> the IRA has attacked both
> the British and protestants in Northern Ireland
Actually sectarian attacks by the IRA have been extremely rare since the early 1970s (when the organisation wasn't well controlled). With one exception - which was a reaction, carried out by a local branch of the IRA without the authorisation of its Army Council, to a spate of sectarian killings against Catholics - attacks on "Protestants" since then were really attacks on security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. Most of them are Protestant, yes, but that in itself was not the motivation. Historically (although not for most of the past century) Protestants have featured prominently in Irish republicanism, particularly in the uprisings of 1798 and 1916, and the modern leadership has always been anxious to portray its struggle as being simply a continuation of those.