From “former comrades” to “near enemy”: the narrative template of “armed struggle” and conflicting discourses on Violent Dissident Irish Republican activity (VDR)

ABSTRACT

This article critically evaluates how competing discourses on what has been labelled Violent Dissident Republican activity (VDR) can be mapped onto pre-existing narrative templates on “armed struggle” that have featured in internal Irish republican politicking for generations. As such, this article conducts an in-depth dissection of how competing narratives on the utility of VDR, the scale of and support for VDR, and the underlying motivations behind it have drawn neatly from pre-existing scripts adroitly constructed during many of the previous splits within that constituency. In looking beyond the mere rhetorical value of respective discourses, it interrogates the political value in adapting past narratives for present consumption in an increasingly fragmented constituency where the gulf between the pragmatic and the pure has immeasurably widened in recent years. Drawing out narratives of pragmatism and purity, of the “micro-group”, “felon setting” and the “near enemy”, the article establishes how these narratives are vitally important to the parent group as it tries to maintain its dominance while embracing constitutional politics and, equally vital to the breakaway group, as it seeks to justify its very existence in a rapidly changing political context where there is ever-decreasing communal appetite for “armed struggle”.

KEYWORDS:

• Irish Republicanism
• spoiler violence
• peace processes
• Northern Ireland

Acknowledgments

The author extends his gratitude to all those who took part in or facilitated the interviews for his DEL NI funded PhD research from which data for this paper have been drawn: 32 CSM, Coiste na nIarchimi (and its local affiliates), CRJ, CRSI, Eirigi, EXPAC, IRSP, Sinn Fein, Teach na Failte, RNU, RSF and independent republicans. The author thanks Dr Kris Brown of the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI), University of Ulster, and Stephen Bartells, University of Warwick, for their feedback on an earlier draft of this article. The author also thanks the peer reviewers and editors of Critical Studies on Terrorism for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. These interviews were carried out between April 2013 and November 2013 as part of fieldwork for the author’s overall PhD study that was funded by a DEL scholarship.

2. ‘Text of Irish Republican Army (IRA) Statement on the Ending of the Armed Campaign’ (28 July 2005). Available from: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/organ/ira/ira280705.htm.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kevin Hearty

Kevin Hearty is a postdoctoral research fellow affiliated to the Criminal Justice Centre and Centre for Operational Police Research interdisciplinary research centres at the University of Warwick. Previous to this, he completed his PhD on the memory politics of contemporary Irish republicanism at the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI), University of Ulster. His previous publications include research on memory politics in post-conflict Northern Ireland, transitional justice, political violence and state violence.