Irish Republican Research Articles

Internal Politics and the Fragmentation of Armed Groups

AbstractArmed groups are prone to instability and fragmentation, but what explains variation among the new groups that emerge? I argue that the internal politics preceding organizational splits is critical. When it comes to the survival of breakaway groups, those forming around single issue areas gain an advantage by attracting more homogeneous, preference-aligned recruits. On the other hand, those forming over a variety of grievances attract a more heterogeneous population whose divergent views undermine cohesion and cooperation, necessitate hierarchy, and diminish the odds of organizational survival. I test this argument with a case study of two Republican groups from Northern Ireland—the Real Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army. The findings confirm my argument and underscore the limited utility of studying organizational fractures from the sole perspective of contemporaneous external events like conciliation and repression. Rather, I show how internal political dynamics influence the composition, identity, and overall trajectory of breakaway groups. This has implications for designing effective counterinsurgent policies, for understanding the formation of armed groups, and for anticipating whether breakaway groups are likely to escalate, moderate, or adopt spoiling behavior.

Sport, Memory, and Nostalgia: The Lives of Irish Republicans in Internment Camps and Prisons, 1971–2000

While there exists a wide range of historical and social science literature on political prisoners during the Northern Ireland conflict between 1969 and 1998, little attention has been paid to the prison life of the individual internees and prisoners. Sport, in particular, played a very important part in the lives of both republican and loyalist prisoners. Historians have long been preoccupied with the motivations and inner lives of individuals, and indeed the emotional states of people in collectives such as camps and prisons. Using Irish republican internees and prisoners as a case study highlights precisely this aspect of their experiences. Between 2014 and 2017, I conducted 34 interviews with activists in the Provisional IRA that have been involved since the 1960s. I draw on these records to analyze why former prisoners who had spent up to three years in isolation and on no-wash and blanket protests would describe their internment and imprisonment as ‘the best time of my life’. Indeed, their memories of sports in the camps and prisons were particularly happy and contributed to their nostalgic view of imprisonment.

Analysing contested pasts: a reply to Erin Hinson’s ‘Our Journey, Our Narrative’: narratives of (para)militarism and conflict transformation in the ACT exhibition

This reply examines Erin Hinson’s ‘“Our Journey, Our Narrative”: Narratives of para(militarism) and conflict transformation in the ACT exhibition’. It argues that a study of heritage construction, such as Hinson’s is especially fruitful in societies like Northern Ireland where peace is a project of the recent past, because memories of conflict become the subsequent arena of struggle. Moreover, it asserts that Hinson’s work is at its strongest when she ties artefacts from the Action for Community Transformation (ACT) exhibition to a legitimising mission on the part of former loyalist paramilitaries as well as when she examines the motivations of ACT’s creators and artefact donors. In answer, this reply enunciates the strands of collective memory to which the ACT exhibition speaks. These include the official memories of scholars, the dismissive memory of non-combatants likely to view former paramilitaries as mindless thugs, and the competing memory of Irish republicans. The reply continues by bringing up questions engendered by Hinson’s research while suggesting possible ramifications of the answers to those questions. It concludes by reminding the reader of the importance of studies of this nature based on the fact that scholars have only recently begun to engage with the history of loyalism in Northern Ireland in a dispassionate way.

Mapping Trans-Domesticity in Jordan’s <em>Breakfast on Pluto</em>

Mapping Trans-Domesticity in Jordan’s <em>Breakfast on Pluto</em>

The Archaeology of Terrorism: Damage to Two Medieval Churches in the City of London in the IRA Attacks of 1992 and 1993

On 10 April 1992, a one-ton bomb in a white truck exploded outside the Baltic Exchange in St Mary Axe street in the City of London, killing three people and damaging the church of St Helen Bishopsgate. On 24 April 1993, a second more powerful bomb in a truck exploded in Bishopsgate, a couple of hundred yards away, directly outside the church of St Ethelburga. A newspaper photographer was killed. These bombs were planted by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. The incidents led to great changes at both churches. St Helen’s was refurbished in a striking manner, not without criticism, when a new neo-Classical layer of fittings was added to its many phases of history; St Ethelburga’s, badly damaged, was partly reconstructed and repaired to serve as a Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, an initiative of the new Bishop of London, Richard Chartres. This paper describes the initial responses to the two blasts, and how the churches were restored. It is a record of two terrorist incidents and what happened afterwards.

Criminalizing peace: anti-terrorism law and its impact on peacemaking in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT This paper investigates anti-terrorism law’s impact on peace-making efforts of the nonviolent allies of Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Drawing on debates concerning ‘enemy criminal law’, I argue that anti-terrorism law is actor-focused and thus directed at juridically labelled ‘terrorist organisations’. Variation in the juridical construction of terrorist organisations is critical to understanding the divergence in the political capacities of non-violent Basque separatists and Irish republicans as peace-makers. In Spain, the judiciary developed a broad definition of the ‘terrorist organisation ETA’, resulting in the identification of non-violent Basque separatist groups as ‘integral components’ of ETA and hindering their capacity to engage in peace-making. In contrast, British anti-terrorism law was grounded in a narrow definition of ‘proscribed organisations’ focused on the IRA’s rank-and-file, which facilitated the involvement of the broader republican movement in the successful peace process of the nineties.

Scotland’s Easter Rising Veterans and the Irish Revolution

In 1916 members of the Scottish unit of the Irish Volunteers were deeply involved in preparations for the Easter Rising in Dublin and some republican activists travelled from the west of Scotland to participate in the rebellion. What follows is a limited prosopography of the revolutionary involvement of those members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Irish Volunteers, or Cumann na mBan, who were resident in Scotland between 1913 and 1915 and who fought in Ireland in 1916, or who were prevented from doing so because they were imprisoned. By covering militant activity in both Ireland and Britain, this treatment will argue that Scotland’s Irish republicans were highly integrated with the wider separatist movement in Ireland and beyond, while being very much of the Glasgow, and Europe, of their time.

Bodhráns, lambegs, & musical craftsmanship in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACTFrom its humble beginnings as a ritual instrument, the bodhrán or Irish frame drum has developed into a globally recognised percussion instrument that is found in diverse contexts. This research is about the sophisticated, technical development of this instrument by the drum maker Seamus O'Kane during the height of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The brilliant organological experiments and innovations of O'Kane, altered the bodhrán's design contributing to a rapid expansion of new performance practices and increased interest in the drum. One of O'Kane's signature innovations was the use of skins from the unionist lambeg drum. O'Kane had to precariously negotiate paramilitary politics and drum making in Northern Ireland in order to produce a superior instrument. This paper explores the complex, intertwined nature of Irish political dissidence in County Derry during the Troubles in relation to far-reaching developments in bodhrán drum making. O'Kane's bodhráns, which he continues to make in his County Derry-based workshop, draw from both Irish republican and unionist drum making traditions. This blending of traditions has enabled him to produce an innovative, tunable drum representative of the shared musical cultures of Northern Ireland within a violent, politically divided milieu.

A Sacred Duty: Nationalist and Anti-Imperial Activisms in Buenos Aires, 1916-1930

The Southern Atlantic city of Buenos Aires emerged a critical hub of radical political activism between 1916 and 1930 at a time when the influence of anarchist activists waned and organized labor often worked with the Radical Civic Union presidents. Whether based in or passing through this city, activists and exiles, partisans, and pretenders pursued various strategies to achieve revolutionary change, raise funds for causes, assure sovereignty, control the public narrative, and network with like-minded individuals and groups. These agitators created webs of associations throughout the Atlantic world in the process. These networks were vital in fashioning enduring transnational connections, strategies of resistance, shared discourses, and symbolic registers that framed how nationalist and anti-imperial interactions were understood. This article focuses on Irish republicans, Catalan nationalists, and Arab anti-colonialists and their interactions with Argentine agitators, sympathizers, and various state actors to more fully understand the importance of Buenos Aires in this period and the consequences on sociopolitical life in this Atlantic port city up to the global depression of 1930.

Irish republican women in Australia: Kathleen Barry and Linda Kearns's tour in 1924–5

AbstractThe 1924–5 fundraising tour in Australia by republican activists, Kathleen Barry and Linda Kearns, although successful, has received little attention from historians, more focused on the controversial tour of Fr Michael O'Flanagan and J. J. O'Kelly the previous year. While O'Flanagan and O'Kelly's tour ended with their deportation, Barry and Kearns successfully navigated the different agendas of Irish-Australian political and social groups to organise speaking engagements and raise considerable funds for the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependants' Fund. The women were experienced republican activists, however on their Australian tour they placed themselves firmly in traditional female patriotic roles, as nurturers and supporters of men fighting for Irish freedom. This article analyses their strategic use of gendered expectations to allay suspicions about their political agenda to successfully raise money and negotiate with political and ecclesiastical leaders.

The Warden's Dilemma as Nested Game: Political Self-Sacrifice, Instrumental Rationality, and Third Parties

AbstractInspired by the famous Prisoner's Dilemma game theory model, Karin Marie Fierke introduced the Warden's Dilemma to explain self-sacrifice and compromise in asymmetric interactions and to show that such an explanation requires a social ontology. She applied her model to Irish Republican Army hunger strikes in 1980–1981. Her model, however, closely resembles what game theorists call a ‘nested game’. This article (re)introduces the nested Warden's Dilemma, focuses on the tripartite relationship inherent to the model and examines hunger strikes as part of a strategy potentially informed by instrumental rationality and knowledge of the Warden's Dilemma dynamic. After briefly discussing the implications of approaching self-sacrificial behaviour from a rationalist perspective, a case study of strategic non-violence in Myanmar (Burma) demonstrates how third parties can both diffuse instrumental rationality regarding political self-sacrifice and facilitate patterns of resistance that appear to capitalize on the Warden's Dilemma dynamic.

As British as Finchley? The Evolution of the Positions of the British Government and Irish Republicanism Regarding Sovereignty over Northern Ireland

As British as Finchley? The Evolution of the Positions of the British Government and Irish Republicanism Regarding Sovereignty over Northern Ireland

Book Review: Critical Engagement: Irish Republicanism, Memory Politics and Policing

Book Review: Critical Engagement: Irish Republicanism, Memory Politics and Policing

Modelling the spatial decision making of terrorists: The discrete choice approach

This is the first study to apply a discrete choice model to understand terrorist spatial decision making. The findings support the proposition that terrorists make decisions that are guided by rationality and act in a similar way to urban criminals. A conditional logistic regression ascertained which characteristics increased the likelihood that an area would be selected as a target, using a dataset of attacks carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Belfast over a twenty-year period. An increase in distance from the terrorist's home to the attack site decreased the likelihood that an area would be chosen and an area was more likely to be chosen if it contained a major road, police station or military base.

‘It was networking, all networking’: the Irish republican movement's survival in Cold War America

ABSTRACT This article examines the Irish Republican movement's public fundraising arm on US soil, the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid), which operated as a legal organisation during Northern Ireland's ‘Troubles’ (1969–1998). In its efforts to fundraise for the families of republican prisoners, Noraid faced formidable impediments from above (government suppression) and below (the dissipation of Irish communities). How Noraid survived for the conflict's duration (and beyond) given these dual challenges poses a puzzle. This study finds that Noraid's longevity lies in its network-building strategies at the interpersonal and organisational levels in the 1970s and 1980s. The research points to the importance of disaggregating diaspora communities as they relate to armed conflict. It also draws attention to how government policies shape movement strategy; how social networks enable or deter resource mobilisation; and how leadership can build grassroots and organisational relationships to serve the rebel cause.

Signs of trouble: Semiotics, streetscapes, and the Republican struggle in the North of Ireland

Just as the political divisions in the North of Ireland are subject to ongoing critique, so too is its culture that maintains what scholars recognize as contested heritage. Ethno-political symbols, such as flags and murals, not only point to certain identities but also mark their territory. Whereas those emblems have been the subject of extensive research, political posters remain an overlooked source of rich iconography. This article fills that void by examining a collection of posters on display at the Irish Republican History Museum in West Belfast. The posters, in their original incarnation, emboldened the streetscapes of urban zones during “the Troubles”—a euphemism used to depict sectarian violence from the 1960s to the 1990s. In their afterlife, those posters have been preserved as material artefacts consumed by political tourists interested in gaining insight into the dissonance of heritage. Semiotics—the study of signs—provides a theoretical paradigm for this interpretation of the posters and their meaning. Moreover, Juri Lotman’s notion of the semiosphere (semiotic space) adds a deeper layer of analysis by directing critical attention to the role of the boundary where the performance of signs is most intense.

Dissident and dissenting republicanism: From the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement to Brexit

The 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Peace Agreement was almost universally supported by nationalists in Northern Ireland, and Sinn Féin’s high-profile role in the discussions was the foundation upon which it would transform itself from the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army to second biggest party at Stormont. However, dissidents pointed out that the compromises made by Sinn Féin during the Peace Process were a sell-out of the political and ideological aspirations held by republicans for at least a century. New dissident groups emerged in opposition to the course taken by Sinn Féin, and the period since 1998 has been one of the most dynamic in republican history since the Irish Civil War. New political parties and organisations like the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, éirígí, Republican Network for Unity and Saoradh emerged reflecting this state of flux and the existential fears felt by those for whom the Good Friday Agreement fell far short of delivering the republican aspiration of a united Ireland. Although Brexit provided a curious and fortunate opportunity for momentary public attention, these groups have remained peripheral actors in the Irish and British political public spheres.

Fear the Reaper: How Content Moderation Rules are Enforced on Social Media

This paper investigates the enforcement stage of the content moderation process on social media platforms. It argues that the current approach adopted by most platforms is underdeveloped, poses serious human rights issues, and would benefit from a number of reforms. The enforcement stage is arguably the most important stage in the moderation process because it has the most impact on what content is available and how the platform is governed. The enforcement stage is also where the concerns over private companies regulating the exercise of free expression online are at their more pronounced. This will be a central theme throughout the paper as it is a troubling situation despite laws like the Network Enforcement Act in Germany and decisions such as Google Spain requiring platforms to take on an increasing number of legal assessments. This paper will first explain what the role of the moderator entails and how the enforcement process occurs at social media platforms. The investigation will then turn to the enforcement process itself and identify a number of problems in how content rules are generally enforced. It will consider bias in decision-making, a problem that exists for both human and algorithmic moderators. This paper will use the example of blood and how menstrual blood is treated by platforms as infinitely more objectionable than blood resulting from graphic violence or serious accidents (despite it being a normal aspect of women’s health). This differential treatment stems from the rules created by a male-dominated Silicon Valley, which embodies a particular form of cultural bias. Then the paper will examine over-reliance on efficiency as a solution, where platforms respond to controversies by offering solutions that promise enhanced speed or technical effectiveness without addressing the underlying issues. For example, platforms often fixate on how fast content can be removed after it is posted, a narrative that this paper will argue has also influenced political discussions around social media. The paper will move on to investigate the inconsistent enforcement of terms and conditions, which increases user uncertainty and raises concerns that some narratives are being privileged over others. For example, the Facebook Files leak featured multiple slides prohibiting any positive statements about the Irish Republican Army (the IRA) but no accompanying slides indicating that the same treatment should be applied to other para-military groups from Northern Ireland. Finally, it will provide a number of suggestions for reform such as the adoption of a body of precedents as a tool for accountability and empowerment of users. This should be publicly accessible and would contain anonymised case-studies to help users understand what is and is not acceptable. It will also recommend moving away from the efficiency narrative to consider larger issues in enforcement (which are not so easily solved) such as human rights and rule of law issues, and more emphasis on trouble-shooting problems before they become major scandals.

UKRAINE AND IRELAND: ARE POST-COLONIAL COUNTRIES, AREN`T THEY?

The issue of the membership of Ukraine and Ireland in the post-colonial countries is investigated. The arguments of opponents of the definition of Ukraine as part of the Russian Empire / USSR and Ireland as part of Great Britain as colonies are analyzed: an insufficiently clear definition of empire in modern political science, which allows not at least recognizing the USSR as an empire; absence of official colony status in Ukraine and Ireland; the presence of developed industry in the late USSR, which contradicts colonial status. Each of the arguments is consistently recognized as insufficiently important. The definition of an empire is given, which corresponds to both the British Empire and the Russian / USSR. The typologies of these empires were carried out: Great Britain was recognized as a liberal modern (disciplinary) empire, and the Russian Empire / USSR as an autocratic / authoritarian modern (disciplinary) empire. The key differences of these empires are highlighted. Thanks to the definition of a colony as a territory that has sovereignty limited in favor of the metropolis and is an object of specific colonial policy, as well as the identification of the types of colonies (colonies that are socioculturally close to the metropolis, colonies that are socioculturally different from the metropolis, internal colonies), it is proved that Ukraine as part of the Russian Empire/USSR and Ireland as part of Great Britain correspond to such a variety of colonies as territories dependent on the metropolis, populated socioculturally close to the metropolis in settlement, but not identical to it. An attempt was made to compare the colonial policy of Great Britain in relation to Ireland and the Russian Empire / USSR to Ukraine. Despite the difference in these empires, a significant number of parallels were found: the redistribution of resources in favor of a socioculturally distinct metropolis; cultural and linguistic colonization policies; the spread of specific self-identification of the population («Soviet person» and «British»); resettlement of residents of the metropolis in the colony; the emergence of famine as a result of the colonial policy (Irish potato famine of 1845-1849 and the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine). The similarity (goal, struggle methodology, etc.) between the national liberation movements of Ireland (Irish Republican Brotherhood, Irish Republican Army) and Ukraine (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukrainian Insurgent Army) is analyzed. As a conclusion, an affirmative answer was provided to the question posed in the title of the article – yes, at this point in time Ukraine is a post-colonial country, and Ireland has been such for at least the first decades after independence.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Toneite

This essay attempts to recast A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a "republican" Bildungsroman by reading it in the context of the "Tone cult" engineered by the Fenians, who sought to win over young nationalists to their movement by disseminating various propaganda materials authored by and featuring the charismatic United Irishman, Theobald Wolfe Tone. I contend that Joyce's primary aim in A Portrait is to examine the effects of the "Tone cult" on the political formation of young nationalists by chronicling the various ways in which the "Tone cult" impinges upon the consciousness of Stephen who, like Joyce in his youth, is presented as an avid Toneite. Stephen's responses to the "Tone cult," however, are varied and subtle; his mind never fails to register any ideological inconsistencies or shortcomings on the part of fellow Toneites, which cause him to turn against them, culminating in his decision to leave Ireland to pursue his own Toneite Bildung abroad. Being both a participant and critic, Stephen thus becomes an ideal tool for Joyce to analyze the "Tone cult." Yet, this should not lead one to identify Stephen's position with that of Joyce. The ironic structure of the novel, in fact, intimates that Joyce saw Stephen's own Toneite Bildung as another "net" that entraps him and stymies his growth as an Irish republican.