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Newspapers, magazines and pamphlets have always been central, almost sacred, forms of communication within Irish republican political culture. While social media is becoming the primary ideological battleground in many democracies, Irish republicanism steadfastly expresses itself in the traditional forms of activist journalism.
Shinners, Dissos and Dissenters is a long-term analysis of the development of Irish republican activist media since 1998 and the tumultuous years following the end of the Troubles. It is the first in-depth analysis of the newspapers, magazines and online spaces in which the differing strands of Irish republicanism developed and were articulated during a period where schism and dissent defined a return to violence.
Based on an analysis of Irish republican media outlets as well as interviews with the key activists that produced them, this book provides a compelling long-term snapshot of a political ideology in transition. It reveals how Irish Republicanism was moulded by the twin forces of the Northern Ireland Peace Process and the violent internal ideological schism that threatened a return to the ‘bad old days’ of the Troubles.
This book is vital for those studying Irish politics and those interestedin activism as it provides new insights into the role that modern activist media forms have played in the ideological development of a 200-year-old political tradition.
the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Supported by the UK, the USA targeted Sunni Islamic fundamentalist groups, initially in Afghanistan and Iraq. As I explore, the ‘War on Terror’ is subject to a legitimation crisis considering it is not a ‘traditional war’. The scholars Callie Batts and David L. Andrews write that ‘the disabled body of the Paralympic soldier/athlete holds the potential for nationalistic representation and political manipulation’. 2 That is, the soldiers’ integration into a ‘national sporting
viewed not as the ‘empirical will of the many isolated individuals’ but an expression of 38 Asymmetric engagement a popular mandate or legitimacy for ‘a refined, deliberated and “laundered” set of preferences which are brought about through institutional arrangements’ (Cohen and Rogers 1995b: 130). They added that this admittedly controversial idea involves two further assumptions: firstly, that the people are sufficiently alert to the fact that election outcomes are open to political manipulation (leading to an ‘unwilled will’); and secondly, that the people trust
emerging democracies. Curran noted: ‘The Internet has energised activism. But in the context of political disaffection, increasing political manipulation at the centre, an unaccountable global order and the weakening of electoral power, the Internet has not revitalised democracy.’ 75 As a place to gather and mobilize, the Internet undoubtedly allows opportunities for protest and for street-level pressure groups to meet and distribute information and news. The result is a newer, more nuanced political sphere which developed in some instances, particularly that of
1984. 69 RRPL, Kenneth Hill Files, Box 4, Folder LAOOC, Letter, Ueberroth to Shultz, 24 May 1984. 70 ‘LAOOC, IOC helped to pay for Romanians’ trip’, Los Angeles Times, 31 July 1984. See also H. E. Wilson, ‘The golden opportunity: Romania’s political manipulation of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games’, OLYMPIKA: The International Journal of Olympic Studies, III (1994). 71 ‘Hey Russia. It’s a heck of a party’, Sports Illustrated, 6 August 1984. 72 According to journalist Frank Deford, ABC stood for ‘Always Be Cheerleaders’. See F. Deford, ‘Cheer, cheer, cheer for
the Convention’, which read: (1) Laibach works in a team (collective spirit) modelled after industrial production and totalitarianism, which signifies: it is not the individual that speaks, but the organisation. Our work is industrial and our language political … (3) Every art is subjected to political manipulation … except that which speaks with the language of this manipulation itself. To speak with a political expression means to reveal and admit the omnipresence of politics … Ideology is the locus of authentic social consciousness.57 The lifting of the ban