Killing for Ireland: The IRA and Armed Struggle (Cass Series on Political Violence)

237 Pages·2007·1.09 MB·English

by  Rogelio Alonso

THE IRA AND
ARMED STRUGGLE
Based on extensive interviews with former and existing members of the
IRA, and a thorough analysis of primary and secondary sources, this book
breaks major new ground in the understanding of the IRA and the Northern
Ireland peace process. It also provides a rigorous evaluation of the personal
and political consequences of the group’s terrorist campaign.
Using a multi-disciplinary approach, with insights from political science,
social psychology and history, Rogelio Alonso explains how the IRA came
to end its long campaign without achieving its main political objectives.
He analyses the motivations of IRA activists, and questions the efficacy of
armed struggle by seeking to answer the question faced by many armed
revolutionary movements: ‘Was the war worth it?’
Most of the literature on Northern Ireland to date has failed to assess
the political effectiveness of IRA terrorism. This factor must be examined
properly if the yearned-for resolution of the conflict is to become a reality.
This book analyses this vital issue through unprecedented access to the men
and women behind the IRA’s campaign of violence.
The IRA and Armed Struggle offers a provocative and new approach to
understanding the IRA. It will be essential reading for students of Irish poli-
tics, the Northern Ireland peace process, and terrorism and political violence
in general.
Rogelio Alonso is a Lecturer in Politics and Terrorism at Universidad Rey
Juan Carlos, Madrid. He is the author of three other books on terrorism and
several articles on the subject published in top-ranking academic journals.
SERIES: POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Series editors: Paul Wilkinson and David Rapoport
AVIATION TERRORISM AND SECURITY
Paul Wilkinson and Brian M. Jenkins (eds)
COUNTER-TERRORIST LAW AND EMERGENCY
POWERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, 1922–2000
Laura K. Donohue
THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE AND
POLITICAL VIOLENCE
David C. Rapoport and Leonard Weinberg (eds)
INSIDE TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
David C. Rapoport (ed.)
THE FUTURE OF TERRORISM
Max Taylor and John Horgan (eds)
THE IRA, 1968–2000
An analysis of a secret army
J. Bowyer Bell
MILLENNIAL VIOLENCE
Past, present and future
Jeffrey Kaplan (ed.)
RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg (eds)
TERRORISM TODAY
Christopher C. Harmon
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TERRORISM
John Horgan
RESEARCH ON TERRORISM
Trends, achievements and failures
Andrew Silke (ed.)
A WAR OF WORDS
Political violence and public debate in Israel
Gerald Cromer
ROOT CAUSES OF SUICIDE TERRORISM
Globalization of martyrdom
Ami Pedahzur (ed.)
TERRORISM VERSUS DEMOCRACY
The liberal state response, 2nd edition
Paul Wilkinson
COUNTERING TERRORISM AND WMD
Creating a global counter-terrorism network
Peter Katona, Michael Intriligator and John Sullivan (eds)
MAPPING TERRORISM RESEARCH
State of the art, gaps and future direction
Magnus Ranstorp (ed.)
THE IDEOLOGICAL WAR ON TERROR
World-wide strategies for counter-terrorism
Anne Aldis and Graeme P. Herd (eds)
THE IRA AND ARMED STRUGGLE
Rogelio Alonso

THE IRA AND
ARMED STRUGGLE
Rogelio Alonso
Spanish edition first published 2003
by Alianza Editorial, S.A.
English edition published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© Alianza Editorial, S.A., 2003
© 2003 Rogelio Alonso
This book was first published in Spanish with the title Matar por Irlanda
and has been translated by Andrew Read.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Alonso, Rogelio.
[Matar por Irlanda. English]
The IRA and armed struggle / Rogelio Alonso.
p. cm. – (Political violence)
Translation of Matar por Irlanda.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Irish Republican Army–History. 2. Political violence–Ireland–History–20th
century. 3. Guerrilla warfare–Ireland–History–20th century. 4. Political
violence–Northern Ireland. 5. Northern Ireland–History,
Military. 6. Ireland–History, Military. I. Title.
DA914.A4613 2007
941.5082–dc22 2006021639
ISBN 0–203–94673–1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415 –39610–7 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–39611–5 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415 –39610–3 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39611–0 (pbk)
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1 Apprenticeship: ‘I didn’t know why I wanted a united
Ireland’ 7
2 Defenders?: ‘It just gave added justification for killing
soldiers and policemen’ 38
3 The captive mind: ‘Have you not got the balls for the
armed struggle?’ 67
4 Hunger for power: ‘Where the hell did we go wrong?’ 102
5 Losers: ‘We had gone as far as we could with armed
struggle’ 138
6 Winners?: ‘This is a propaganda war’ 169
Epilogue 191
Notes 195
Selected bibliography 217
Index 222
vii

INTRODUCTION
‘Patriots or terrorists?’ This was the title of a document published in 1974
which vehemently justified IRA violence. As the text stated:
The primary objective of the IRA is to achieve the freedom and unity of
Ireland by forcing a British withdrawal. It is generally agreed that this is
a legitimate aim based on Ireland’s rights as a nation. The controversy
centres on how this is to be done. The politicians, Church leaders and
so-called ‘moderates’ all advocate unity ‘by consent’. This means by the
consent of the people of the Six County area and is a complete denial
of the rights of the Irish people as a whole. This is recognised by the
‘moderates’ who admit that one cannot have an exercise in democracy in
an undemocratically constituted area. Nevertheless, they are prepared
to sacrifice the rights of three quarters of the Irish people in order to
appease the other quarter. This is a blatant example of putting expedi-
ency before justice. So from the very beginning, the main ‘alternative’ to
the policy of the IRA is based on an injustice.1
It is hard not to define as ‘terrorist’ an organisation like the IRA, whose
activists have been responsible for killing and injuring thousands. The IRA
has undoubtedly used terrorism in support of a cause which its members
equate with freedom but which other observers would define as the exact
opposite. There are even those who argue that the terms ‘terrorist’ and
‘freedom fighter’ are not mutually exclusive, since the former alludes to a
methodology, while the latter refers to a cause.2 The title of the above text
contrasts ‘patriots’ with ‘terrorists’ with the clear intention of placing the
IRA’s members in the former category. In that respect, those who killed
for Ireland would not be criminals or terrorists but ‘legal representatives
of the Irish people’ who were ‘morally justified in carrying out a resist-
ance campaign against the foreign occupation’.3 This relationship between
political and moral variables used by the republican movement to legitimise
its violence nevertheless leads to contradictions which are anything but
trivial.
1