Abstract
This article deals with a little known collection of essays by Conor Cruise O’Brien entitled Herod: Reflections on Political Violence. These essays are based on varying interpretations of legitimacy, as it relates to democracy, violence and history. From the disavowal of his own previously held left‐wing radical positions and critiques, especially as they applied to ‘the Troubles’ and institutionalised violence, it illustrates that O’Brien’s focus was, ironically, not on Northern Ireland, but on the Republic. It examines the arguments he employed to cast political violence in 1970s Ireland as illegitimate, and how through the moral interpretation of history, he not only managed to rewrite history through the prism of present politics, but also created a political reflex within Ireland that remains in public discourse to the present day.
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