Their terrorist cells were independent. That was by design.

Were you not aware of that?

Of course I'm aware of that, and they were not entirely independent. That's how you know that those terrorist cells were part of the IRA and not part of INRA, or some other organization. They were part of an organization that was structured with cells, but still existed and still had a structure. The IRA had an organization, and there were leaders of the military/terrorist side of it as well as the political Sinn Fein side - the Chief of Staff and the Army Council, variously Seamus Twomey and Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

And yes, this discussion clearly hits a nerve.

Not really. You seem to insist on being wrong, and I honestly do not understand why. No one here thinks Antifa doesn't exist - we simply believe it's not an organization, and it's not structured like the IRA. Rather, these are just independent groups. They're not cells of some larger organization. They're just groups that share a common ideology and share a common modus operandi, but that doesn't make the part of some single large encompassing organization.

Since you keep not understanding the point, another way of thinking of it is to consider Palestinian nationalism instead of Irish nationalism. There are numerous groups that are dedicated to using terror to try to advance Palestinian independence - Hamas, PFLP, arguably Faha, etc. These are different groups from each other. They are not a single organization. They share a common goal (Palestinian independence) and run a similar playbook - and many of them are also organized using cells. But they are not all one organization. There is not a single organization called "Palestinian Independence."

That's the category error we think you keep making. "Antifa" is the analog to "Palestinian Independence" - it's a set of beliefs and (arguably) common practices and tactics that are implemented by separate independent organizations, but is not itself an actual organization. That's why the fact that you can't answer the question, "who is the leader of Antifa" is an important one. Even organizations that are structured as cells still have a leader, whether it's Al Qaeda or the IRA or the PFLP. That's what makes them an actual organization, rather than multiple independent groups. Each of those cells are part of a larger body, even though they operate largely independently - which is why some cells are part of Hamas and some are part of PFLP.