Sectarianism and the Provisional Irish Republican Army

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Martin J. McCleery
Keyword(s):  
Irish Republican Army

The exit option: mediation and the termination of negotiations in the Northern Ireland conflict

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall O´ Dochartaigh ◽  
Isak Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Third Party ◽  
British Government ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Irish Republican Army ◽  
Northern Ireland Conflict ◽  
Exit Option ◽  
Information Advantage ◽  
The Uk

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the mediation exit option, which is one of the most important tactics available to any third party mediator.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyzes a crucial intermediary channel between the Irish Republican Army (hereafter IRA) and the British Government utilizing unique material from the private papers of the intermediary, Brendan Duddy, including diaries that cover periods of intensive communication, extensive interviews with the intermediary and with participants in this communication on both the British Government and Irish Republican sides as well as recently released official papers from the UK National Archives relating to this communication.FindingsThe study reveals how the intermediary channel was used in order to get information, how the third party and the primary parties traded in asymmetries of information, and how the intermediary utilized the information advantage to increase the credibility of his threats of termination.Research limitations/implicationsThe study outlines an avenue for further research on the termination dynamics of mediation.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the conditions for successfully using the exit‐option is vital for policy‐makers, in particular for peace diplomacy efforts in other contexts than the Northern Ireland one.Originality/valueThe paper challenges previous explanations for why threats by mediators to call off further mediation attempts are successful and argues that a mediator can use the parties' informational dependency on him in order to increase his leverage and push the parties towards settlement.

West Belfast

The Hoods ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Hamill
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Irish Republican Army

This chapter argues that, from the early days of the political conflict in the 1970s the conditions were such that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) adopted some of the functions of the state, namely the provision of policing and punishment of ordinary crime. The hostility of the statutory criminal justice system, particularly the police, toward the working-class Catholic community dramatically increased the costs of using state services. The high levels of disaffection and aggression among working-class Catholics toward the police meant that the state could no longer fulfill its function and police the community in any “normal” way. A demand for policing therefore existed. Simultaneously, this demand was met and fostered by the IRA, which had the motivation, the manpower, and the monopoly on the use of violence necessary to carry out this role.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Hughes
Keyword(s):  
General Population ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Social Standing ◽  
Personal Safety ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Irish Republican Army ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Economic Survival ◽  
Irish Revolution

Examining the grass-roots dynamics of the Irish Revolution emphasises the difficulty of defining revolutionary activity in neat or binary terms. Only a small minority operated at either end of a scale of allegiance or compliance while the majority are to be found in a massive and fluid middle-ground. The IRA surely relied on the support of the general population in conducting its guerrilla campaign (whether that support came actively or passively, willingly or unwillingly) but if taken too generally the idea of widespread civilian assistance becomes an oversimplification, missing many of the complexities and nuances inherent in individual and communal behaviour. Civilian behaviour was regularly motivated by concerns over personal safety or economic survival and could also be influenced by greed, jealousy, or rivalry. Minority groups were not necessarily targeted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) specifically as a result of identity markers like religion, politics, or social standing but these remained important identifiers, variously competing with or complementing other local and national factors.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
John Mulqueen
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Pope John Paul Ii ◽  
Irish Republican Army ◽  
John Paul Ii

‘On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace’. Pope John Paul II, an iconic opponent of Soviet-led communism, made this futile appeal in September 1979 to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other paramilitary organisations involved in the Northern Ireland Troubles....

The Irish War of Independence and The Irish Civil War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Weihman
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Irish Republican Army ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North ◽  
Guerrilla War ◽  
The United Kingdom

The Irish War of Independence (Irish: Cogadh na Saoirse), also known as the Anglo–Irish War, began in January 1919 as a guerrilla war waged by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against the British Government. Ireland was formally a part of the United Kingdom as a result of the passing of the Acts of Union in 1800. In the late-nineteenth century, the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891), advocated home rule for Ireland through cooperation with the Liberal Party in the English Parliament, but it was unsuccessful until the Third Home Rule Bill of 1912. This bill provoked Unionists in the north of Ireland to form the Ulster Volunteers, who feared a predominantly Catholic Irish Parliament in Dublin. In response, Nationalists formed the Irish Volunteers. The Third Home Rule Bill never took effect because of the outbreak of World War I; Irish troops fought with England in the war with the promise that home rule would be granted at the conflict’s end.

scholarly journals Professionalization of a Nonstate Actor: A Case Study of the Provisional IRA

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Finnegan
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Nonstate Actors ◽  
Irish Republican Army ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Core ◽  
Nonstate Actor ◽  
The Creation

Can nonstate militants professionalize? That is the core question of this piece. Discussions of professionalism have spread to the state military from civilian professions such as education, medicine, and law. This piece examines whether nonstate actors exhibit the same fundamental processes found within these state-based organizations. These fundamentals are the creation of a recognized internal ethos, which acts as a collective standard for those involved. A commitment to expertise and the punishment of those who do not reach these collective expectations reinforce this ethos. To answer this question, this piece examines the development of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) during the Troubles. It highlights consistencies and inconsistencies with traditional forces and argues that groups like the PIRA can professionalize and increase their effectiveness in doing so. This widens the field of professionalism studies and provides an additional lens through which to examine nonstate groups.

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