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Abstract
Analyses of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland tend to underplay the influence of political strategy in the 1970s, preferring to emphasise militarism. Similarly, the persistence of militarism in the 1980s is often obscured by the attention paid to a ‘new’ republican political orientation. This article seeks to draw attention to the IRA's evolving attitude to the ‘problem’ of Ulster unionism, and republicanism's various estimations of the likely efficacy of violence throughout the period. Republicanism is best understood as a deeply rooted working-class ethno-nationalist movement interacting closely with the other agents of the Northern Ireland conflict: constitutional nationalism, unionism and the British government. ‘Armed struggle’ became a declining asset for republicanism as it came to be seen less as a form of ‘popular guerrilla warfare’ and more as ‘terrorism’.Footnote 1
Notes
[1] For valuable advice, thanks to Prof. Roy Foster. Opinions expressed are my own.
[2] CitationWichert, Northern Ireland Since 1945, 112.
[3] CitationO'Dowd et al., Northern Ireland: Between Civil Rights and Civil War, 64.
[4] For example, it has not been discussed in either CitationCaute's Year of the Barricades, or CitationKurlansky's 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. However, see CitationPrince, “The Global Revolt of 1968 and Northern Ireland”.
[5] This was the view of Unionist Prime Minister, Terence O'Neill. CitationMulholland, “Assimilation Versus Segregation: Unionist Strategy in the 1960s”, 303.
[6] CitationDebray, “A Modest Contribution to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Tenth Anniversary”.
[7] CitationVan Voris, Violence in Ulster, 51.
[8] CitationMcCluskey, Up Off Their Knees, 11.
[9] For example, CitationAughey, Under Siege, 147.
[10] Based on my survey of the Northern Ireland press of the period. See also, CitationScott, “Calendar of Newspaper Articles dealing with Civil Rights issues”.
[11] CitationDevlin, Straight Left, 139.
[12] CitationMarcuse, The New Left and the 1960s, 12–16.
[13] CitationFerraresi, Threats to Democracy, 83–89.
[14] CitationMulholland, Northern Ireland at the Crossroads, 159.
[15] CitationMcCann, War and an Irish Town, 58.
[16] CitationCallaghan, A House Divided, 45.
[17] See CitationGovernment of Northern Ireland, A Record of Constructive Change.
[18] See CitationMinistry of Defence, “Report of the Internal Security Tactical Working Party”, C9–C46. Also, CitationDewar, The British Army in Northern Ireland, 194–96.
[19] For example, “conflict as a cause … of conflict”, CitationO Dochartaigh, From Civil Rights to Armalites, 309.
[20] An editorial in constitutional nationalist The Irish Press, January 1972, quoted in CitationClifford, Against Ulster Nationalism, p. 22.
[21] See the Irish Government statements condemning the British Army's “unilateral disarmament of one section of the Belfast people”, 5 July 1970, cited in CitationWarner, “The Falls Road Curfew Revisited”, 335. Also, remarks of the Irish Republic's Prime Minister, Jack Lynch, cited in CitationO'Brien, The Arms Trial, 161–62, and the comment of a senior civil servant in Northern Ireland, CitationSunday Times Insight, Ulster, 205.
[22] See evidence of Nell McCafferty before the CitationHouse of Representatives, Northern Ireland: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Europe of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 213.
[23] Written statement issued by Merlyn Rees, Fortnight 9 January (1976), 10.
[24] CitationHammill, Pig in the Middle, 45.
[25] CitationCronin, Irish Nationalism, 214. See also, CitationHeskin, Northern Ireland: A Psychological Analysis, 77–78.
[26] CitationAnon. “Who Are the Terrorists”, Fortnight 7 May (1976), 6–8. For the working-class profile of IRA volunteers killed in the 1970s, see CitationWhite, Provisional Irish Republicans, 85.
[27] CitationGearty, Terror, 112–30.
[28] CitationDarby, Dressed to Kill, 92.
[29] CitationO'Halpin, “The Geopolitics of Republican Diplomacy”, 8–10.
[30] CitationBruce, The Red Hand, 153. For family resemblances, however, see CitationSluka, ed. Death Squad, 127–53.
[31] For the dialectic of the Provo/Official relationship, see CitationPatterson, The Politics of Illusion, 125–60.
[32] CitationBeck, Territory and Terror, 179–80.
[33] CitationWinchester, In Holy Terror, 108.
[34] CitationBishop and Mallie, The Provisional IRA, 194, 196.
[35] CitationDillon and Lehane, Political Murder in Northern Ireland, 62–63.
[36] CitationForde, The Long Victory, 133–34; CitationWood, Crimes of Loyalty, 112.
[37] Quoted in CitationNelson, Ulster's Uncertain Defenders, 121.
[38] Quoted in CitationTaylor, Loyalists, 80. See also the UVF's founding statement (1966): “we solemnly warn the authorities to make no more speeches of appeasement.” CitationBoulton, The UVF, 40.
[39] CitationSweetman, “On our Knees”, 229.
[40] Irish Times 22 October 1971.
[41] CitationKelly, The Longest War, 131–32.
[42] CitationMoxon-Browne, “Terrorism in Northern Ireland”, 147.
[43] There is only a brief reference in CitationEnglish's important Armed Struggle, 126–27.
[44] See remarks of Ruairi Ó Brádaigh, Northern Standard 15 October 1971.
[45] CitationMcAllister, The Northern Ireland Social Democratic and Labour Party, 104–05. For the impenetrable political system in Ulster ‘south’ of the border, see CitationSacks, The Donegal Mafia.
[46] CitationCoogan, The IRA, 374–75.
[47] Quoted in CitationUtley, Lessons of Ulster, 59.
[48] An Phoblacht, 7 July 1972.
[49] CitationWhitelaw, The Whitelaw Memoirs, 100.
[50] CitationSmith, Fighting for Ireland, 105–16.
[51] CitationWhitelaw, Memoirs, 94.
[52] CitationWallace, British Government in Northern Ireland, 74.
[53] CitationMaguire, To Take Arms, 126.
[54] CitationMacStiofain, Memoirs of a Revolutionary, 286.
[55] CitationMaguire, To Take Arms, 126.
[56] CitationDeutsch and Magowan, Northern Ireland: A Chronology of Events, 196.
[57] CitationMullan, The Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, 218.
[58] CitationCurrie, All Hell Will Break Loose, 275.
[59] CitationBradford, A Sword Bathed in Heaven, 95.
[60] CitationFisk, The Point of no Return, 198.
[61] CitationBradford, A Sword Bathed in Heaven, 95.
[62] CitationCurrie, All Hell Will Break Loose, 276.
[63] CitationWilson, Final Term, 78.
[64] CitationBruno and Sachs, Economics of Worldwide Stagflation, 167.
[65] CitationRose, Northern Ireland, 126.
[66] CitationRees, Northern Ireland: A Personal Perspective, 93.
[67] CitationDonoughue, Downing Street Diary, 556.
[68] CitationFitzGerald, All in a Life, 264.
[69] Irish News 19 July 1975.
[70] CitationHolland, Too Long a Sacrifice, 132.
[71] Belfast Telegraph, 30 September 1975.
[72] Cited in CitationTaylor, Provos, 190–91. See also, CitationGallagher and Worrall, Christians in Ulster, 103; Irish Times 26 May 1975.
[73] CitationHaines, The Politics of Power, 133.
[74] CitationDonoughue, Downing Street Diary, 253–54, 286–87.
[75] CitationCoogan, On the Blanket, 63.
[76] For Craig and Vanguard, see CitationLoughlin, Ulster Unionism and British National Identity, 191–93.
[77] CitationPaisley et al., Ulster: The Facts, 87.
[78] The Times 1 September 1975.
[79] CitationJenkins, A Life at the Centre, 396.
[80] CitationMason, Paying the Price, 161.
[81] Sunday Times 15 August 1976.
[82] CitationMason, Paying the Price, 178.
[83] See CitationHolland, Too Long a Sacrifice, 137–38.
[84] CitationFennell, Heresy, 105. Fennell had become associated with the Eire Nua project in 1971. CitationWhite, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, 172.
[85] An ‘amalgamated Ireland’ was proposed by Desmond Boal QC, formerly a close colleague of Paisley's, in January 1974. CitationMaloney and Pollack, Paisley, 329.
[86] CitationFeeney, Sinn Fein, 273.
[87] CitationFarrell, The Struggle in the North, ch. 3.
[88] CitationFarrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State, 331–35.
[89] “Freeman: devisive [sic], contemptible and contradictory”, An Phoblacht 9 July (1976), 3.
[90] CitationAdams, “A Republican in the Civil Rights Campaign”, 50.
[91] Cited in CitationO'Malley, Northern Ireland: Questions of Nuance, p. 62.
[92] CitationAdams, The Politics of Irish Freedom, 135, 166; CitationO'Callaghan, The Informer, 234.
[93] Adams, A Pathway to Peace (Dublin, 1989), quoted in CitationJohnstone, “Gerry Adams' Self-Determined Self”, 18.
[94] CitationHolland and MacDonald, INLA: Deadly Divisions, p. 216.
[95] CitationSands, One Day in My Life, 86.
[96] CitationBeresford, Ten Men Dead, 114.
[97] CitationClarke, Broadening the Battlefield, 106.
[98] CitationConroy, War as a Way of Life, 134–204.
[99] CitationClarke, Broadening the Battlefield, 207.
[100] CitationO Connor, In Search of a State, 68.
[101] CitationO'Brien, The Long War, 97–9.
[102] CitationMaloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 228–45.
[103] CitationBrown, Into the Dark, 113.
[104] Irish Times 7 February 1990.
[105] CitationO'Callaghan, The Informer, 132.
[106] Fortnight September, 1987, 15.
[107] Irish News 14 August 1989.
[108] CitationFay et al., Northern Ireland's Troubles, 135.
[109] CitationBowyer Bell, IRA: Targets and Tactics, 31.
[110] CitationBritish Forces, “Rural Minor Field Tactics”, 2.
[111] CitationTaylor, Beating the Terrorist, 151–7.
[112] CitationBowyer Bell, The Gun in Politics, 257.
[113] CitationGreer, Supergrasses, 173–204.
[114] See CitationWalsh, The Use and Abuse of Emergency Legislation.
[115] CitationStalker, Stalker, which implies that RUC Special Branch was a law unto itself.
[116] CitationNi Aolain, The Politics of Force.
[117] Ed Maloney, Interview with Mark Urban, Fortnight July/August 1992. See also CitationUrban, Big Boys' Rules, 238–39.
[118] CitationDillon, The Dirty War, 479. For an example of a misfiring security force “sting”, see CitationMcCallion, Killing Zone, 160–1.
[119] CitationDavis, Qaddafi, Terrorism, and the Origins of the U.S. Attack on Libya, 10, 167.
[120] CitationGurney, Braver Men Walk Away, 191.
[121] Irish News 28 April 1991.
[122] See interview in Sunday Press 20 September 1992.
[123] CitationArdoyne Commemoration Project, Ardoyne, 498.
[124] CitationRyan, War and Peace in Ireland, 134–35. See also, CitationJarman, Material Conflicts, chs 7, 9, 11.
[125] Not least, in unionist eyes.
[126] CitationMaillot, New Sinn Féin, ch. 4.
[127] CitationAdams, Free Ireland, 230–31.
[128] CitationLongley, “An Irish Kulturkampf”, 18–21; CitationGove, The Price of Peace, 44–45.