Blog 8 and the IRA

During the course of British history the state has been involved in more political violence than you can count. The state was basically founded on interstate and civil war. A fairly recent instance of political violence against the United Kingdom is that provided by the Irish Republican Army or IRA. The formation and journey of the IRA is a somewhat unique one that may challenge the definition of certain forms of political violence.

The IRA first came into existence soon after World War One ended, and the Irish war of independence which started in the year 1919.¹ This organization was basically raised by the Irish people to lead them in the war for their independence, or in other words, their revolution. Comparative politics (by D. Samuels) describes a revolution as “an armed conflict within a sovereign state between insurgents and the state, in which both insurgents and the state claim the allegiance of a significant proportion of the population”. The book also explains that revolutions end in the forcible transfer of power from state to insurgents and a change politically. Based off of the first half of this definition, I have no problem categorizing the IRA and the war of Irish independence as a revolution; it’s the last half that throws a small kink in that categorization. The book states that “authority over the state is forcibly transferred to the insurgents”², but what if only a portion of the state was turned over, which happens to be the case here? As it turns out, Great Britain gave up all but six counties of Ireland¹ (which is today known as Northern Ireland, and is still part of the UK). Personally I believe it doesn’t change my categorization of these events, but maybe the definition could be tweaked slightly. It could express that the whole state need not be turned over, but enough to form a separate country from the mother state, which seems to be the important outcome of a revolution.

What is highly unique about the IRA is that after the war the better part of the people were content with the 26 counties they had won back from England, but there were still a good number that would not be satisfied until all of Ireland was freed. Without the backing it received prior to the war, in 1931 the IRA had to turn to different tactics: the tactics of a terrorist organization. They began bombing, ambushing and even assassinating not only Northern Ireland, but UK and continental European targets as well, taking over 1,800 lives (600 of which were civilians).¹ This seems to fall right in line with D. Samuels’ definition of terrorism which describes it as the “threat of or actual violence for political purposes by non-state actors, directed particularly against civilian targets”. I don’t think there could be a more perfect description of what the IRA was doing than that.

What intrigues me however, are the opportunities and interests of terrorists given in the book. The IRA was not fighting a religious battle, nor did they mix “welfare and warfare”, so the only opportunity that matches the book is the fact that they were targeting a hard state. I think that more explanations could be offered as to why groups turned to terrorism. For example, in this case it may have been a strong feeling of being wronged by England that gave the IRA incentive to turn to terrorism. Maybe the younger members were conditioned by the older, more eccentric members of the IRA to kick out the UK at all costs. The point is, I do not believe that all the prevalent reasons to turn to terrorism are listed in D. Samuels’ book.

So all in all, I am satisfied with the definitions given in our textbook concerning the IRA (baring that slight adjustment to revolution). However, I think there are opportunities and incentives that may have been left out, which give the ‘why’ to the definition. An important aspect if we are to try and halt political violence.