analysis of ideologies of nationalist-separatist irish terrorism

8/9/2019 Analysis of Ideologies of Nationalist-Separatist Irish Terrorism

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An Analysis of Ideologies of Nationalist-Separatist Irish Terrorist Organizations

by

Taylor M. McCarty

Thursday, April 25, 2013

PL SC 439: Section 001The Politics of Terrorism

Dr. James Piazza


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Abstract

Irish nationalism has gained a reputation of violence through a variety of terrorist

organizations throughout the years. Groups like the Fenians, the Irish Republican Army

and the Provisional Irish Republican Army have fought for a free and independent Irish

State to escape the British repression that they have faced for hundreds of years. While

nationalism is not synonymous with terrorism, these organizations have not hesitated to

used violence and acts of terror in an effort to achieve their goals. These three

organizations are no longer active, however they have made great strides forward for

Ireland, like Michael Collin’s negotiation of the Anglo-Irish treaty, but acts of terror

have also left a permanent scar on Ireland. I argue that the ideologies of these terrorist

organizations were nationalist in nature with separatist goals, not religious, despite the

predominately Catholic population.


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Introduction: A History of Violence

The Emerald Isle is no stranger to bloody conflict. The Irish have been

prosecuted for thousands of years from a variety of unwanted invaders. However, the

violence that Ireland has experienced which is most notable is that with their neighbors

to the east, the English. The conflict between the Irish, especially Northern Ireland, and

the English is not a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics; while religious

strife has certainly been a contributing factor in the events that took place, the primary

source of conflict was the British repression. Through this repression, tensions began to

increase like a festering wound, and resistance organizations began to form; the Fenians

and the Irish Republican Brotherhood were prominent in the nineteenth century,

followed by perhaps the most well known in the twentieth century, the Irish Republican

Army.

The Irish Republican Army was born after the Easter Rebellion of 1916, when an

attempted coup by prominent Irish politicians and leaders went awry, leading the

assassinations of Irish nationalists, men such as Patrick Pearse. At the beginning of the

Easter Rebellion, Pearse read the following proclamation:

“In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to nationalfreedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they haveasserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it inarms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish republic as a sovereignindependent state” (English 2005: 4).

Thus, the violence began.

Michael Collins, referred to endearingly as “Mick” by his supporters, saw these

assassinations of men like Pearse as an insult to the Irish, formed the Irish Republican

Army and revolutionized the fight for Irish independence. Collins was quoted saying

“the Republic which was declared at the Rising of Easter Week, 1916, was Ireland’s


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expression of the freedom she aspired to. It was our way of saying that we wished to

challenge Britain’s right to dominated us” (English 2005: 3). While Collins worked

within the legal system in an attempt to achieve his goals, he and the rest of the Irish

Republican Army were by no means hesitant to use violence, assassinating the heads of

British intelligence when necessary.

In the 1960s, ideological differences within the Irish Republican Army would

cause the organization to split; the younger, more radical members, including none

other than current Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, who still supported the use of

violence by any means necessary would branch off to form the Provisional Irish

Republican Army. While differences existed between the two organizations, the goal

was always the same: an independent Irish state, free from the crushing grip of English

political repression.

Historian Eric Hobsbawm said in his book The Age of Empire that “the Irish were

not nationalist because they believed in leprechauns. (Hobsbawm 1987: 85)” This

tongue in cheek comment states that the Irish were not unified or considered

nationalistic due to their common culture, but for their desire for home rule. While

religion is by no mean unimportant, the goal of the Irish Republican Army, and later the

Provisional Irish Republican Army, was purely political and legal in its aims. The Irish

Republican Army is classified as Second Wave terrorism, which means it was an anti-

colonial force with three goals: to gain popular support for objectives, provoke colonial

power into repression and to impose costs on the colonial power (Rapoport 2005).

While the Irish Republican Army was a terrorist organization that was very successful in

obtaining their goals for Ireland, the Provisional Irish Republican Army was not so

lucky. A Third Wave terrorist organization, the provisional army was a fringe group


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whose acts of terror achieved nothing substantial for the Irish people, but used the

Bloody Sunday attacks of 1972 as a remarkably successful recruiting effort to fight

against the British.

Through a variety of previous studies, a review of Irish history and an analysis of

primary sources, with particular attention to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, I argue that

the violence and acts of terror performed by Irish nationalist groups such as the Irish

Republican Army and the Provisional Irish Republican Army were political in nature as

opposed to religious, and that these aforementioned terrorist organizations were

nationalist-separatist movements.

Literature Review and Analysis

In The Age of Empire, the second book in a three book series by acclaimed

historian Eric Hobsbawm, provides a brief history of Irish politics, beginning with

Charles Stuart Parnell, considered one of the greatest Irish politicians of all time, even

after his personal life eclipsed his political achievements when his affair with a married

woman was exposed, and in Hobsbawm’s words “the Parnell myth long survived the

man” (Hobsbawm 1987: 95). “Eighty-five out of 103 members formed a disciplined

phalanx behind the (Protestant) leader of Irish nationalism, Charles Stuart Parnell.

(Hobsbawm 1987: 92)” Parnell is largely well respected amongst the Irish as a whole,

regardless of his religious affiliation. Hobsbawm continues to discuss Irish nationalism,

electoral processes, and Irish party politics and even says, “the emergence of mass Irish

nationalism shattered the structure of established politics” (Hobsbawm 1987: 96). In

“The New Ireland. X. ‘The Nationalists’”, written by Sydney Brooks in 1909, Brooks says

the following about Charles Stuart Parnell, and the Irish Nationalist movement:


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“To lead the Irish successfully you must be one of two things. You must either bemagnificently Irish yourself, as O’Connell was; or, like Parnell and, to somedegree, Isaac Butt, you must have little or nothing characteristically Irish about you. The one being the Irish will not follow is the mediocre Irishman” (Brooks1902: 27).

Considering the time that Brooks wrote this piece and the political events she addresses

in the work, one could assume that “O’Connell” refers to Daniel O’Connell, the man

responsible for allowing Catholics to hold seats in parliament by the year 1829

(O’Doherty 2013), however O’Connell’s intentions were “purely political” (Smith 1901:

839). Perhaps Brooks is biased when she refers to O’Connell as being “magnificently

Irish”, due to his religious affiliation; O’Connell was a Catholic and Parnell a Protestant.

However, Brooks does believe that both men made great strides for Ireland, regardless

of their religious affiliation.

The Irish nationalist organization that was prominent during Parnell’s time was

an organization called the Fenians. A discussion could not be had about Irish

nationalist groups without first understanding the Fenians. The Fenians worked closely

with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, another nationalist organization. “The goal of

both was to create a network of Irish nationalists who would continue to oppose British

rule in Ireland, by force and terrorism if necessary” (Lerner & Lerner 2006: 108). The

Fenians would pave the way for such organizations like the Irish Republican Army, and

the Provisional Irish Republican Army. The Fenians also looked towards diaspora

communities of Irish immigrants in the United States for donations to help the cause,

and to aid the fight against the British (Lerner & Lerner 2006). It is likely that members

of the IRA and the Provisional IRA had the Fenians in mind when they too started

collecting donations from Irish immigrants in America. The Fenians certainly used

violence and acts of terror as a tactic, but to a lesser extent than the IRA and Provisional


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IRA. It was the intention of the Fenians to use violence “until British authorities

suppressed it” (Lerner & Lerner 2006: 108). After a series of relatively unsuccessful

attacks, often times only resulting in the freeing of Fenian prisoners but accomplishing

no more, the Fenians goals of violence were mostly used to disrupt British politics and

to impose costs on the government that had been suppressing the Irish for hundreds of

years.

Brendan O’Leary’s Mission Accomplished? Looking Back at the IRA explicitly

lays out the framework of the Irish Republican Army: its ideology, its goals and whether

or not those goals have been achieved over the years. In the Irish Republican Army’s

initial constitution from the spring of 1922, stated its three objectives: “To safeguard the

honor and maintain the independence of the Irish Republic, to protect the rights and

liberties common to the people of Ireland, and to place its services at the disposal of an

established Republican Government which faithfully uphold the above objects” (O’Leary

2005: 219). While religious rights and freedoms are assumedly protected under item

two, religious intentions are not a direct concern of the Irish Republican Army. After

the Irish Civil War ended in May of 1923, a new constitution was drafted by the member

of the IRA, this time enriching the language of their previous platform, but adding a

fourth objective:

“Guarding the Republic’s honor and upholding its sovereignty and unity;establishing and upholding a legitimate Irish government with total control overthe Republic; securing and defining citizens’ civil and religious liberties and their

equal rights and opportunities; and, lastly (a new item), reviving the Irishlanguage and ‘promoting the best characteristics of the Irish race’” (O’Leary2005: 219).

In this new draft, the third item is clarified to explicitly include “religious

liberties” (O’Leary 2005: 219), but places a particular emphasis on the Irish race and


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language1. Of course, religion is very important to the Irish people. However, without

the political and legal intentions of nationalist groups like the IRA or the Provisional

IRA, religious freedom could not be attained. “The IRA’s membership was mostly

Catholic in its origins, but the Catholic clergy and bishops of Ireland regularly

condemned it” (O’Leary 2005: 221). The Irish Republican Army had no direct affiliation

with the Catholic Church, and nowhere in their platform did the IRA promote or require

attending church or Catholic mass. In fact, “the IRA proclaimed a civic republicanism,

true to the heritage of the eighteenth-century revolutionaries, the United Irishmen, in

which Protestants and other minorities would have full citizenship rights” (O’Leary

2005: 221). This acceptance and of Protestant people, and the granting of rights to

Protestants shows that the IRA’s intentions were not to rid Ireland of the Protestants,

but to rid Ireland of British control.

In Kristin Archick’s Congressional Research Service Report entitled Northern

Ireland: The Peace Process, Arc hick describes multiple attempts by the Irish and

British governments to make amends through a series of peace talks and treaties. While

considerable progress has been made since the late 1960s, these political processes

remained flawed. An effort nearly thirty years later began in 1998 with the Good Friday

Agreement. “After many ups and downs, the two governments and the Northern

Ireland political parties participating in the peace talks announced an agreement on

April 10, 1998. The resulting Good Friday Agreement (also known as the Belfast

Agreement) called for devolved government—the transfer of power from London to

1 In the literary sphere, this was known as the “Celtic Revival” (an effort to revamp Irish culture and to

promote the use of the Irish language) by such artistic geniuses like William Butler Yeats and LadyGregory. However, while this was well received by other literary types, outside of the artistic world, this was somewhat of a failure; the majority of Irish people today speak English, even though the countryrecognizes both Gaelic Irish and English as their official languages.


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Belfast—with a Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive Committee in which unionist

and nationalist parties would share power. The agreement also contained provisions on

decommissioning (disarmament), policing, human rights, UK security normalization

(demilitarization), and the status of prisoners. (Archick 2013: 2)” However, “the

devolved government was suspended for the fourth time in October 2002 amid a loss of

trust and confidence on both sides of the conflict (Archick 2013: 2)”, which led to the

talks of another deal, this time between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin,

who finally reached a deal by 2010, “paving the way for the devolution of police and

justice powers. (Archick 2013: 2)” Archick outlines that the goals of these peace talks,

agreements, treaties et cetera were a devolved government, police reforms, and security

normalization. Nowhere in her report does Kristen Archick mention religious

differences as being the reason for a desired peace treaty (Archick 2013).

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 laid the foundation for legal action towards peace,

like those mentioned in Archick’s congressional report, and is perhaps one of the most

influential legal documents in Irish history. Influential Irish politician and founder of

the Irish Republican Army, Michael Collins, was sent to London on behalf of Éamon de

Valera, the man who would become the president of the Irish Free State. Upon Collins’

return to Ireland, the Angl0-Irish Treaty had been drafted, which would grant Ireland

partial independence; Ireland would be divided between Northern Ireland (largely

Ulster), and the new Irish Free State. This division of the land raised many eyebrows,

but Collins strongly defended it, claiming it “could be used as a ‘stepping stone’ to


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establish Ireland’s formal- and republican- independence from Great Britain”2 (O’Leary

2005: 222).

The Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed on December 6, 1921, includes eighteen items

detailing the rights of the Irish people and the new nation that as a result of the treaty

would be called the Irish Free State. The treaty addresses issues such as the

constitutional status of the new nation, public debt and defense strategies (The Treaty

Between Great Britain and Ireland 1921). Religion is not mentioned until item sixteen,

the second to last concern of the Anglo-Irish treaty. Item sixteen says the following in

regards to religion:

“Neither the Parliament of the Irish Free State nor the Parliament of NorthernIreland shall make any law so as either directly or indirectly to endow an religionor prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof or give any preference or imposeany disability on account of religious belief or religious status or affectprejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at the school or make anydiscrimination as respects state aid between schools under the management ofdifferent religious denominations or divert from any religious denomination orany educational institution any of its property except for public utility purposeand on payment of compensation. (The Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland

1921)”

Considering that seventeen of the eighteen items in the Anglo-Irish treaty discussed

were political, legal or economic issues, it is clear that religion was not the primary

concern of Irish politicians and Irish Republican Army members, like Michael Collins.

This brief mention of religion calls for religious freedom, it is not a discussion as to

whether the new Irish Free State should be deemed Catholic or Protestant. The primary

2 Éamon de Valera would later refuse to support or sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, disagreeing withthe division of Ireland, creating the Irish Free State but leaving parts of Northern Ireland under thecontrol of the United Kingdom. To add insult to injury, in the oath taken by Irish Parliament members,they were still required to pledge allegiance to the English king. Michael Collins would later famouslyaccuse Éamon de Valera of sending Collins to London to negotiate the treaty because de Valera himselfknew he could achieve no better than partial freedom for Ireland. While de Valera’s refused to sign thetreaty, Michael Collins and the majority of Irish citizens supported the treaty as a step towards peace andindependence. However, this difference in opinion resulted in the Irish Civil War in 1922.


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concern of the Anglo-Irish treaty was to establish an independent Irish state, and to a

certain extent, this was accomplished. Religious freedom was also achieved, however it

was not a primary concern.

Ernest Boyd’s article, Ireland: Resurgent and Insurgent was published in

September 1922, shortly after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed the previous year. Boyd

claims that “the Irish Question” had been answered, and details the Irish fight for

autonomy, saying “the British authorities evacuated their strongholds, withdrew their

troops, and handed over the country to the Irish people who had demanded nothing

better for seven hundred years” (Boyd 1922: 86). After the treaty was signed and the

Irish Civil War broke out, Ireland was embroiled in yet another conflict. According to

Boyd:

“And in a short space of time the whole area of the 26 southern counties ofIreland was plunged into a civil war, not between Protestant loyalists andCatholic Nationalists, as had been so confidently predicted, but between the greatmajority of the population and small bands of armed ‘idealists’” (Boyd 1922: 87).

Boyd is very critical of Éamon de Valera’s refusal to accept the treaty, even comparing

the violence of de Valera and those fighting against the treaty to that of “the darkest

period of the Black and Tan period”3 (Boyd 1922: 86). Boyd draws attention to the

Catholic Nationalists and Protestant Loyalists, but disputes the idea that these were the

groups fighting against each other, and says that those fighting against the treaty to that

of “the darkest period of the Black and Tan period” (Boyd 1922: 86).

In regards to the “the Irish Question”, author Goldwin Smith discusses it at

greater length in his article with the same title. However, it is glaringly obvious that

3 The Black and Tan period takes it’s name from the uniforms of the British soldiers in Ireland in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who wore black and khaki colored uniforms. This is still a soresubject in Ireland; for instance, it is greatly frowned upon to order the beverage, Black and Tan, in anIrish bar.


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Smith writes with a strong bias in favor of the British. In “The Irish Question”, Smith

says “Irish disaffection is still alive, and that as the United States has the Negro problem,

Great Britain has the Irish problem demanding solution at home before she undertakes

to solve problems on the other side of the globe” (Smith 1901: 838). Despite Smith’s

bias in favor of any Irish nationalist’s enemy, Smith still states that the root of the

conflict between the Irish and the English “was the ownership of the land, the struggle

for which, reappearing in different phases, has pervaded Irish history to the present

hour” (Smith 1901: 838). The struggle for the ownership of land has been a constant

struggle between Ireland and England until the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, and

supporters of the Provisional Irish Republican Army may argue that the struggle has

never ceased.

The emergence of the Provisional Irish Republican Army is discussed at length in

chapter three of Richard English’s book, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA.

According to English, the emergence of the Provisional IRA in 1969 occurred in four

specific stages: “the death of the IRA; a non-nationalist civil rights movement; loyalist

aggression; the birth of the Provisionals” (English 2005: 81). The more Marxist ideas of

the younger generation of the IRA caused the organization to split into the old IRA and

the Provisional IRA, and in 1972, the original Irish Republican Army ceased to exist

after declaring an official ceasefire (Provisional Irish Republican Army 2006). English

claims that while the IRA and the Provisional IRA had conflicting ideologies, “the old

IRA unwittingly helped to produce the conditions from which the new one was to

spring” (English 2005: 81). Perhaps their only similarity was their resentment of the

English. “The tactics of the Provisional IRA were initially threefold: the disruption of

economic and civil life in Northern Ireland by targeted bombing; attacks on military and


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police installations to undermine the British presence; and the "protection" of Ulster's

Catholic community” (The Provisional Irish Republican Army 2005). With events like

Bloody Sunday in 1972, after a Catholic demonstration had been attacked, the

Provisional IRA had a particularly easy time recruiting new members when it was

discovered that 13 people had been shot in the back by English soldiers, and even more

were left injured. The old IRA focused on gaining home rule, and creating the Irish Free

State, while the Provisional IRA was largely concerned with civil rights for the Catholic

minority in Northern Ireland (English 2005). However, defending the Catholic minority

is not enough to classify the Provisional IRA as a religious terrorist organization;

members of the Provisional IRA were fighting for civil rights of the Catholic minority in

Northern Ireland, not to eliminate the Protestants, bring about the apocalypse or any

other outlandish, nonnegotiable goals that often characterize religious terrorist

organizations. Religious organizations are generally more difficult to negotiate with;

this does not apply to the Provisional IRA. “During the 1990s, it entered two ceasefires,

while its political wing, Sinn Féin, held peace talks with the British government,

culminating in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998” (Provisional Irish Republican Army

2006: 659). In July of 2005, the Provisional IRA had announced its official

disbandment (Provisional Irish Republican Army 2006).

Dominic M. Beggan, a political science professor at Lamar University, published

a work entitled State Repression and Political Violence: Insurgency in Northern

Ireland , in which he outlines three criteria that influence political violence “duration,

consistency and magnitude of formal and informal repressive policies, the existence of

large economic disparities and the level of democratic development attained. (Beggan

2006: 61)” Dominic Beggan’s case study draws particular attention to historical events


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like Bloody Sunday. Beggan explicitly says, “the primary issues of conflict in Northern

Ireland remain the socio-economic and political inequalities and the future of the state.

(Beggan 2006: 62)” Beggan claims that violence between the English government and

terrorist organizations like the Irish Republican Army or the Provisional Irish

Republican Army “will increase when the state uses inconsistent, severe repressive

measures and when unemployment levels remain high. Conversely, political violence

will decrease when the opposite occurs and when the state introduced a greater degree

of democratic inclusiveness into the system. (Beggan 2006: 63)” Not only does Beggan

clearly state that the motives behind the violence were due to British repression, he adds

to this by noting economic repression as a s serious concern and perpetrator for acts of

terror. In an interesting link to economic theory, Beggan expands upon “Tedd R. Gurr’s

(1970) relative deprivation hypothesis of political violence by broadening his definition

of relative deprivation to include the capacity of the state to address relative deprivation

through the use of force (repression) and/or by increasing the level of democratic

inclusiveness (maturity). (Beggan 2006: 67)” Beggan does draw attention at the

beginning of his study of the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority in Northern

Ireland, however notes that this is not central to conflict or the violence perpetrated by

Irish nationalist terrorist organization (Beggan 2006).

Conclusion

While the Fenians may seem to far back in history to be relevant to modern

politics, the Irish Republican Army and the Provisional Irish Republican Army are still

considered a part of recent Irish history. The Provisional Irish Republican Army

announced its official disbandment less than a decade ago, in 2005 (Provisional Irish

Republican Army 2005). Former members of the Provisional IRA, who may or may not


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openly admit to their affiliation, lead normal lives. Gerry Adams, current president of

Sinn Féin denies that he was ever a soldier for the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

In 2005, the year that the Provisional IRA had disbanded, Adams won the presidency of

Sinn Féin with 70.5% of the votes, and again in 2010 with 71.1% (The Guardian 2013).

Gerry Adams was also a member of the British Parliament until his resignation in 2011

(Crick 2011).

Martin McGuinness, who is not nearly as shy about his affiliation with the

Provisional IRA, has also been in the spotlight within the last year. In June of 2012,

McGuinness, an admitted and known assassin for the Provisional Irish Republican

Army, shook hands with Queen Elizabeth II. This handshake was huge international

news because not only was this handshake unexpected, but “Anglo-Irish relations took a

momentous step forward. (The Guardian 2012)” This event was in response to the

Queen’s successful visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011. However, the handshake was

not only political, but personal as well; “McGuinness was a senior member of the IRA

when it killed the Queen's cousin Lord Mountbatten in a bomb blast in 1979. (The

Guardian 2012)” Gestures like these between once rival enemies would have been

unthinkable without a successful peace process between the Provisional Irish

Republican Army and the government of Great Britain.

In my research for this paper, I had the most difficult time finding interviews

with former IRA or Provisional IRA members- perhaps because this is such recent

history, and likely still a controversial subject. However, a group of students at Boston

College students did come across a series of interviews with former Irish Republican

Army members. “Former IRA members were interviewed between 2001 and 2006 as

part of The Belfast Project, a resource for journalists, scholars and historians studying


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the decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles. (LaVoie 2012)”

Denise LaVoie, reporter for Huffington Post, says that “the interviews were conducted as

part of an oral history project, and participants said they were supposed to be kept

secret until their deaths. (LaVoie 2012)” The court ordered that these interviews be

turned into the government of Northern Ireland, which could expose former IRA

members of crimes they committed and were promised that their identities would be

kept anonymous. The interviews included information about the killing of Jean

McConville, a mother of ten children, who was murdered over forty years ago by the

Provisional IRA because members within the organization believed that she was spyingfor British intelligence (La Voie 2012). The crime remains unsolved and a touchy

subject in Ireland; the interviews discovered by Boston College students could very well

be the last bit of evidence needed to avenge McConville’s death.

After sifting through the research I have compiled throughout the previous

months, it seems that there isn’t much conflicting evidence that states that the

ideologies of organizations like the Fenians, the Irish Republican Army and the

Provisional Irish Republican Army were anything other nationalist or separatist in

nature. The intentions of all three of these organizations had one ultimate goal, which

was eliminate the presence of the English in Ireland and to establish an independent

Irish state. The ideologies of such organizations are nationalist and separatist in their

roots: nationalist in their support for the revival of Irish culture and a consensus of

national identity, separatist in the fight for independent statehood. Groups like the Irish

Republican Army and the Provisional Irish Republican Army differ from other terrorist

organizations such as Hamas due to their lack of religious fundamentalism; Hamas is

also separatist in their goals to create an independent Palestinian state, but a state that


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is rooted in Islamic fundamentalism, where as the IRA and the Provisional IRA have

absolutely no involvement with religion outside of basic protection of religious freedom

for all Irish citizens. The protection of religious freedoms is the extent of any religious

involvement and by no means the main priority of these Irish nationalist terrorist

organizations. The IRA and Provisional IRA have no ties to the Catholic Church, or any

church for that matter, and according to Brendan O’Leary’s piece entitled “Mission

Accomplished? Looking back at the IRA” “the Catholic clergy and bishops of Ireland

regularly condemned it” (O’Leary 2005: 221).

The last argument to be addressed is whether or not groups like the Fenians,

Irish Republican Army and Provisional Irish Republican Army have been successful or

not. The Fenians, outside of disrupting political life in Great Britain had not achieved

much for Irish in the fight for independent statehood. The IRA has been the most

successful of the three organizations due to things like Michael Collins’ negotiation of

the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, a treaty that gave Ireland partial independence, leaving

Northern Ireland in British hands; many saw this as a stepping stone for Irish

independence and an end to violence, while others couldn’t have disagreed more with

the division of Ireland and acceptance of anything less than full independence. The goal

of the Provisional IRA was to rid Northern Ireland of British control, leading to the

formation of a unified and free Ireland. This has yet to be obtained, and since the

Provisional IRA announced it’s disbandment in 2005, it will not be achieved by this

terrorist organization, to which I argue that the Provisional IRA was not successful

whatsoever in their aims. According to a BBC statistic, between 1969 and 1999, 3637

deaths occurred due to violence perpetrated by the Provisional IRA, the bulk of which


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were civilians, Catholic and Protestant alike (BBC 2013). With so many deaths,

especially those of civilians, it puts the legitimacy of the Provisional IRA into question.

While the Fenians, IRA and Provisional IRA are no longer active terrorist

organizations, the issue of Irish nationalist terrorism remains a touchy subject. Two

years ago, A survey was conducted by the University of Liverpool, whose results show

that “14% of the nationalist community have some "sympathy for the reasons" why

groups like the Real IRA and Continuity IRA continue to engage in violence. (McDonald

2010)” These small fringe organizations gain support from “young nationalist working-

class males” (McDonald 2010), however these groups are of minuscule threat compared

to the former Provisional IRA. The support for these terrorist organizations is slowly

fading away, despite the scar they have left on the Irish people, those who they claimed

to be protecting.

Gestures between once bitter enemies like Martin McGuinness and Queen

Elizabeth II have shown hopes for diplomacy, and are a step in the right direction to an

open dialogue about the continuous improvement of Anglo-Irish relations. Through a

series of successful peace talks, treaties and negotiations over the years, a great deal of

progress has been made to gain rights for Ireland and the Irish people while

asphyxiating violence amongst groups who formally committed acts of terror in hopes to

achieve their goals.


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