Introduction

In its July 2005 statement declaring an end to the armed struggle, the leadership of the IRA reiterated its view that ‘the armed struggle was entirely legitimate’. Assessing statements of legitimacy requires normative analysis. But normative analysis requires first establishing the relevant nonnormative facts. Thus, determining whether the IRA's armed struggle was morally legitimate requires first securing an accurate factual understanding of that armed struggle itself. Doing so might seem straightforward, but certain ‘myths’ promulgated by the republican movement have served to obscure the fundamental nature of the IRA's campaign. Consequently, identification and evaluation of these myths must precede the normative project of later chapters. I will not argue that these myths are false in all respects, but rather that they contain partial-truths at best and that the reality is considerably more complicated. Although along the way I will try to make clear why it matters for the moral evaluation of the IRA's armed struggle that we have an accurate understanding of the relevant facts, the full importance of the ‘demythologising’ project of this chapter will only become evident later.