This article focuses on the aftermath of a skirmish between British forces and the Irish Republican Army [IRA] in November 1920 in a remote village near the town of Tralee in the south-west of Ireland. It examines newspaper reports of the incident and an accompanying photograph that purported to show three dead ambushers. The photograph was, in fact, staged after the event in a different location to provide some positive news during a difficult period for the British administration in Ireland. The discovery of the fraud undermined British efforts to cultivate positive relations with the national and international media. The fraudulent nature of the photograph has long been known to Irish historians, but this article examines its appearance in the context of the broader reporting of the crisis by English daily national and provincial newspapers. Finally, this piece also uses the skirmish to examine the creation of stock film footage of the Irish conflict by Pathé News that could be re-produced as news reporting in different contexts.

ABSTRACT The Green Book was a training and induction manual for volunteers in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), written in the mid-1970s. It provided practical guidance, including on how to resist interrogation, together with an overview of the organization’s history. This paper aims to understand how the Green Book prepared IRA recruits for their lives as paramilitary volunteers. The paper uses the Community of Practice theory and also uses qualitative content analysis, applied to the text of the Green Book. The paper argues the Green Book was effective at the level of practical training for life in the IRA. More broadly, the Green Book also supported and exemplified a strategic process of professionalization in the IRA. The Green Book combined history, a vision and practical guidance on resisting interrogation, thus cementing commitment to the community. The Green Book was a key component part of a wider organizational restructure in the 1970s, enhancing volunteer training within the IRA and enabling it to remain operationally effective despite being heavily outnumbered by technically superior forces.

Between 1969 and 1997, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) fought against British rule in Northern Ireland. Some scholars suggest Republicans saw the IRA as vital to achieving Irish unification. They argue that the IRA only ended their campaign because the organisation faced a trajectory of decline by the 1990s. Others agree that the IRA was utilised by Republicans to achieve unity but conclude that the IRA faced a stalemate by the 1990s and accepted a political compromise. Using a range of sources, I argue Irish Republican leaders viewed the IRA always as a tactic to get its opponents to negotiate and provide concessions towards its objectives, most crucially securing the principle of all-Ireland self-determination in some form. The IRA’s role in Republican strategy fluctuated in importance. Between 1969 and 1975, it was the main method used to try to get Republicans into talks and to try to achieve self-determination. After 1975, Republican leaders still believed the IRA was required to pressurise the British Government back into negotiations. But a political mandate was added to ensure their opponents would agree to and implement a political settlement inclusive of the principle of self-determination once IRA violence ceased. This “Armalite and Ballot Box” strategy lasted until 1997. I also demonstrate how recent archival releases show the IRA’s weapons remained in the background until 2005 in case the British Government and Unionists delayed implementing reforms agreed in the peace deal. During the IRA’s 1994 ceasefire, they discussed “TUAS”. Some commentators believe it meant the “Tactical Use of Armed Struggle”. This phrase best explains the IRA’s role in Republican strategy from 1969 to 2005. This case study reveals a pragmatism behind the leadership of some non-state armed groups.

Abstract This article explores the historical and institutional origins of military coups in Türkiye, tracing their roots well before the republican era, to the late Ottoman Empire. Between 1839 and 1914, the empire undertook military reform, political experimentation, and bureaucratic modernization, which shaped the later republic's civil‐military dynamics. Using a historical‐institutional and comparative framework, the study employs qualitative and narrative‐analysis methods based on Ottoman and republican archival materials, scholarly works related to civil‐military relations in general and in Türkiye, and contemporary studies. The analysis argues that the ideological and institutional patterns of military intervention established during the early period continue to shape the logic, methods, and legitimacy of relations between civilians and the armed services in contemporary Türkiye. It shows that the military's self‐ascribed role as the guardian of the state—and the normalization of coups as instruments of national salvation—originated not solely through the foundation and practices of the Turkish Republic but from developments in political culture and institutional practices created long before.

This paper discusses how the existence of ongoing security issues and local insurgency in Balochistan affect the construction and the sustainability of Chinese-Pakistan energy infrastructure within the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Based on secondary data using a desk review research methodology, the research will examine insurgent patterns, weaknesses in governance and their interaction with project implementation, foreign investment and bilateral relations. The results indicate that militant organizations like the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and Baloch Republican Army (BRA) target pipelines, power networks, and personnel in China purposely to voice their political complaints based on marginalization and unequal allocation of resources. The instability has not been reduced with the help of the military-led efforts in securing the situation as there is lack of local involvement and poor governance systems. The paper concludes that long-term peace and energy security in Balochistan lies in the transition between the reactive security strategies to the inclusive and community-based development and fair distribution of resources that will turn the province into a stable path of regional collaboration.

This article critically examines how the emotive experience of political imprisonment is represented in prison memoirs. Using the memoirs of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members who were involved in prison-related protest in the 1970s and 80s as an empirical basis, it goes beyond surface level cultural reproductions (i.e. murals, songs, and posters) to explore how lived experience of political imprisonment is defined by a complex interplay between loyalty and guilt. The article identifies how the memoirists’ competing roles as IRA volunteers, comrades, sons, husbands, and brothers shaped their lived experience of political imprisonment. Establishing that loyalty and guilt are multi-faceted emotions that emerge out of different relationships, in different contexts and for different reasons, the article argues that nuanced conceptual differences must be acknowledged within, as well as between, these emotions. The article identifies how, for political prisoners at least, loyalty means dedication to collective action, the relegation of self-interest, and fidelity to dead comrades, whereas guilt manifest itself as feelings of benefiting from the sacrifice of dead comrades, recognising their capacity to hurt others, and attempts to belatedly repair past hurt. These insights are instructive in understanding both the historical legacy of political imprisonment and its contemporaneous impact in a global climate of increasing political polarisation and violent unrest.

ABSTRACT Decommissioning of paramilitary weapons formed a crucial part of Northern Ireland’s peace process. But the decommissioning of Irish Republican Army (IRA) weapons (the most prominent paramilitary group) was protracted prior to their first decommissioning act in October 2001. Some scholars argue Republicans deliberately strung-out decommissioning to gain concessions. Others concur but also suggest additional factors, including Irish Republican anger at the slow delivery of British reforms. Using the latest Irish and UK archival releases alongside memoirs and interviews, I provide fresh insight into IRA decommissioning up to October 2001. The central problem was the initial lack of movement on political and security reforms by the British Government and Ulster Unionists. As the conflict ended in a stalemate, Republicans believed political and security reforms were required alongside decommissioning. The Good Friday Agreement also stipulated that decommissioning would be paralleled by other reforms. This article uniquely explains how a British Government sense of neutrality towards managing the peace process alongside the British Army’s reluctance to demilitarise stalled decommissioning. It offers ideas on how not to introduce and initially manage decommissioning during peace processes.

Thisarticle examines the integration of Scotland into the English Commonwealth in the 1650s. It analyzes the reasons why the country's legal consolidation as part of the Independent Republic took over two years. Governors played a leading role in this process, working to pacify the restless region. Particular attention is paid to General George Monck, appointed governor in April 1654. His policies combined elements of coercion and collaboration with the Scottish population. Coercion consisted of the use of repressive measures against royalist-minded Scots. Arrests and property confiscations were threatened for those who supported Glencairn's rebellion. Furthermore, a widespread intelligence network was created that signaled the sentiments of the Scottish people toward the English occupation regime. Collaboration consisted of encouraging Scots who were willing to reaffirm their loyalty to Cromwell's Protectorate. Trustworthy members of the Scottish nobility, who had once opposed the English republican army, could count on a reduction in their debt obligations to the English government. The authors conclude that it was precisely this policy of General George Monck that cemented English dominance over Scotland in the 1650s.

ABSTRACT The wider scholarship on ethno-nationalist terrorism and more specifically, research into the Provisional Irish Republican Army, has long endeavoured to identify the individual actors involved in furthering violence and the motivations which led to their involvement. However, the study of who directly and indirectly participated in the violence of the Northern Ireland Conflict has largely overlooked individuals who directly participated in IRA activities as non-members. This paper begins to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the role of non-members who participated in one or more IRA activities and maintained long-term relationships with the movement as IRA associates. This paper analyses seven IRA associates- a priest, a gangster, a smuggler, two IRA veterans, a British heiress and a schoolteacher turned IRA emissary. Together, they help to form a picture of the relationships and motivational factors which led this diverse cadre of individuals to participate in IRA activities as associates and contributes to a more complete understanding of the range of individuals who participated in IRA activities during the Troubles. The multi-faceted analysis and broader understanding of participation in the Provisional IRA which this research uncovers also demonstrates the need for a more complex and nuanced analysis of non-member or civilian participation in terrorism and political violence as a whole.

Abstract Why do individuals participate in civil conflict? Materialist explanations have dominated quantitative scholarship on the causes and conduct of civil wars. Yet, a substantial body of qualitative, historical, and ethnographic evidence suggests that nonmaterial, ideological motives contribute to individuals' decision to enter combat and their battlefield performance. We bridge these two perspectives by developing a model of civil war recruitment where potential fighters trade off ideological and material incentives to enlist. More ideologically committed individuals are (i) more willing to sacrifice income to enlist, (ii) more likely to exert greater effort in combat and accordingly are assigned to riskier tasks, and (iii) less responsive to changes in enlistment costs. Using detailed biographical data on members of the British Battalion of the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War, we find support for all three implications. Individuals indeed trade off economic and ideological incentives to participate and perform in conflict.

Between 1979 and 1984, the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi waged a campaign of violence against exiled dissidents resident in Britain. The campaign included assassinations, bombings, arson and an attempted poisoning. It culminated in the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher who was policing an anti-Qaddafi demonstration outside the Libyan Embassy in London in April 1984. This campaign posed serious dilemmas for the Thatcher government. On the one hand, it had to ensure law and order. On the other, Britain had significant interests in Libya which it wanted to protect, including an important export market and the safety of the British expatriate community. In addition, the Libyan threat to renew support for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) if the government did not suppress dissidents added another security dimension to the problem. The government sought to tread a middle line, emphasising its responsibility to ensure law and order while at the same time maintaining contact with the Libyan regime. Internationally, the government found itself more aligned with its EEC partners than with the United States, which adopted a tough anti-Qaddafi line. This approach broke down in April 1984 with the severing of diplomatic relations after the murder of WPC Fletcher.

Abstract On 31 August 1994, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced a ceasefire. Over the previous two-and-a-half decades, it had waged western Europe’s most lethal and enduring insurgency, claiming the lives of over 1,700 people. The IRA’s ‘armed struggle’ had been a key driver of ‘the Troubles’ that beset Northern Ireland; its decision to end the campaign of violence was likewise integral to an emergent peace process. Almost from the moment it was declared, commentators and historians have debated the IRA ceasefire. Why did it happen? What did it mean? Which side had blinked first in the long war between the British government and the IRA? In seeking to answer such questions, an emerging trend within the historiography aims to advance an understanding of the conflict that foregrounds IRA flexibility, as juxtaposed to British intransigence. On this reading, it was the British refusal to engage in dialogue and offer the IRA an ‘honourable’ settlement that prevented a peaceful resolution as far back as the early 1970s; conversely, it was the British decision to shift course in the late 1980s that paved the way for peace. The problem, however, is that such a narrative represents a fundamental misreading of what happened. For this reason, the present article examines several recent, important contributions to the literature on the IRA and the peace process, as part of an effort to revisit the question of why it was that the IRA decided eventually to end its self-declared ‘long war’.

This article explores how geocomputational processes can be utilised to re-create historical spatial boundaries using Irish historical data. For this study, a series of spatial objects representing Irish Republican Army (IRA) brigades in County Limerick during 1921 were re-created in R using the Military Service Pension Collection (MSPC), one of the largest archival projects released by the Military Archives of Ireland. Using density equalising projections via cartograms, a series of analyses of the demography of the IRA was undertaken using these internal boundaries. County Limerick along the western seaboard of Ireland was chosen as a case study, as it represents a mixed urban/rural environment outside of the three major population centres on the island of Ireland: Cork, Dublin and Belfast. By deploying a geocomputational approach via the programming language R, this article provides a roadmap for historians and humanities scholars in general to reproduce these findings and spatial boundaries for future research.

The conflict in Papua represents a complex interplay of identity, sovereignty, and historical grievances, shaped by structural violence and socio-political exclusion. This study explores strategies for advancing peace-building and justice in Papua, drawing on Johan Galtung’s theory of peace and conflict and comparative lessons from the Aceh conflict in Indonesia and the Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) struggle in South Ireland. The findings emphasize the importance of addressing root causes such as historical injustices, economic inequality, and cultural exclusion. Inclusive governance and dialogues that respect ethnic diversity and local identities are critical to creating sustainable solutions. Case studies reveal that effective conflict resolution integrates local aspirations with broader national goals, utilizing participatory approaches to foster reconciliation and long-term stability. Lessons from Aceh and South Ireland underscore the need for transformative justice frameworks that prioritize structural change and community empowerment. This research contributes a comprehensive framework for addressing Papua's unique challenges by combining theoretical insights and practical lessons, advocating for policies that balance national unity with local self-determination. It calls for state and community collaboration to promote inclusivity, accountability, and sustainable peace in Papua.

Abstract Locating itself within narrative criminological scholarship and the criminology of war literature, this article critically examines how the themes of death and survival are understood and represented in the memoirs of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members. Building on the recent ‘autobiographical turn’ in the criminology of war, it identifies how death is storied from perspectives that reflect the nature of armed conflict, capture human loss, and criticize the leadership. Similarly, it shows how survival is storied as having outlived the conflict, living a meaningful post-conflict life, and addressing the legacy of conflict. It is concluded that these memoirs are a valuable dataset that amplify counter-discourses based on the lived experience of former combatants from non-state armed groups.

Hereby is presented an analysis of the course of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, through the ways of the Irish Republican Army (hereinafter referred to as the IRA) propaganda inside and outside the UK. The study aims to find out the methods and instruments of the IRA’s influence on various countries of the world, not least because of the nature of the conflict being non-international but including multiple attempts to enlist more participants. The techniques of the so-called internalisation of The Troubles are discovered additionally. This article covers the essential principles of any political or paramilitary force. It is usually set as the main agenda of any activities to win over certain social groups and engage them on their side, e.g. youth, labourers or members of various unions, minorities, etc. Therefore, the research examined both the methods used by republicans, i.e. supporters of the United Ireland project, and the consequences of The Troubles, which caused different strikes, manifestations, and protests in many European countries. Moreover, this paper proposes a look at those involved from beyond Europe. Furthermore, the study determines the role and significance of cinema as an instrument of soft power. Understanding the meaning and effects of cinematography is quite important as it extends the sphere of influence of propaganda, thus provoking erroneous interpretations of the events in Ulster. The methodology of the research is based on a symbiosis of social history and public history, and their approaches, which are fundamentally helpful in creating an unbiased idea of national memory-grounded propaganda. Historicism, which is the main principle of modern historical research, is used as a guiding principle. An integral part of the article is the method of comparative studies. The scientific novelty is a profound attempt to establish the actions of Ireland as a state and the IRA as its inseparable and integral military as well as political part due to their purpose to discredit the political image of the United Kingdom, which only led to casualties of civilians. Conclusions. As a result of propaganda, the Ulster conflict went beyond the boundaries of the British-Irish conflict or a regional problem. It is characterized by a combination of several propaganda methods. The main and most effective methods of propaganda were intoxication and half-truths, which, through integration into socio-political discourse and art (cinema), created a certain image of the Irish Republican Army and its opponents, and helped achieve the goal.

In the Battle of Ayacucho the royalist army was defeated, however, an onerous capitulation was signed for the Peruvian nation. The victorious army was subject to conditions largely favorable to the defeated royalist army, whose military leaders did not have the capacity to impose and have real command over significant military nuclei or detachments. In accordance with the foregoing, it is proposed that the act of Capitulation of the Battle of Ayacucho (December 1824) was the product of the agreement between the officers of the republican army and the liberal officers of the royalist army (with a proclivity towards constitutional monarchy), within the framework of the political changes in Spain (end of the liberal triennium and return of the absolute monarchy) with the correlation of persecution of liberals in Spain and America. The Act of Capitulation took place through a process of negotiation “between peers”, when the royalist army no longer had any parity but rather was militarily subordinated to the patriotic army. This negotiation did not focus on the principles and future development of the nascent republic but on the immediate interests prioritized by the military of both armies.

ABSTRACT The emergence of the political party Sinn Féin as an electoral force, and its gradual displacement of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as the primary vehicle for Provisional Irish republicanism, was an indispensable precondition for the peace process that brought an end to the long-running Northern Irish ‘Troubles’. Unsurprisingly, this process has been a subject of close academic scrutiny, with much attention focusing on the dramatic, early breakthroughs made by Sinn Féin, particularly in the years 1981–1983. By contrast, the mid-to-late 1980s are often represented as something of a fallow period for the party, when its initial, seemingly meteoric rise stalled. Within this narrative, the 1985 local elections are typically passed over relatively quickly. Yet this article makes the case for revisiting those elections, seeing them as marking a somewhat under-appreciated political earthquake in Northern Ireland. It does so on the basis that first, the elections laid bare the ambiguities and tensions arising from the Irish republican movement’s ‘Armalite and Ballot box’ strategy. And second, the consequences of the 1985 elections proved decisive in reshaping both Irish republicanism and the wider political landscape of Northern Ireland.

The article examines the peculiarities of Irish emigration and the development of the Irish diaspora in Great Britain, which includes ethnic Irish people and their descendants outside Ireland. The Irish diaspora is the largest minority group in England and Scotland and constitutes the largest immigrant community in Great Britain. It is noted that the historical relations between Great Britain and Ireland differ from those with other EU countries. Irish citizens enjoy more favorable conditions in Great Britain than citizens of other EU countries. The author emphasizes the importance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 for the introduction of a legal framework for the protection of the rights of citizens of both countries and the Common Travel Area Agreement (CTA) for the preservation of the special legal status of Irish citizens in the UK. The CTA guarantees the mutual rights of Irish and UK citizens in each other's territories. It is proved that the Irish diaspora has played an important role in the socio-economic and political development of Great Britain, in particular in construction and transport, especially in England and Scotland. The Irish have created emigrant networks, including the daily newspaper The Irish Post and the Federation of Irish Societies. There is a strong political presence of the Irish diaspora in Great Britain. An assessment is given of the conflict in Northern Ireland, which has caused a wide resonance among the Irish diaspora in Great Britain. Some diaspora organisations condemned the campaign of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Militant diaspora activists supported republican aspirations and criticised British “imperialism”.

The establishment of PRRI was a reaction to the leadership of President Soekarno and to create a more decentralized government in Indonesia. The first joint operation known as Operation Tegas led by Lieutenant Colonel (Inf) Kaharuddin Nasution in Pekanbaru.The research problem was the destruction process of PRRI in Sungai Pagar, Kampar Kiri Hilir in 1958-1961. This research aims to (1) know the background of the emergence of PRRI in Riau (2) to know the PRRI movement that occurred in Sungai Pagar 1958-1961 (3) to know the actions in an effort to suppress PRRI in Sungai Pagar by the Republican Army. This research is a library research study. The method used in this research is qualitative historical methods covering four stages including: heuristic, critism, interpretation, and historiography. As for the location of the research that is in Sungai Pagar Village, Kampar Kiri Hilir District, Riau Province. The result showed that the destruction of PRRI in Sungai Pagar was based on the involvement of US CIA who provided weapons and drop it at Pekanbaru and Sungai Pagar village which is approximately 30km from Pekanbaru became one of the areas used by PRRI troops in resistance to the Republican army.