Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:18:31.877Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Moral Parameters of Violence: The Case of the Provisional IRA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2021

Martyn Frampton Open the ORCID record for Martyn Frampton [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Original Manuscript
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 138 - 161
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the North American Conference on British Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For a description of the attack, see McKittrick, David et al. , Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Edinburgh, 1999), 1214–15Google Scholar. Hereafter, unless otherwise indicated, “the IRA” refers to the Provisional IRA.

2 McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, 1216. See also Jordan, Hugh, Milestones in Murder: Defining Moments in Ulster's Terror War (Edinburgh, 2002), 160–65Google Scholar; O'Brien, Brendan, The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Féin from Armed Struggle to Peace Talks (Dublin, 1995), 203–4Google Scholar.

3 Since 1990, such terms have been used interchangeably to describe the attacks. See, for instance, Seamus McKinney, “‘Barbaric and Cowardly’ Coshquin Human Bombing Remembered 30 Years On,” Irish News, 24 October 2020; “IRA Proxy Bomb Victim's Wife Struggled to Believe He Was Dead,” Irish News, 3 August 2021.

4 McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, 1215.

5 As quoted in Bloom, Mia and Horgan, John, “Missing Their Mark: The IRA's Proxy Bomb Campaign,” Social Research 75, no. 2 (2008): 579–614, at 600CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 As quoted in Bloom and Horgan, “Missing Their Mark,” 600.

7 Bloom and Horgan, 598–99; Moloney, Ed, A Secret History of the IRA (London, 2002), 348–49Google Scholar.

8 It was attempted only once more, without success, in November 1990.

9 For a discussion from a different context of the ways in which states can try to establish informal “red lines” that constrict the behavior of nonstate actors, see Bar, Shmuel, “Deterring Nonstate Terrorist Groups: The Case of Hizballah,” Comparative Strategy, 26, no. 5 (2007): 469–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Thompson, E. P., “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present, no. 50 (1971): 76–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Quentin Skinner, preface to The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1, The Renaissance (Cambridge, 1978), ix–xv; Skinner, Quentin, “Moral Principles and Social Change,” in Visions of Politics, vol. 1, Regarding Method (Cambridge, 2002), 145–57Google Scholar; Skinner, Quentin, “Augustan Party Politics and Renaissance Constitutional Thought,” in Visions of Politics, vol. 2, Renaissance Virtues (Cambridge, 2002), 344–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Jones, Gareth Stedman, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working-Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge, 1983), 24Google Scholar.

13 Skinner, “Augustan Party Politics,” 367.

14 Bourke, Richard, “Languages of Conflict and the Northern Ireland Troubles,” Journal of Modern History 83, no. 3 (September 2011): 544–78, at 550CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Kalyvas, Stathis N., “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’: Action and Identity in Civil Wars,” Perspectives on Politics 1, no. 3 (2003): 475–94, at 475CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Kalyvas, Stathis N., The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York, 2006), 6, 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar (and more generally, for the discussion at 1–15).

17 Patterson, Henry, The Politics of Illusion: A Political History of the IRA (London, 1997)Google Scholar; Smith, M. L. R., Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement (London, 1995)Google Scholar; Alonso, Rogelio, The IRA and the Armed Struggle (London, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, Robert W., Out of the Ashes: An Oral History of the Provisional Irish Republican Movement (Newbridge, 2017)Google Scholar; Dochartaigh, Niall Ó, “The Longest Negotiation: British Policy, IRA Strategy and the Making of the Northern Ireland Peace Settlement,” Political Studies 63, no. 1 (2015): 202–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 On this point, see Bourke, “Languages of Conflict,” esp. 544, 550.

19 English, Richard, Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA (Oxford, 2003), esp. 126, 377Google Scholar.

20 McBride, Ian, “The Shadow of the Gunman: Irish Historians and the IRA,” Journal of Contemporary History 46, no. 3 (2011): 686–710CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Richard Bourke, “Historiography,” in The Princeton History of Modern Ireland, ed. Richard Bourke and Ian McBride (Princeton, 2016).

21 Shanahan, Timothy, The Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Morality of Terrorism (Edinburgh, 2009), especially 92–167Google Scholar. See also O'Boyle, Garett, “Theories of Justification and Political Violence: Examples from Four Groups,” Terrorism and Political Violence 14, no. 2 (2002): 23–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See the works of Patterson, Smith, Alonso, White, and Ó Dochartaigh cited above at note 17.

23 On the challenges of using such memoirs, see McBride, Ian, “Provisional Truths: IRA Memoirs and the Peace Process,” in Uncertain Futures: Essays about the Irish Past, for Roy Foster, ed. Paseta, Senia (Oxford, 2016), 235–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 For the idea of “moral logic,” see Kramer, Martin, “The Moral Logic of Hizballah,” in Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, ed. Reich, Walter (Washington, DC, 1990), 131–60Google Scholar.

25 For a recent account of the IRA and its emergence, see Finn, Daniel, One Man's Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA (London, 2019)Google Scholar.

26 Smith, Fighting for Ireland?, 83.

27 Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, “Participation in Partition Parliament Denial of Sovereignty,” speech delivered at Wolfe Tone Commemoration 2006, Bodenstown, 11 June 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20060702175911/http://www.rsf.ie/boden06.htm.

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.

29 On the creation of the “Green Book,” see Moloney, Secret History, 154–55.

30 “On This We Stand: The Rock of the Republic,” An Phoblacht, February 1970.

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.

32 On the subject of “moral moments” see Apter, David E., “Political Violence in Analytical Perspective,” in The Legitimization of Violence, ed. Apter, David E. (New York, 1997), 1–32, at 1, 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paul Arthur, “‘Reading’ Violence: Ireland,” in Apter, The Legitimization of Violence, 234–91, at 238, 243.

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.

35 “Green Book.”

36 Bourke, “Languages of Conflict,” 575–76. See also Bourke, Richard, Peace in Ireland: The War of Ideas (London, 2003)Google Scholar.

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.

38 Coogan, Tim Pat, De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow (London, 1993), 296, 313–14Google Scholar. See also “A Maker of Ireland,” New York Times, 30 August 1975.

39 “Ballots and Bombs: Electoral Tactics Complement Armed Struggle,” An Phoblacht/Republican News, 18 February 1982.

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.

42 “Green Book.”

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.

47 English, Armed Struggle, 81–147. See also Bean, Kevin, The New Politics of Sinn Féin (Liverpool, 2007), 56, 68–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 See, for example, White, Out of the Ashes, 51, 72–91, 165, 183, 346–49. See also O'Leary, “Mission Accomplished?,” 230–32; Siniša Malesevic and Niall Ó Dochartaigh, “Why Combatants Fight: The Irish Republican Army and the Bosnian Serb Army Compared,” Theory and Society, no. 47 (2018): 293–326.

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.

50 McIntyre, Anthony, “Modern Irish Republicanism: The Product of British State Strategies,” Irish Political Studies 10, no. 1 (1995): 97–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Shanahan, Provisional Irish Republican Army, 14.

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.

58 O'Callaghan, Sean, The Informer (London, 1998), 98Google Scholar.

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.

67 Kowalski, Rachel Caroline, “The Role of Sectarianism in the Provisional IRA Campaign, 1969–1997,” Terrorism and Political Violence 30, no. 4 (2018): 658–83, at 664CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 “Green Book.”

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.

83 “Green Book.”

84 Bradley, Gerry, Insider: Gerry Bradley's Life in the IRA (Dublin, 2009), 116–17Google Scholar.

85 Moloney, Voices from the Grave, 105–6; Keefe, Say Nothing, 267.

86 O'Doherty, Shane, The Volunteer: A Former IRA Man's True Story (London, 1993), 65–67Google Scholar.

87 O'Doherty, The Volunteer, 106–9.

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.”

95 English, Richard, Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (London, 2008), 397Google Scholar.

96 Gibney, cited in Alonso, IRA and the Armed Struggle, 186–87.

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.

98 Collins, Killing Rage, 195.

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.

106 Collins, Killing Rage, 295.

107 See, among others, White, Robert W., “The Irish Republican Army: An Assessment of Sectarianism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 9, no. 1 (1997): 20–55Google Scholar; Patterson, Henry, “Sectarianism Revisited: The Provisional IRA Campaign in a Border Region of Northern Ireland,” Terrorism and Political Violence 22, no. 3 (2010): 337–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kowalski, “Role of Sectarianism.” The “sectarian” question has also been a source of academic controversy with regards to the earlier IRA campaign of 1919–1921. See McBride, Ian, “The Peter Hart Affair in Perspective: History, Ideology, and the Irish Revolution,” Historical Journal 61, no. 1 (2018): 249–71Google Scholar.

108 “Sectarian and Political?,” An Phoblacht, 16 January 1976.

109 “Notebook by Freeman: ‘Stopping the Taigue-Killers,’” An Phoblacht, 23 January 1976.

110 “Stopping the Taigue-Killers: Freeman Answered,” An Phoblacht, 30 January 1976.

111 Mulholland, Marc, “Northern Ireland and the Far Left, c. 1965–1975,” Contemporary British History 32, no. 4 (2018): 542–63, at 556CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

112 O'Leary, “An Audit of Violence,” 37–47, 73–82; Mulholland, Marc, “Irish Republican Politics and Violence before the Peace Process,” European Review of History—Revue européene d'histoire 14, no. 3 (2007): 397–421Google Scholar.

113 Collins, Killing Rage, 2.

114 Toolis, Kevin, Rebel Hearts: Journeys within the IRA's Soul (London, 2011), 333–37Google Scholar.

115 Unnamed IRA members, “The Armalite and the Ballot Box,” interview by Michael Farrell, Magill, July 1983, https://magill.ie/archive/armalite-and-ballot-box.

116 Fulton, Unsung Hero, 130. See also 98, 104, 141, 146–47, 151.

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.

118 Hennessey, Thomas, The Northern Ireland Peace Process: Ending the Troubles? (Dublin, 2000), 39Google Scholar, referencing an interview with Adams in the 19 June 1988 issue of the Observer.

119 The IRA's attempt to connect with different “audiences” is explored in Wright, Joanne, Terrorist Propaganda: The Red Army Faction and the Provisional IRA, 1968–86 (London, 1991), esp. 77–94Google Scholar.

120 On this issue, see Faoleán, Gearóid Ó, A Broad Church: The Provisional IRA in the Republic of Ireland, 1969–1980 (Newbridge, 2019)Google Scholar.

121 Patterson, Politics of Illusion, 190. See also Frampton, Martyn, The Long March: The Political Strategy of Sinn Féin (Basingstoke, 2009), 46, 84–85, 133–35Google Scholar.

122 Sean O'Callaghan, interview by the author, London, 21 December 2011.

123 Adams, Politics of Irish Freedom, 64.

124 O'Brien, The Long War, 281. An earlier IRA Convention in 1948 had proscribed military action in the South; General Army Order No. 8 codified this prohibition. See White, Out of the Ashes, 31–36.

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.

126 Mulhoe, Patrick, “‘The Most Notorious Trouble Spot along the Entire Border’: Exploring the Dynamics of Political Violence in an Irish Border Town, 1971–1974,” Irish Political Studies, 35, no. 4 (2020): 566–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Patterson, Henry, Ireland's Violent Frontier: The Border and Anglo-Irish Relations during the Troubles (Basingstoke, 2016)Google Scholar.

127 McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, 426–28. On this episode, and the reaction in the South, see also Ó Faoleán, Broad Church, 110–11.

128 McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, 683; Ó Faoleán, Broad Church, 141–42.

129 Sean O'Callaghan, interview by the author, London, 22 November 2005.

130 Adams, Gerry, Peace in Ireland: A Broad Analysis of the Present Situation (Sinn Féin, 1976)Google Scholar, emphasis in original. See also Finn, One Man's Terrorist, 134.

131 “‘Republican Veto,’” Magill, July 1983.

132 Moloney, Secret History, 342–43.

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.

145 Horgan, John, The Psychology of Terrorism (London, 2014), 4, 13–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the importance of the potential for escalation, see also Bell, IRA Tactics and Targets, 26.

146 On the McEvoy episode, see Fulton, Unsung Hero, 119–30.

147 Bloom and Horgan, “Missing Their Mark,” 594–99.

148 O'Callaghan interview, 21 December 2011.

149 O'Leary, “Mission Accomplished?,” 236.