Why the IRA made adidas track suits their uniform of choice On 1st of April 1997, two IRA members appeared on television at an Easter Rally in an IRA stronghold in Belfast. The footage shows two militants walking through a crowd wearing adidas shell jackets while brandishing a Romanian made Kalashnikov and an Uzi submachine gun. While you might expect that these 3-stripe goods were acquired through conventional retailers that wasn’t quite the story. According to Reaper Feed, the German sportswear Adidas modelled by the IRA militants in the video were instead sourced via more illicit activities undertaken by the group like the many truck robberies that occurred during the 1990s. “During the 1990s, the hijacking of trucks carrying cargo between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland was happening at least once a month,” writer Batya explains on the niche supply lines that existed in the Troubles in Northern Ireland at the time. “It was common for IRA militants to dress as local gardai police officers to pull trucks over being pulling out automatic weapons and carrying out a robbery.” According to the article, the hijacking of trucks was an important source of revenue for the Irish Republican Army, who by 1993, had amassed an estimated total was estimated that the total over £1 million in black market goods. Common items stolen in such robberies were cigarettes, furniture, drink, chickens, turkeys, electrical goods, and, brand clothing such as Adidas tracksuits. Local sources told Reaper Feed that, following a successful robbery of a truck transporting Adidas sportswear in the mid-1990s, influential figures in the Republican areas of Belfast were suddenly all kitted out in the same type of Adidas tracksuit being worn by the men in the video. Written for journalistic purposes only