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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.
outlines the controversies Introduction concerning the IRA and their activities. In Chapter 9 I look at the question of revisionism and how debates about history were played out not just in academia but also at a popular level. Chapter 10 is a examination of a variety of social and cultural responses to the conflict, including attitudes to Britain and northern Unionists. The book begins with the aftermath of the civil rights march in Derry in October 1968 and concludes in 1979 when the prospect of an end to the conflict seemed dim. While there had been a euphoric
focused on the primacy of securing the national ideal of territorial unity above all else (although there were notable exceptions, like Joe Devlin and T.J. Campbell in Belfast). And while this undoubtedly had an emotional and popular appeal, the effect of its non-delivery was to create a sense of hopelessness and encourage a general disengagement from politics amongst many Catholics. Also, the elevation of anti-partitionism as a nationalist panacea invariably resulted in precious little time, or thought, being devoted to just how northern unionists would fit into a
example, although Patterson (1999) rightly notes the ambiguities in Lemass’ policy towards the north – many of which, we see herein, have persisted in Irish official nationalism. Unionists were regularly portrayed as either misguided Irish people or misplaced British people in Irish official discourse throughout (and beyond) the twentieth century. This perception is evident even in examples of official discourse that purport to be attempting reconciliation between unionism and nationalism. In relation to this, as expressed in an open letter to ‘the northern unionists
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.
achieve. The following chapters address a series of questions which continued to be hotly contested among constitutional anti-partitionists across a broad left–right political spectrum: questions of whether to participate in, or abstain from, Northern Ireland’s parliament; of whether fidelity to the Irish government in Dublin should remain the pre-eminent political strategy above all others; of whether the immediacy of anti-partitionism outweighed all other socio-economic concerns; and of whether northern unionists were to be courted and convinced of the desirability of
intact while only 19 per cent wanted Scotland to become independent (Green 2014). Northern Ireland is the exception because its alternative to remaining in the Union is not independence but re-unification with the Republic of Ireland. The Republic is a very different place from what it was 100, 50 or even 20 years ago. Secure within the European Union, a neutral country still outside NATO, a liberal democracy no longer dominated by the Catholic church, Ireland is now a nation to which even Northern unionist
), that elements of the Irish state (government officials and the Irish police) colluded with the PIRA in the targeting and assassination of high-ranking RUC officials, as well as financing the importing of other weapons which contributed to the PIRA’s capacity to wage ‘war’ in Northern Ireland. It is also the case, however, that that the Northern Ireland conflict often crossed the border into the Irish Republic and Dublin in particular (where a UVF bomb killed many innocent civilians in 1974). Despite this, the northern unionist protesters had no concrete reason to
William Conway may have been the first to argue that you could not ‘bomb one million Protestants into a united Ireland’, the phrase soon became commonplace.148 But in the heated atmosphere after Bloody Sunday there were many who disputed this. Meath councillor Sean Conway stated that ‘if the Unionist element in the North wished to continue their allegiance to the Queen when national reunification was achieved, their best plan would be to pack up and go back to Britain’.149 On Sligo council, Fianna Fáil’s Ray McSharry stated that if northern Unionists ‘do not want to be
to introduce the Mother and Child Scheme had a far greater influence in reinforcing northern unionists’ Failed campaigns, 1948–1969 75 attitudes to the Republic than the international anti-partition tour the Government sponsored during this time. Similarly, a domestic dispute within a mixed marriage in Wexford’s Fethard on Sea in 1957 escalated into a brief but highly publicised saga closely observed in the North.47 Put simply, after refusing the local priest’s demands that she raise her offspring as Catholics, a Protestant mother absconded with the children