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While there have been many books written about the Irish Republican Army (IRA) since 1916, comparatively little attention has been paid to the organisation during the 1960s, despite the fact that the internal divisions culminating in the 1969 split are often seen as key to the conflict which erupted that year. This book rederesses that vacuum and, through an exhaustive survey of internal and official sources, as well as interviews with key IRA members, provides an insight into radical Republican politics. The book looks at the root of the divisions that centred on conflicting attitudes within the IRA on armed struggle, electoral participation and socialism. It argues that while the IRA did not consciously plan the northern ‘Troubles’, the internal debate of the 1960s had implications for what happened in 1969. The book is also of interest as a study of the internal dynamics of a revolutionary movement that has resonance with similar movements in other countries.
Conducting an analysis of some of the most candid interview materials ever gathered from former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and loyalists in Northern Ireland, this book demonstrates through a psychoanalysis of slips of the tongue, jokes, rationalisations and contradictions that it is the unconscious dynamics of the conflict — that is, the pleasure to be found in suffering, failure, domination, submission and ignorance, and in rivalry over jouissance — that lead to the reproduction of polarisation between the Catholic and Protestant communities. As a result, it contends that traditional approaches to conflict resolution which overlook the unconscious are doomed and argues that a Lacanian psychoanalytic understanding of socio-ideological fantasy has great potential for informing the way we understand and study all inter-religious and ethnic conflicts and, as such, deserves to be further developed in conflict-management processes. Whether readers find themselves agreeing with the arguments in the book or not, they are sure to find it a change from both traditional approaches to conflict resolution and the existing mainly conservative analyses of the Northern Ireland conflict.
This book examines the militant Irish republican movement in the United States from the final months of the Irish Civil War through to the Second World War. The narrative, crafted to appeal to both an academic and general audience, carefully and creatively intertwines the personalities, events and policies that shaped the militant republican movement in the US during this period and shows the evolution of its deep transnational nature. Most importantly, through a bottom-up historical analysis that incorporates an examination of more than eighty archival collections in the US, Ireland and Britain, the work presents for the first time an account of the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army (IRA) veterans who emigrated to the United States after the Irish Civil War. Upon their settlement in Irish-American communities, these republicans directly influenced and guided the US-based militant republican organisation, Clan na Gael, transformed the overall dynamics of militant Irish republicanism in America and provided leadership and co-ordination for an IRA bombing campaign. The inclusion of these IRA veterans in the narrative creates a fresh and revised interpretation of the militant Irish republican activism that occurred in the US in the immediate decades after the Irish revolutionary period.
Divisions between north and south Ireland were prevalent since the 1920s. Yet, until the 1970s, nobody in public life in the Republic of Ireland argued that partition was justified. This book examines in detail the impact of the Northern Irish Troubles on southern Irish society during the period 1968-79. It begins with the aftermath of the civil rights march in Derry in October 1968 and traces the reaction to the events until the autumn of 1972. The impact of August 1969, the aftermath of internment and the response to Bloody Sunday are examined. The book looks at violence south of the border, particularly bombings and shootings and their human cost, and examines state security, censorship and the popular protests associated with these issues. A general outlook at the changing attitudes to refugees and northern nationalists is provided before describing the impact of the conflict on southern Protestants. The controversies concerning the Irish Republican Army and their activities are highlighted. The book looks at the question of revisionism and how debates about history were played out in academia as well as at a popular level. A variety of social and cultural responses to the conflict are examined, including attitudes to Britain and northern Unionists. For many southerners, Ulster was practically a foreign country and Northern Ireland did not seem very Irish. By 1979, the prospect of an end to the conflict seemed dim.
This book is an in-depth examination of the relations between Ireland and the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) between the end of the Second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It explores political, diplomatic, economic, media and cultural issues. Before embarking upon the journey in the archives of the Stasi, it is necessary to give a picture on the relations between Ireland and the GDR to set the scene. The first part of the book is an analysis of the political, economic and cultural links between the two countries, and also perceptions and portrayals by the media. The second part is devoted to the long and extraordinary process of establishing diplomatic relations between Ireland and the GDR. It focuses on intelligence activities. The activities include: reading and listening about Ireland and Northern Ireland; spying on Ireland; and recording information on Northern Ireland in the central databank for persons. They also include: watching the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Irish National Liberation Army and British Army of the Rhine. Thus, documents and findings are presented in a rather thematic way, except the history of Irish terrorist activities in West Germany. This approach has the advantage of showing how an intelligence service actually operates.
The affinities between Ireland and India have been much commented upon in the nineteenth-century context. Modes of governance, tenancy laws, famines, migrations, policing and military matters have all received attention. This book offers a fresh perspective on the history of the end of Empire, with the Irish and Indian independence movements as its focus, examining the relationship between nationalists between the 1919s and the late 1940s. It details how each country's nationalist agitators engaged with each other and exchanged ideas. Using previously unpublished sources from the Indian Political Intelligence collection, the book chronicles the rise and fall of movements such as the Indian-Irish Independence League and the League Against Imperialism. The histories of these movements have, until now, remained deeply hidden in the archives. The study presented throws light on the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Indian National Army (INA). It shows that it is feasible that British intelligence agents established the Friends of India Society (FOIS) in Dublin. The study also illuminates the role of figures and organisations previously considered somewhat obscure in both Indian and Irish history. Individuals like V. J. Patel, Brajesh Singh, Mollie Woods, Philip Vickery, Shapurji Saklatvala, and Charlotte Despard emerge as significant figures in their respective movements. The book also highlights opaque aspects of the careers of popular figures including Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Eamon de Valera and Maud Gonne McBride at points when their paths crossed.
This book surveys the political, economic and social history of Northern Ireland in the Second World War. Since its creation in 1920, Northern Ireland has been a deeply divided society and the book explores these divisions, including loyalist and republican commemoration, IRA activity, policing, internment, preparations for war and the absence of consensus on the war itself. It examines rearmament in the 1930s, the relatively slow pace of wartime mobilisation, the impact of the blitz in 1941, as well as labour and industrial relations. Northern Ireland was the only part of the UK with a devolved government and no military conscription during the war. The book includes the debate on conscription, including the opposition of the Catholic Church, as well as the controversy on the formation of the Home Guard. The absence of military conscription made the process of mobilisation, and the experience of men and women, very different from that in Britain. There is also extensive coverage of wartime politics and social policy. As elsewhere in the UK, the war raised important questions about housing, crime, youth welfare, and led the broader debates on social policy following the 1942 Beveridge Report. The conclusion considers Northern Ireland in 1945 and how its government faced the domestic and international challenges of the postwar world.
Can private citizens serve as self-appointed peacemakers and influence diplomatic relations between parties to a conflict? The book analyzes the international phenomenon of private peace entrepreneurs (PPEs) – private citizens with no official authority who initiate channels of communication with official representatives from the other side of a conflict in order to promote a conflict resolution process. It combines theoretical discussion with historical analysis, examining four cases from different conflicts: Norman Cousins and Suzanne Massie in the Cold War, Brendan Duddy in the Northern Ireland conflict, and Uri Avnery in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The book defines the phenomenon, examines the resources and activities of private peace entrepreneurs and their impact on the official diplomacy, and explores the conditions under which they can play an effective role in peacemaking processes.
The book highlights the ability of private individual citizens – who are not politicians, diplomats, or military leaders – to operate as influential actors in international politics in general, and in peace processes in particular. Although the history of internal and international conflicts reveals many cases of private peace entrepreneurs, some of whom played a critical role in conflict resolution efforts, the literature has yet to give this important phenomenon the attention it deserves. The book aims to fill this gap, contributing to the scholarship on conflict and peace, diplomacy, and civil society. It also makes a historiographical contribution by shedding light on figures excluded from the history textbooks, and it offers an alternative perspective to traditional narratives concerning the diplomatic history of the conflicts.
written by HA-XXII/8 (terrorism, section 8 being in charge of international terrorism), dated 20 October 1986 and entitled ‘Einschätzung zur extremistischen Organisation “Irish Republican Army-IRA”’ (evaluation of the extremist organisation Irish Republican Army-IRA).31 The first paragraph is called ‘Entstehung und Entwicklung der Organisation’ (origin and development of the organisation) and it is not devoid of factual mistakes. The opening lines state that England had implemented a ‘colonial policy’ against Ireland since 1167 and that the English were responsible for
American official, she was recognised as ‘an ardent worker for the Irish Republican Army’ who posed the risk of ‘carrying confidential messages’ from Ireland to republicans in the US.97 The US government’s success in undermining this deeply embedded German spy ring debilitated German espionage in the US.98 Any further co-ordination between German and Irish republican elements in the US also appears to have ceased at this time. In March German agent Carl Rekowski departed from Mexico for Germany travelling through Japan and Russia. He would spend the remainder of the war