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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2021
Over three decades, the Provisional Irish Republican Army waged a campaign of violence that claimed the lives of some two thousand people. This article explores the moral framework by which the IRA sought to legitimate its campaign—how it was derived and how it functioned. On the one hand, the IRA relied on a legalist set of political principles, grounded in a particular reading of Irish history. An interlinked, yet discrete strand of legitimation stressed the iniquities of the Northern Irish state as experienced by Catholic nationalists, especially in the period 1968–1972. These parallel threads were interwoven to build a powerful argument that justified a resort to what the IRA termed its “armed struggle.” Yet the IRA recognized that the parameters for war were set not simply by reference to ideology but also by a reading of what might be acceptable to those identified as “the people” or “the community.” Violence was subject to an undeclared process of negotiation with multiple audiences, which served to constitute the boundaries of the permissible. Often, these red lines were revealed only at the point of transgression, but they were no less important for being intangible. An examination of the moral parameters for IRA violence provides a new perspective on the group, helping to explain IRA resilience but also its ultimate weakness and decline.
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28 “Commandant General Thomas Maguire's Statement,” An Phoblacht (Dublin), February 1970. On the importance of this “constitutional doctrine,” see O'Leary, Brendan, “Mission Accomplished? Looking Back at the IRA,” Field Day Review, vol. 1 (2005): 217–46Google Scholar.
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31 “The Green Book,” unpublished manuscript, copy in possession of the author. It is also available via the University of Ulster's Conflict Archive on the Internet, accessed 30 July 2021, https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/organ/ira/ira_green_book.htm.
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33 Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, speaking in the televised documentary “Deich mBliana ag Fás—The Brookeborough Raid,” Léargas, RTÉ, 14 January 1997 (in Irish).
34 Ian McBride, “The Truth about the Troubles,” in Remembering the Troubles: Contesting the Recent Past in Northern Ireland, ed. Jim Smyth (Notre Dame, 2017), 9–43. On the importance of commemoration for Irish republicanism, see White, Out of the Ashes, 25–26.
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37 On the Jacobin origins of this way of thinking, see François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge, 1981), esp. chap. 1.
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40 Gerry Adams, “Presidential Address: Sinn Féin Ard Fheis,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 17 November 1983.
41 Sinn Féin, “Where Sinn Féin Stands,” 1971, P6803 Northern Ireland Political Collection, Linen Hall Library, Belfast. See also MacStiofáin, Sean, Memoirs of a Revolutionary (London, 1975), 294Google Scholar.
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43 “What the 1916 Rising Meant,” An Phoblacht, March 1970.
44 Gerry Adams, “‘We Have Now Established a Sort of Republican Veto,’” interview by Michael Farrell, Magill, July 1983, https://magill.ie/archive/we-have-now-established-sort-republican-veto.
45 “The Only Words They Understand,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 23 April 1987.
46 White, Out of the Ashes, 32–34, 39. MacStiofáin was imprisoned in the 1950s with captured members of the insurgent group Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, which demanded an end to British rule in Cyprus and unity with Greece. See MacStiofáin, Memoirs, 75–79.
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49 Bosi, Lorenzo and Dochartaigh, Niall Ó, “Armed Activism as the Enactment of a Collective Identity: The Case of the Provisional IRA between 1969 and 1972,” Social Movement Studies 17, no. 1 (2018): 35–47, at 35, 38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bosi, Lorenzo, “Explaining Pathways to Armed Activism in the Provisional Irish Republican Army, 1969–1972,” Social Science History 36, no. 3 (2012): 347–90Google Scholar.
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52 Adams, Gerry, The Politics of Irish Freedom (Dingle, 1986), 14, 51, 67, 114Google Scholar.
53 Adams, Politics of Irish Freedom, 62, 66–67.
54 On this point, see Bosi and Ó Dochartaigh, “Armed Activism”; Bean, New Politics of Sinn Féin, 249–52.
55 Cormac Fitzgerald, “‘He Didn't Go to War, War Came to Him’: Gerry Adams Pays Tribute to Ally and Friend Martin McGuinness,” Journal, 21 March 2017, https://www.thejournal.ie/martin-mcguinness-gerry-adams-3298380-Mar2017/.
56 Malesevic and Ó Dochartaigh, “Why Combatants Fight,” 317.
57 Collins, Eamon, Killing Rage (London, 1997), 62Google Scholar.
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59 O'Callaghan, The Informer, 109.
60 “Green Book.”
61 See Brendan O'Leary, “An Audit of Violence after 1966,” in A Treatise on Northern Ireland, vol. 1, Colonialism: The Shackles of the State and Hereditary Animosities (Oxford, 2019), 27–105.
62 James Bowyer Bell, as quoted in O'Leary, “Audit of Violence after 1966,” 56. See also Bell, James Bowyer, IRA Tactics and Targets (Dublin, 1990), 14–15, 27, 85, 100, 109–14Google Scholar; Bell, James Bowyer, The IRA 1968–2000: Analysis of a Secret Army (London, 2000), 148–67, 275–88Google Scholar.
63 The Royal Ulster Constabulary was Northern Ireland's police force; the Ulster Defence Regiment was a locally raised unit within the British army.
64 “Green Book.” The shooting of English politicians was a relatively rare occurrence, but in May 1974 An Phoblacht confirmed that they were legitimate targets. See “English Politicians ‘Legitimate Targets,’” An Phoblacht, 17 May 1974.
65 See, for example, “Eight Soldiers Killed,” An Phoblacht, December 1971; “Enemy Losses: Eight Killed, 27 Injured,” An Phoblacht, 29 March 1974.
66 McGuire, Maria, To Take Arms: A Year in the Provisional IRA (London, 1973), 78–79Google Scholar. For more on this logic, see also “Victory for the IRA,” An Phoblacht, July 1972.
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69 Bell, IRA Tactics and Targets, 2, 14–15, 19–20, 109–16.
70 Sean O'Callaghan, former IRA member and author of The Informer, interview by the author, London, 13 May 2012; O'Callaghan, The Informer, 173
71 There were, however, attacks on the home of Gerry Fitt, founder of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, during the 1981 hunger strikes, by which time Fitt had left the party. In 1983, his house was burned down.
72 “Green Book.”
73 “Green Book.” On the eschewing of certain possible targets, see also Bell, IRA Tactics and Targets, 48–50.
74 “Not an IRA Execution,” An Phoblacht, 1971. For more on this episode, see also Burton, Frank, The Politics of Legitimacy: Struggles in a Belfast Community (London, 1978), 83–84Google Scholar.
75 Keefe, Patrick Radden, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (London, 2018), 50Google Scholar.
76 The former IRA volunteer Brendan Hughes always insisted it was an execution. See, for instance, “Gerry Adams Ordered Jean McConville Killing, says ex-IRA Commander on Tape,” Guardian (London), 3 November 2013.
77 On this, see Bell, IRA Tactics and Targets, 34.
78 Such were the views of Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price, as recorded in Keefe, Say Nothing, 275–85, 347–48. For Hughes, see also Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland (London, 2010), 124–32.
79 Adams, Politics of Irish Freedom, 58; for fish and water analogy, see Hughes in Moloney, Voices from the Grave, 66–68.
80 McBride, “The Truth about the Troubles,” 21–24.
81 White, Out of the Ashes, 242–43. See also Adams, Politics of Irish Freedom, 67.
82 “Belfast Bombings—The Truth,” An Phoblacht, August 1972. See also “Beware of British Propaganda,” Republican News, 28 July 1972; “Collusion with the Enemy,” Republican News, 4 August 1972.
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88 McGuire, To Take Arms, 33–34; see also the words of Jackie McMullan, cited in Alonso, IRA and the Armed Struggle, 185.
89 “War Carried to Enemy Soil,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 23 November 1974.
90 For example, An Phoblacht/Republican News on 12 October 1974 carried no mention of the Guildford attack. Similarly, on 9 and 16 November 1974, there was no mention of Woolwich, and the only discussion of the Birmingham bombings came in a 7 December 1974 article that focused more on those arrested.
91 White, Out of the Ashes, 117–18.
92 Ó Conaill as quoted in a report of the interview “Daithi O'Conaill Television Interview,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 30 November 1974.
93 “IRA Bombs Kill Mountbatten and 17 Soldiers,” Guardian (London), 28 August 1979.
94 “IRA Make Britain Pay,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 1 September 1979. In the same edition, see also “The Execution of Soldier Mountbatten,” “War Is What It Is!,” and “One Fewer for Dinner.”
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97 See, for example, Collins, Killing Rage, 67, 147, 176; O'Callaghan, The Informer, 150–51, 189, 214; Fulton, Kevin, Unsung Hero: How I Saved Dozens of Lives as a Secret Agent inside the IRA (London, 2006), 60, 81, 103–7Google Scholar.
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99 As occurred after the 1971 shooting of Angela Gallagher, or the Abercorn Restaurant and Claudy bombings of 1972—all attacks later attributed to the IRA. See “IRA Did Not Kill Child,” An Phoblacht October 1971; M. L. McCrory, “Plaque Unveiled to Child Shot Dead by IRA in 1971,” Irish News, 11 September 2007; “Abercorn Explosion Disclaimed,” An Phoblacht, April 1971; for Claudy, see “The Invasion,” An Phoblacht, September 1972. See also Gillespie, Years of Darkness, 47–48, 71–74.
100 Maurice Tugwell, “Guilt Transfer,” in The Morality of Terrorism, ed. David C. Rapoport and Yonah Alexander (New York, 1982), 275–89. For an example of this approach, see “More Deaths: Who Is to Blame?,” An Phoblacht March 1971. See also “The Terrorist,” Republican News, May 1971, and “Who Was Responsible?,” Republican News, 14 August 1976.
101 “Civilians Are Not Targets—IRA,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 21 December 1983. See also Gillespie, Years of Darkness, 161.
102 “More Mainland Bombings Inevitable, Says Adams,” Scotsman (Edinburgh), 10 January 1984.
103 “Irish Republican Army (IRA) Statement of Apology, 16 July 2002,” 16 July 2002, http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/ira160702.htm.
104 Collins, Killing Rage, 115, and, more broadly, 104–18.
105 On the brief British effort to recruit “supergrasses” (arrested IRA members who agreed to give evidence against their former colleagues in return for reduced sentences), see Geraghty, Tony, The Irish War: The Military History of a Domestic Conflict (London, 1998), 101Google Scholar.
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117 See, for example, the decision to target Albert White, “a civilian office manager of the criminal investigation department at Newry police station,” in Collins, Killing Rage, 89 and 128. For more on this murder, see McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, 906.
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125 Raymond Gilmour, Dead Ground: Infiltrating the IRA (London, 1998), 164–65. The recent book by the former MI5 agent Willie Carlin also suggests a similar, albeit unannounced, prohibition against activity in Scotland. See Carlin, Willie, Thatcher's Spy: My Life as an MI5 Agent inside Sinn Féin (Newbridge, 2019), 162Google Scholar.
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131 “‘Republican Veto,’” Magill, July 1983.
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133 “Green Book.”
134 Ó Dochartaigh, “Longest Negotiation.”
135 “Resist, Resist, Resist,” Republican News, 4 September 1971, as cited in M. L. R. Smith, “Fin de Siècle, 1972: The Provisional IRA's Strategy and the Beginning of the Eight-Thousand-Day Stalemate,” in Political Violence in Northern Ireland: Conflict and Conflict Resolution, ed. Alan O'Day (London, 1997), 15–32, at 18.
136 Danny Morrison, former IRA member, interview by author, London, 12 March 2005.
137 “Valuable Lesson in British Duplicity,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 6 August 1987. For fuller discussion of the IRA's approach to negotiations, see Frampton, Long March, 23–26.
138 Martin McGuinness, quoted in O'Brien, Long War, 152.
139 “‘Republican Veto,’” Magill, July 1983; Sinn Féin, Internal Conference on 26 Counties, Dublin, May 18th/19th, 1991, Dublin, Tom Hartley PH1567, Northern Ireland Political Collection, Linen Hall Library. The comments about the purpose of armed struggle being to keep the “pot boiling” to allow republicans to “fight their way to the negotiating table” can be found at the back of the document among various notes made by the senior Irish republican Tom Hartley. See also “Pressure on Two Fronts,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 23 January 1986; Mulholland, “Irish Republican Politics,” 408–9.
140 O'Callaghan interview, 13 May 2012.
141 See English, Armed Struggle, 220, 248, and 292.
142 O'Callaghan interview, 13 May 2012.
143 On the “Armalite and Ballot Box” strategy, see Frampton, Long March, 20–46.
144 Gene Kerrigan, “‘The IRA Has to Do What the IRA Has to Do,’” Magill, September 1984.
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147 Bloom and Horgan, “Missing Their Mark,” 594–99.
148 O'Callaghan interview, 21 December 2011.
149 O'Leary, “Mission Accomplished?,” 236.
