The IRA was created in 1919 as a successor to the Irish Volunteers, a militant nationalist organization founded in 1913. The IRA’s purpose was to use armed force to render British rule in Ireland ineffective and thus to assist in achieving the broader objective of an independent republic, which was pursued at the political level by Sinn Féin, the Irish nationalist party. From its inception, however, the IRA operated independently of political control and in some periods actually took the upper hand in the independence movement. Its membership overlaps with that of Sinn Féin.
