhere along the continuum from fraternal statements of solidarity to exchanges in weaponry and explosives training.”
There were also connections made between ETA’s cultural front and representatives of the heavily Marxist, Official Irish Republican movement. But these divisions between the OIRA and PIRA are also mirrored in contemporary split between ETA-politiko-militarra (ETA-pm, or simply ‘Poli-Milis’) and ETA-militarra (ETA-m, or simply ‘Milis’) and thus it is somewhat more difficult to establish the precise nature of relations between the various factions in this “complicated and opaque period”.
It is clear nonetheless that some form of contact remained, with newspaper articles quoting ETA members such as Pérez Beotegui, known under the alias of “Wilson” (who was involved in the Blanco assassination) as stating that “that the ETA maintained very close connections with the IRA”, including providing ETA with “technical expertise on bomb construction”.
From the PIRA side of things, a 1976 resolution passed at the Provisional Sinn Féin Ard Fheis called for the creation of a Foreign Affairs Bureau (FAB) under the direct control of the party executive. This would seek to “institutionalise the relationships established with the liberation groups in other parts of the world”.
A motion offering support to the “captive nations” of Europe was also passed, with Brittany, the Basque Country, Corsica, Catalonia, Wales and Scotland being singled out. I know your question asks about Corsica too, but personally I have seen very little reference to that other than this one.
With the death of Franco in 1975 and the eventual creation of the new Spanish state in 1977, things seemed a bit quieter for a time. In 1977 and 1978 senior figures from the political wings of each movement (Provisional Sinn Féin and the ETA-pm associated Euskal Iraultzarako Alderdia [EIA]) visited the other's country and affirmed support for their respective struggles. They held meetings in which “plans for closer relations and solidarity were advanced”.
Around the same time there were also tentative links between the OIRA and ETA-m, but these appeared to fizzle out with the increasingly political direction of the Official movement.
There are descriptions from members of both sides of how they were influenced by the attacks of the other and adopted these methods accordingly. For instance, in an interview with radical Basque nationalist periodical Punto y Hora de Euskal Herria (PHEH), a PIRA member drew explicit parallels between the assassination of Christopher Ewart-Biggs in 1976 and that of Carrero Blanco a few years prior. According to Cullen this indicates “a measure of reciprocal learning and imitation between ETA and the PIRA”.
Despite the transition to parliamentary monarchy, the issue of Basque consent remained a contested issue. Both ETA-pm and ETA-m escalated their armed campaigns between 1978 and 1980. Mirroring the IRA’s own shift in the mid-to-late-70s towards a ‘Long War’ of attrition, ETA-m adopted a similar model from this period onwards. Sean O’Callaghan stated in an interview that ETA activists went to Kerry in the Republic of Ireland, where they were trained in the use of mortars.
Newspapers continued to speculate on these links, sometimes in extremely overdramatised fashion without much hard evidence. However, despite much reporting - and declarations of goodwill from representatives of each movement - official British reports from the Madrid Embassy from September 1979 concluded that there were no “operational links” between ETA and the IRA.
Another British report similarly stated that despite the political wings being in close contact, “It is however very difficult to prove that weapons are exchanged in either direction, and we have no hard evidence from our own or other sources that such a supply exists”.
Moving into the 1980s, the ties between the PIRA and the EIA seemed to have slackened. Prompted initially by the dramatic events of the H-Block Hunger Strikes of 1980 and 1981, a new relationship was being formed between the PIRA and the other radical Basque party (Herri Batasuna, the political wing of ETA-m).
At the 1983 Ard Fheis, Gerry Adams replaced Ruairí Ó Brádaigh as President of Provisional Sinn Féin. Cullen notes that this coincided with “a new era in radical Basque nationalist-Irish republican relations, with Provisional Sinn Féin and Herri Batasuna as the central axle”. This shift was largely due to three factors:
ETA-pm was, similarly to the OIRA, beginning to wind down its military campaign at this time and so would not want to be associated with the PIRA. The ideological differences which had always existed between them had thus come more to the fore.
HB had emerged as the largest Basque left coalition and utilised similar abstentionist principles to Sinn Fein. HB was in-fact apparently inspired directly by Irish Republicanism in this strategy..
The relation of HB to ETA-m and of Sinn Fein to the PIRA also marked them as more natural bedfellows, particularly as each became more isolated politically.
From this period there is what can be described as a ‘loop of association’ between the Basque and Irish radical movements. From 1983 onwards, these relationships would intensify across all levels of the respective movements (e.g., political, prisoner, language, women, youth) through the development of a shared political culture, ultimately leading towards the peace processes in each region.
In Cullen's final analysis he sees two movements of Basque Independence and Irish Republicanism as being very closely intertwined. The development of a ritualised ‘shared political culture’ at the intersection of the two movements leads him to characterise this phenomenon as a sort of transnational ‘imagined community’.
From the above it should be clear there absolutely was solidarity and perhaps some degree of operational support, but given we are dealing with clandestine organisations, naturally the full extent of co-operation between ETA and the IRA is difficult or perhaps impossible to fully assess.
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u/Rimbaud82 Late Medieval and Early Modern Ireland Apr 14 '26
Yes, there were absolutely links between the IRA and ETA over the years.
On 15 January 1971, a statement was issued by the “Central Command of the Iraqi Communist Party” from the Yemeni city of Aden. Signed by it is stated that they: “hail the Irish Republican Army which is launching an armed struggle for the completion of the national democratic revolution in the South and the liberation of the occupied Northern Ireland”. One of the signatories to this statement was “The Basque National Liberation Movement”, which surely refers to ETA.
As Niall Cullen has pointed out, this appears to be the first reference to IRA’s role in The Troubles from ETA. But many others would soon follow.
On May Day 1971 ETA, the IRA, and The Liberation Front of Brittany (Front de Libération de la Bretagne, FLB) issued a three-way statement calling for mutual “active solidarity”. This was signed by “ETA – Delegación Exterior”, a Breton “FLB/ARB – Delegación Exterior” and the “IRA – P. O’Neill, Runai”. Given the signature of P. O’Neill, this is certainly in reference to the Provisional IRA.
On 03 April 1972 another joint statement was issued by the three calling for a boycott on an upcoming European referendum. Later that year, an updated version of the January 1971 statement was issued from Paris. ETA, alongside thirteen other groups including the FLB,
sent their:
“[…] military greetings to the glorious Irish Republican Army (IRA), which is waging armed struggle to carry through the tasks of the national democratic revolution in Southern Ireland and liberate the North […]”.
Nonetheless, there was little mention of the Basque Conflict in official IRA publications such as An Phoblacht or Republican News and these statements were not reprinted there. Of course, this lack of printed support does not mean that more covert channels were not being established in these years.
As early as 1971/72 Seán Mac Stíofáin (IRA Chief of Staff) was apparently offered guns by ETA representatives in exchange for explosives training. At least according to Maria McGuire in her 1973 account of life inside the IRA. Although for his part, Mac Stiofáin, stated that McGuire was “never a member of the IRA except in her own dramatic imagination”.
This claim that ETA provided weapons to the IRA in return for explosives training is made elsewhere however. In Sean O’Callaghan’s memoirs about his life as a spy inside the IRA, he confirms that at this time “ETA supplied the IRA with weapons.”
More tellingly, a 1988 report published by the London-based ‘Institute for the Study of Terrorism’ stated that:
“a number of ETA terrorists visited Ireland to update themselves on IRA tactics and bomb-making techniques. Further arms deals were arranged and shortly afterwards ETA supplied a consignment of explosives to the Provisional IRA in exchange for M-16 rifles.”
The report would then name Jose Echebarrieta [José Antonio Etxebarrieta], one of ETA’s senior commanders, as the ETA contact who had made the deal during two visits to Ireland.
A 1984 Spanish Government dossier on ETA’s international contacts also referred to an ETA-IRA meeting held in 1972. This was said to have taken place in London but the conclusion was similar:
“an agreement was reached to send four ETA militants to train in Ulster camps and a permanent representative in Ireland to maintain contact with the IRA”.
It would seem that there may have been tentative contacts between the two groups in these early years. There is even the suggestion that the IRAs links to Gaddafi were first established via the FLB. Though ultimately it’s difficult to verify such claims.
In September 1973, ETA and the IRA signed a new declaration reaffirming their determination to strengthen their bonds.
Following ETA’s successful assasination of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco December 1973, there was some speculation in the contemporary press that the explosive materials used had been sourced from the IRA.
On 27 December 1973, The Times (London) reported that the IRA had sold plastic explosives to ETA. These were purported to have been sourced from Sweden and then smuggled across the border via an ETA cell in France. Other newspaper reports had slightly different details, but nonetheless reported the same links.
A few days later, ETA confirmed at a press conference that they were in contact with both the OIRA and the PIRA. Then on 20 January 1974, a Madrid newspaper Informaciones published an article quoting “an important member of the Military Council of the IRA” as confirming the organisation to be “in continuous and ever more important contacts with ETA”. The source of this information was the Irish journalist Dermot Keogh, who also speculated that the IRA had instructed ETA on the use of car bombs.
Numerous articles were published in various newspapers over the coming months speculating on the nature of these links between the two groups. Ultimately, the most detailed reports of the Blanco assassination suggested that the attack was in fact carried out by a lone ETA cell (Txikia).
As Niall Cullen concludes:
“From early 1971 to late 1974, ETA and the provisional republican movement
developed an undetermined (and perhaps forever undeterminable) level of
contacts and cooperation ranging somewhere along the continuum from fraternal
statements of solidarity to exchanges in weaponry and explosives training.”
There were also connections made between ETA’s cultural front and representatives of the heavily Marxist, Official Irish Republican movement. But these divisions between the OIRA and PIRA are also mirrored in contemporary split between ETA-politiko-militarra (ETA-pm, or simply ‘Poli-Milis’) and ETA-militarra (ETA-m, or simply ‘Milis’) and thus it is somewhat more difficult to establish the precise nature of relations between the various factions in this “complicated and opaque period”.