Moderation without Change: The Strategic Transformation of Sinn Féin and the IRA in Northern Ireland

This article examines how violent separatist groups moderate. Using the case of Sinn Féin and the IRA in Northern Ireland, it shows that moderation is a multidimensional process, entailing a change in strategic behaviour but not necessarily in the goals or values of a separatist group. For Irish republicans, moderation entailed giving up violent revolution and embracing peaceful reformism, but it did not require changing long-term goals, accepting the legitimacy of British rule in Northern Ireland, or distancing themselves from their history of armed struggle. Moderation was possible because both Irish republicans and the British state distinguished between republicans’ strategic behaviour and their political goals, with the British state neither expecting nor demanding a change in the goals of republicanism, and republicans showing a willingness to change tactics to bring them closer to their long-term goal of a united Ireland. This finding has important implications for the moderation of other radical separatist groups.

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Sinn Féin and the IRA

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474420549.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Mathew Whiting

Keyword(s):

Northern Ireland ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Sinn Fein ◽

Peace Processes ◽

British Rule ◽

Irish Republicanism ◽

The Republic ◽

British State ◽

State Responses

When Sinn Féin and the IRA emerged in Northern Ireland in 1969 they used a combination of revolutionary politics and violence to an effort to overthrow British rule. Today, the IRA is in a state of ‘retirement’, violence is a tactic of the past, and Sinn Féin is a co-ruler of Northern Ireland and an ever growing political player in the Republic of Ireland. This is one of the most startling transformations of a radical violent movement into a peaceful political one in recent times. So what exactly changed within Irish republicanism, what remains the same, and, crucially, what caused these changes? Where existing studies explain the decision to end violence as the product of stalemate or strategic interplay with the British state, this book draws on a wealth of archival material and interviews to argue that moderation was a long-term process of increasing inclusion and contact with political institutions, which gradually extracted moderate concessions from republicanism. Crucially, these concessions did not necessitate republicans forsaking their long-term ethno-national goals. The book also considers the wider implications of Irish republicanism for other cases of separatist conflict, and has significance for the future study of state responses to violent separatism and of comparative peace processes.

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Our Friends Across the Water: Northern Ireland Media Coverage of the Scottish Independence Referendum

Scotland's Referendum and the Media ◽

10.3366/edinburgh/9780748696581.003.0012 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Anthea Irwin

Keyword(s):

Northern Ireland ◽

Media Coverage ◽

Northern Irish ◽

Sinn Fein ◽

The Troubles ◽

Historical Factors ◽

The Press ◽

History Of ◽

Scottish Independence ◽

Scottish Politics

The chapter opens by noting a degree of closeness of Scottish politics for Northern Irish media and their consumers, also summarizing some historical factors in relation to present circumstances in Northern Ireland: and outlining its dedicated media provision. The chapter defines its concepts for analysis, specifying themes such as volume of coverage and fact vs opinion, as well as focus and position. Both press and broadcast output is considered. Unionist-leaning and nationalist-leaning press were seen to interpret events differently, with more space offered by broadcasting, as distinct from the press, to the view of Sinn Fein. There was a significant if minor tendency to see the participatory and democratic nature of the Scottish referendum favourably in comparison to the history of the Troubles.

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Epilogue: Brexit, the border and nationalism’s bounceback

Shinners, Dissos and Dissenters ◽

10.7228/manchester/9781526114242.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Paddy Hoey

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Northern Ireland ◽

The Political ◽

The European Union ◽

Sinn Fein ◽

Good Friday ◽

The Third ◽

The Republic ◽

The Eu

By the end of the 2010s, Sinn Féin was by far the strongest republican voice was rapidly building a stronger base in the Republic of Ireland where it had become the third largest party in the Dáil. But, the structures of the Peace Process and the Stormont Assembly meant that it was no further to significantly challenging of the political status quo in Northern Ireland. The vote for Brexit, based as it was on a binary notion of British sovereignty that had been fudged by the Good Friday Agreement, changed that. The nature of Britain’s exiting of the European Union had massive ramifications of the Irish border. With a majority of people in Northern Ireland voting to remain (with 85% of the nationalist population doing so), the unionist veto over the wishes of the wider population came under deeper scrutiny. For Sinn Féin, which had been a long-term critic of the EU, this provided an opportunity putting the border back on the agenda. For dissidents, they found themselves in the unlikely position of sharing the same political standpoint as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and, allegedly, the Queen.

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Ideology and Policing

Critical Engagement ◽

10.5949/liverpool/9781786940476.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Kevin Hearty

Keyword(s):

Northern Ireland ◽

Belief Systems ◽

The State ◽

Political Struggle ◽

Armed Struggle ◽

Sinn Fein ◽

Critical Engagement ◽

The Future ◽

Irish Republicanism ◽

Ideological Dimension

This chapter critically examines the overarching ideological dimension to the policing debate within modern Irish republicanism, interrogating how competing views of where Irish republicanism is currently at in transition and where it is believed to be heading in the future are construed through value laden interpretations of where is has come from. It evaluates how ‘critical engagement’ with post-Patten policing in Northern Ireland is interpreted through long held belief systems that frame the move in terms of congruence with or contradiction to past positions. The chapter posits that there are two contesting ideological models for understanding the current Sinn Fein strategy in transitional Northern Ireland; the ‘progressive republican’ model that interprets current Sinn Fein strategy as being premised on a change of tactics that has moved the pursuit of ideological goals from an armed struggle to a political struggle and the ‘constitutional nationalist’ model that interprets Sinn Fein strategy as an abandonment of Irish republican principles that involves a reformist working of the state that can ultimately only lead to assimilation into, rather than removal of, a partitionist state.

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Prawno-konstytucyjne implikacje wystąpienia Wielkiej Brytanii z Unii Europejskiej – perspektywa brytyjska

Politeja ◽

10.12797/politeja.15.2018.54.11 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (54) ◽

pp. 163-173

Author(s):

Łukasz Danel

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Great Britain ◽

Northern Ireland ◽

The Political ◽

Eu Law ◽

The European Union ◽

History Of ◽

The Government ◽

British State

Legal and Constitutional Implications of the United Kigdom’s Withdrawal From the European Union – the British PerspectiveThe article is dedicated to the issue of legal and constitutional implications of Brexit seen from the perspective of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The author advances a thesis that the withdrawal from the European Union will be the most complicated legal operation in the history of the British state as for more than 40 years United Kingdom has been a part of European Communities (today’s European Union) which affected greatly the British legal system. In order to prove the thesis the author analyses the political and legal discussion around the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill 2017‑2019 that is supposed to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and transpose the existing EU Law into UK law. The bill is controversial – especially the provisions known as Henry VIII clauses that create special powers for the government to make secondary legislation.

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Atypical Femoral Fracture in McCune-Albright Syndrome

Journal of Research in Orthopedic Science ◽

10.32598/jrosj.7.3.711.1 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 147-152

Author(s):

Salman Ghaffari ◽

◽

Mehran Razavipour ◽

Parastoo Mohammad Amini ◽

◽

...

Keyword(s):

Femoral Fracture ◽

Dynamic Compression ◽

Plate Fixation ◽

Medullary Canal ◽

Mccune Albright Syndrome ◽

Café Au Lait Spots ◽

History Of ◽

Albright Syndrome ◽

Mccune Albright

McCune-Albright Syndrome (MAS) is characterized by endocrinopathies, café-au-lait spots, and fibrous dysplasia. Bisphosphonates are the most prescribed treatment for reducing the pain but their long-term use has been associated with atypical fractures of cortical bones like femur in patients. We present a 23-year-old girl diagnosed with MAS. She had an atypical mid-shaft left femoral fracture that happened during simple walking. She also had a history of long-term use of alendronate. Because of the narrow medullary canal, we used 14 holes hybrid locking plate for the lateral aspect of the thigh to fix the fracture and 5 holes dynamic compression plate (instead of the intramedullary nail) in the anterior surface to double fix it, reducing the probability of device failure. With double plate fixation and discontinuation of alendronate, the complete union was achieved five months after surgery

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European Integration

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474455893.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Johann P. Arnason

Keyword(s):

European Integration ◽

Eastern European ◽

The European Union ◽

Historical Processes ◽

History Of ◽

External Conditions ◽

Eastern European Countries ◽

Totalitarian Regimes ◽

The Eu

Different understandings of European integration, its background and present problems are represented in this book, but they share an emphasis on historical processes, geopolitical dynamics and regional diversity. The introduction surveys approaches to the question of European continuities and discontinuities, before going on to an overview of chapters. The following three contributions deal with long-term perspectives, including the question of Europe as a civilisational entity, the civilisational crisis of the twentieth century, marked by wars and totalitarian regimes, and a comparison of the European Union with the Habsburg Empire, with particular emphasis on similar crisis symptoms. The next three chapters discuss various aspects and contexts of the present crisis. Reflections on the Brexit controversy throw light on a longer history of intra-Union rivalry, enduring disputes and changing external conditions. An analysis of efforts to strengthen the EU’s legal and constitutional framework, and of resistances to them, highlights the unfinished agenda of integration. A closer look at the much-disputed Islamic presence in Europe suggests that an interdependent radicalization of Islamism and the European extreme right is a major factor in current political developments. Three concluding chapters adopt specific regional perspectives. Central and Eastern European countries, especially Poland, are following a path that leads to conflicts with dominant orientations of the EU, but this also raises questions about Europe’s future. The record of Scandinavian policies in relation to Europe exemplifies more general problems faced by peripheral regions. Finally, growing dissonances and divergences within the EU may strengthen the case for Eurasian perspectives.

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Empire Loyalism and Nationalism in Ukraine and Ireland

Communist and Post-Communist Studies ◽

10.1525/cpcs.2020.53.3.88 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 (3) ◽

pp. 88-106

Author(s):

Taras Kuzio

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Northern Ireland ◽

Comparative Study ◽

The Other ◽

History And Memory ◽

Memory Politics ◽

Irish History ◽

British Rule ◽

Five Factors ◽

Post Colonialism

This is the first comparative article to investigate commonalities in Ukrainian and Irish history, identity, and politics. The article analyzes the broader Ukrainian and Irish experience with Russia/Soviet Union in the first and Britain in the second instance, as well as the regional similarities in conflicts in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine and the six of the nine counties of Ulster that are Northern Ireland. The similarity in the Ukrainian and Irish experiences of treatment under Russian/Soviet and British rule is starker when we take into account the large differences in the sizes of their territories, populations, and economies. The five factors that are used for this comparative study include post-colonialism and the “Other,” religion, history and memory politics, language and identities, and attitudes toward Europe.

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