the S-Plan attacks, sought to present the actions of the IRA as those of a legitimate, de jure government. Within this context, with the Army Council acting as government, with the right to use force and levy war against an occupying power, the IRA declared war on Britain in January 1939. Details and preparation The S-Plan contained many precise instructions for acts of destruction which had as their object the paralysis of all official activity in England and the greatest possible destruction of British defence installations. It divided the IRA campaign into two main lines: propaganda and offensive (military) action. The document listed six different types of offensive action; Military action that was classified as not very promising The destruction of armament factories The disruption of all civil/public utilities such as transport undertakings, waterways, gasworks, power stations, water-supply facilities, etc. Attacks that were planned against specific industrial plants Attacks that were planned against a large number of commercial premises Attacks against large newspaper organisations Operations were strictly concentrated on the island of Great Britain, in and around centres of population where IRA volunteers could operate freely without drawing attention. No attacks on targets in Northern Ireland or other areas under British control were planned as part of the S-Plan. Military preparations for the campaign included a series of attacks on British customs houses in Northern Ireland. On 28 and 29 November 1938, British customs posts along the border were demolished using explosives. The only fatalities were three IRA volunteers, Jimmy Joe Reynolds from Leitrim, John James Kelly from Donegal, and Charlie McCafferty from Tyrone, killed by the premature explosion of a mine at a house in Castlefin, County Donegal on 28November 1938. Russell is said to have distributed O'Donovan's notes virtually unedited to IRA battlegroups as an operational instruction from the Army Council. O'Donovan appears, at the time of writing the S-Plan, to have been oblivious to the decision to begin a campaign of attacks on British soil in 1939. However, because of his level of expertise, he was later involved in a new round of explosives training for IRA volunteers in Dublin from 1938 to 1939. Patrick McGrath was reputed to be one of the principal instructors in bomb making for this campaign. On 6 September 1940 McGrath was executed by firing squad at Dublin's Mountjoy Prison. Sources of funding for the campaign are not known, but once the