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Showing posts with label Dieter Reinisch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dieter Reinisch. Show all posts
Dieter Reinisch ✒Analysis: Paulo Freire's writings enabled IRA prisoners to perform a more active role in the outside republican movement and the peace process than in previous decades and given his influence, he could be considered the peace process's hidden enabler.


19th September marked the 100th birthday of the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire. The Socialist-Catholic Freire is best known for his radical approach to pedagogy. His innovative education influenced activists and educators around the globe, was also an inspiration for IRA prisoners in the H-Blocks and shaped the peace process.

Paulo Freire was born on 19th September 1921 in the northeast of Brazil. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Recife in 1959. Two years later, he became the director of the Department of Cultural Extension at his Alma Mater. At Recife, he was involved in educational projects dealing with mass illiteracy. During those years, Freire developed and practised his radically democratic pedagogy.

'Educate to liberate'

Freire’s method was not just about teaching literacy; he also understood education as a process of politicisation. Freire was convinced that educating the masses would eventually lead to liberation from the oppressor.

Having been forced into exile by the military dictatorship in 1964, he moved to Chile, where he wrote his most influential book, the Portuguese best-seller Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 

Continue reading @ RTÉ.

Paulo Freire ➖ The Brazilian Educator Who Shaped Prisoners In The Maze

Dixie Elliot ✒ takes a different view from Dieter Reinisch on the linkage between the Portlaoise and H-Block hunger strikes.  

Portlaoise Prison had nothing to do with the hunger strikes in the H Blocks.

In February 1979 the prison authorities moved most of the Blanket leadership to H6 in an attempt at breaking the protest. They believed that leaving the other three blocks, H3, H4 and H5 without a leadership would see the protest fall apart. Fortunately other men stepped in to take on leadership roles but this move by the authorities had made an impact.

I was not on the H Block leadership but I was moved to H6 along with my cell mate, until that time, Big Tom McElwee.

This wing in H6 included Bobby Sands, Brendan Hughes, Bik McFarlane, Larry Marley, Seanna Walsh and Big Tom.

I was put into a cell with Seanna Walsh who kept me updated on the thinking of those men who would meet at mass on Sundays to discuss how things were going and how best to move forward.

After this move the screws really went to work on the lads in the other three H Blocks in an attempt to break them, particularly the youngest prisoners who were in H3.

Men began to leave the protest as they just couldn't go on with the daily beatings and starvation and no one could blame them.

Around about March in 1979 someone left the protest and this had a huge impact on the morale of the men, as this person, now deceased, was up there with Bobby, the Dark, Larry etc. He had spent time with them in the cages and he was a character who everyone looked up to in awe.

At first the leadership tried saying he had left in order to bring men who were conforming back onto the protest but it soon became clear that this was not the case.

After this men began saying that if he could be broken then there's no hope for us and many began to leave.

Seanna told me the Dark had said if it continued like that we'd be left with about 100 men stuck in a corner of the H Blocks and forgotten about; that we needed to change tactics. Talk turned to moving into the confirming wings and wrecking the system from within.

The only thing which prevented this from happening was the fact that we would have to don the prison uniform and this just wasn't something to be considered.

Had we got to wear our own clothes at all times the Blanket protest would have ended and we would have begun a new battle to gain everything else.

In September that year, 1979, the prison authorities moved us back into the other three H Blocks again but surprisingly they moved most of the leadership into the one wing in H3. And I was in that wing, as was Big Tom. I remained in it until the protest ended in October 1981 after the hunger strike fell apart due to pressure from the hunger strikers' families.

It was during the time from September 1979 that the leadership of Bobby, Dark, Bik and Richard O'Rawe began to discuss an option they never wanted to look at - the hunger strike.

They had no other choice. It was that or conforming by wearing the prison uniform - as men were leaving at an alarming rate.

Our backs were against the wall and the nightmare of seeing brave men going on hunger strike had begun.

The first hunger strike fell apart and so Bobby embarked on a second one using different tactics. Instead of a group of men going on hunger strike together, thus risking it falling apart should a number come off it, he choose to stagger it out with him going first, thus ensuring his would be the first death.

Those were terrible times as we watched men leaving our wings who would never return again.

It had nothing to do with Portlaoise Prison.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Hunger Strikes ➖ Portlaoise and The H-Blocks Not Linked

Dieter Reinisch ✒  Analysis: The circumstances which led to Bobby Sands embarking on a hunger strike in Northern Ireland in 1981 all started with the move of the republican prisoners from Mountjoy Prison to Portlaoise Prison.


This year marks the 40th anniversary of the hunger strikes in the H-Blocks of HMP Maze, Co Antrim. On 1st March 1981, Provisional IRA Volunteer Robert "Bobby" Sands embarked on a hunger strike. A series of hunger strikes by men in the H-Blocks and women in Armagh Women's Gaol had not brought the desired outcome in the previous autumn.
 
Portlaoise Prison in 1974
After 66 days, Sands died on 5th May. Nine more republican prisoners, three of whom were members of the socialist Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), died in the hunger strikes. While on hunger strike, Sands was elected as a republican candidate in the Fermanagh/South Tyrone by-elections.

The 1981 hunger strikes brought the prison struggle that had started with the opening of the H-Blocks, a modern high-security prison that replaced the huts of Long Kesh internment camp, to a dramatic conclusion. Since 1976, republican prisoners had embarked on the blanket- and no-wash-protests to demand recognition as political prisoners.

The 1981 hunger strikes of PIRA and INLA prisoners are a defining moment in Irish history that brought the Troubles to a wider international audience.

The circumstances which led to the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland started with the move of the republican prisoners from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin to Portlaoise Prison, Co Laois, on 9th November 1973. 

In 1972, the Irish state introduced the second Prison Act. While the focus of the first one in 1970 was a modernisation of the prison system aiming at rehabilitation, the later one reflected "a general hardening of attitude towards republican activity".

While republican prisoners enjoyed a special status in the Republic’s prisons since 1916, this situation changed with the outbreak of the Troubles. In the autumn of 1969, the republican movement had split into an Official and a Provisional wing; a significant fraction of the Mountjoy prisoners belonged to the armed wing of the Provisionals, the PIRA.

By 1973, 130 people had been arrested and convicted for republican activities. In June 1972, William Whitelaw, who had become the first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in March, introduced special category status for both republican and loyalist prisoners following the hunger strike of senior Belfast republican Billy McKee.

The government in the Republic followed one year later. In the summer of 1973, following a hunger strike that lasted 22 days, privileges that amounted to "special category status" were granted to the republican prisoners in Mountjoy.

Portlaoise Hunger Strikes

Riots and hunger strikes were the two dominant forms of prison protest used by republicans before the blanket protests in September 1976.

Following the helicopter escape in October 1973, about 130 prisoners were moved to Portlaoise. One year later, 71 prisoners were affiliated to the PIRA in Portlaoise. 

With the transfer to Portlaoise, the prisoners had lost the privileges they had previously won by embarking on various prison protests in Mountjoy in 1972/73.

However, following days of intense negotiations between management and prisoners, special category status and all other concessions previously granted to them were also introduced in Portlaoise.

The relatively peaceful atmosphere was to be short-lived. Tensions and regular clashes between prison staff and republicans led to the reinforcement of the physical security of the prison in four ways:

1) Armed guards patrolled the perimeter walls day and night
2) Barbed wire had been mounted extensively around the prison
3) Perimeter security was further ensured by a military presence of both soldiers and equipment
4) On each segregated landing with the prison, officers of the Garda Síochána complemented prison personnel.

It was under those circumstances that the prison protests in Portlaoise unfolded.

December 1974 and January 1975

The simmering tensions exploded in riots in the days after Christmas 1974, followed by a hunger strike in the following month. During the protests, 27 prison guards were held hostage for six hours by around 140 prisoners.

The prisoners used doors, mattresses, and furniture to barricade themselves inside a cellblock of the E-wing that housed republicans. The prison authorities called in 600 police officers and army soldiers to surround the building.

Following the conclusion of this riot, prisoners lost further rights: the lock-up time was changed from 10pm to 8pm, and only one book was allowed in the cells at a time.

As a direct consequence of this situation, eight prisoners embarked on a hunger strike on 3rd January 1975. The strike lasted for 44 days and only ended after prisoner Pat Ward was admitted to hospital in a critical condition. 

On the 30th day of the hunger strike, the prisoners were moved to the Curragh Military Hospital, and on the 42nd day, the conditions of two hunger strikers, Pat Ward and Colm Daltún, deteriorated seriously – with doctors believing them to be within hours of death.

Following public pressure, Government officials entered into negotiations with the prisoners and agreed to restore some form of "special category status".

Nonetheless, further hunger strikes continued in October 1975 and January 1976. In a press release from 14 December 1975, the PIRA-linked Irish Republican Information Service complained about the "inhuman condition", referring to a statement smuggled out of prison by then PIRA O/C in Portlaoise, Dáithí O’Conaill.

The 1977 Hunger Strikes

In the summer of 1976, the situation further deteriorated when three prisoners escaped during a court hearing. The prisoners had used explosives smuggled into the prison to blow a hole in the courthouse wall. This led to intensified strip-searches and a reduction of visits. In protest, the prisoners attempted to burn the prison on 21 July.

The situation eventually exploded in another hunger strike. On 7 March 1977, 20 PIRA prisoners went on a fast which lasted 47 days; less than a dozen stayed on until the end.

On 22 April, the hunger strike ended after 47 days without concessions following a visit to the prison by Bishop James Kavanagh. Throughout the year, the Fianna Fáil government improved conditions in prison.

Yet, these new developments were not enough for the prisoners who started to refuse all privileges except visits from September on. The prisoners demanded free association and an end to strip-searching. In an internal report, the authorities noted that there was a danger of a riot in prison.

Therefore, to ease the tensions, the prison authorities ended the strip-searches, lock-ups were agreed for 8:30pm, the prisoners were granted one late night every five to six weeks, tapes and records for language studies were allowed in the cells, and the tuck shop was improved. The concessions convinced the prisoners to end their protest.

While the prisoners did not manage to attain their ultimate aim of "political status", they had secured de-facto "special category status", and the conditions unquestionably improved over the four years of protest.

With the conclusion of the protests in the Republic, the blanket protests had started in the H-Blocks, and republicans were shifting their attention to Northern Irish prisons.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

Dieter Reinisch is a Historian of contemporary Irish history at the National University of Ireland in Galway, and an Adjunct Professor in International Relations at Webster University.
 

How Portlaoise Prison Set The Stage For The H-Blocks Hunger Strike

Dieter Reinisch spoke with Saoradh after the arrests of party activists earlier this week in a Joint PSNI-Garda operation. Sine the interview a number of people have been charged by the PSNI. This is what the party told Dieter Reinisch.

On Friday morning, a tenth member of the radical Irish republican party Saoradh was arrested in Glasgow and the car of an activist seized by the PSNI in East Tyrone. I spoke to a party representative from Dublin about the ongoing Operation Arbacia, house searches and arrests of Saoradh members. Here is what he told me.

On Tuesday, August 18, the Northern Irish PSNI, assisted by An Garda Síochána in the southern 26 Counties, the Republic of Ireland, arrested nine leading members of the radical Irish republican party Saoradh (Liberation). The arrests were made while several houses of Saoradh members were searched in Derry, East Tyrone, and North Armagh.

In the South, Gardaí searched the homes of six republicans in Dublin, Cork, Kerry and Laois. Most of those singled out for house searches and arrests were former republican prisoners. All nine members, seven men and two women, aged between 26 and 50, are still questioned at Musgrave Serious Crime Suite in Belfast. There were no arrests made by An Garda Síochána.

BBC Northern Ireland reported that the MI5 directs the Operation Arbacia. In a statement on Friday, the PSNI informed that the operation is “ongoing”. On Thursday, all four Saoradh offices in Derry, Newry, Belfast, and Dungannon were searched. On Friday morning in Scotland, a tenth Saoradh member was arrested following a search of his family home in Glasgow.

All ten are held under the British Terrorism Act and remain in custody. The authorities were granted an additional 72 hours to question the nine people held in Belfast by Judge Pat Lynch QC. This extension will end at 2 pm on Saturday.

This major cross-border operation against the republican party Saoradh is one of the most significant operations against republican activists in many years. Over several months the security service increasingly turned their attention on Saoradh activists, particularly in Derry and Strabane. The use of house searches and arrests in Scotland and both parts of Ireland suggests that this operation is aimed at breaking Saoradh.

The operation primarily focuses on leadership figures of the lawful political party in the Northern jurisdiction. At the same time, a spokeswoman for An Garda Síochána said that “there were no plans to make arrests [in the Republic of Ireland]”. Security service statements emphasise that the operation is directed against the activities of the so-called “New IRA”, or “the IRA”. Arresting these political activists under the Terrorism Act in an operation supposedly target the New IRA is intended to establish clear evidence of overlapping membership of the lawful party Saoradh and the proscribed paramilitary organisation IRA. If the security service succeeds in making this link, it will serve as a pretext to proscribe Saoradh.

In a statement, PRO Paddy Gallagher from Derry stressed that Saoradh is a lawful political party: 

Since the formation of Saoradh, the British and Free State governments have used an array of draconian measures to suppress the party. By targeting party members, their families and supporters, the oppressor has sought to bully the party out of existence. The MI5-led operation which has witnessed the detainment of several members throughout Derry, Tyrone, Armagh and further raids in Dublin, Cork and Kerry is another example of targeted attacks in a futile attempt to stop the growth of our party.

Alex McCrory, a prominent republican activist and former prisoners from Belfast, said:

Such a level of cross-border coordination and cooperation is unprecedented in recent years. Undoubtedly, it is made eminently more possible by the appointment of Drew Harris as the Top Cop in the twenty-six counties. Harris may have donned a Free State uniform, but he is a British cop at heart. In this instance, he would have bent over backwards to assist his former employer.

Saoradh has issued two statements since the start of the operation on Tuesday, and Belfast member Dee Fennell appeared on UTV during the PSNI search of the Belfast office.

While media attention has focused mainly on the developments in Northern Ireland, I spoke to a representative of Saoradh in Dublin about the situation south of the border. The activist is an influential member of the party but wants to remain anonymous: “If my name appears in the media today, my house is on the list for a raid tomorrow morning.”

In Dublin, the houses of two party activists were searched:

The operation was an attack on former prisoners. Only former prisoners were singled out, but nothing was found. This is plain harassment of prisoners that is going on for years.

Funds for republican prisoners held in the high-security prisons Maghaberry and Portlaoise are raised through the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependents’ Association (IRPWA). There are about 30 prisoners looked after by the IRPWA in Portlaoise. “One prisoner who was recently released from Portlaoise lost his job because of the constant harassment from the Gardaí Special Branch.”

He was particularly outraged about the way the searches were conducted:

The armed Emergency Response Unit conducted the searches. This Saoradh member has a partner with severe back problems. Because of that she was up and looked out of the window and saw the whole street and the front yard filled with armed Gardaí of the Emergency Response Unit. They placed big flashlights outside the house. She immediately knew what was going on.

Over the past years, I had several meetings with the Saoradh members whose house was searched in Crumlin; some of these meetings had to be postponed due to the health issues and hospital appointments of his partner.

Despite these severe health issues, they assaulted her and forced her on the ground. That was at 5 in the morning. Because of the noise, the neighbours came out on the street. All they are doing with these raids is harming the community. Some of the neighbours immediately objected to the raids and protested.

I asked him why he thinks that Saoradh was targeted this week:

They want to damage the standing of our activists in the communities. They are worried that Saoradh is successful in community work, so they want to alienate Saoradh within the communities.

In the months before the outbreak of the Pandemic, Saoradh increasingly turned their attention on social issues, such as the Island-wide housing crisis. Over the last couple of weeks, Saoradh was active in confronting right-wingers in Belfast and Dublin, teaming up with other Socialists and Irish Antifa activists.

Journalist John Mooney recently quoted a Garda source in the Times, saying that republicans are:

attracting young people on a variety of political issues including globalisation and anti-capitalism. The people who are joining are not just traditional republicans but more left-wing activists. 

“But there is also another reason, why this operation has begun”, the Saoradh representative said:

It is a PR exercise by the police that they can say they are targeting ‘the dissidents’. We are amid a pandemic that is about to lead to a recession, and this is their way to show to the politicians: ‘We need more money.’

He then turns his attention to another topic regularly highlighted by Saoradh – Ireland as a global tax haven for multinational companies: 

We had the massive financial crisis in 2008. Bankers and property developers were throwing taxpayers money out of the window; corruption and criminality were ongoing for years. How many banks have been raided? How many houses of the top bank managers have been raided? How many have been convicted for their criminal actions that led to the current social crisis? None, absolutely none.

I want to move on to the next question, but he insists:

This was a long-planned, well-coordinated operation. You would need hundreds of personnel for such a big operation. We are regularly told by the government that there are no resources to tackle anti-social behaviour and drugs. Still, they can find more than one hundred Gardaí to smash in the doors of political activists at 5 in the morning.

Saoradh was officially formed in Newry in autumn 2016. The aim was to build an Ireland-wide radical republican alternative to the Good Friday Agreement and Sinn Féin. Some of the leading members are experienced republicans who were active in the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin during the conflict in Northern Ireland. They were joined by a young generation of republicans, overwhelmingly from urban working-class areas, effected by youth unemployment and social issues, who see no perspective in the current political settlement.

Earlier that year, some of those who later formed Saoradh organised a march in commemoration of the centenary of the 1916-rising. Up to 4.000 people marched behind 50 women and men in paramilitary-like uniforms through rural Coalisland in County Tyrone. The main speaker of the event was former republican prisoner Davy Jordan who later became the first chairperson of the party. Jordan has since been succeeded by Dublin-man Brian Kenna but remains in the national leadership of Saoradh.

The Pandemic forced Saoradh to cancel their parades in 2020, but at Easter 2019, still up to 1.000 people marched at their national Easter commemoration outside the GPO in Dublin.

So how will the recent house searches and arrests impact the work of Saoradh, I ask: 

I believe that these raids will not affect Dublin. It will make our members more determined. Yes, these times are worrying, it is always worrying when the state comes down so heavy on a political grouping, but this will make us more determined to get our message out.

He continues: 

Raids are done for two reasons: One, is to alienate our activists in communities. When people see heavy raids like that, they go: ‘Oh my God, what have they done? They must be up to something for them to do something like that.’ So, the first reason is to alienate us within our own communities. The second reason is to put people off joining us. When people hear about raids like that, it puts some people off from joining us.

He then talks about the consequences in the North:

Obviously, the arrests in the 6 Counties are a lot more worrying because people are still in custody and the security service may bring in trumped-up charges. This will mean that they will be taken out of circulation politically from anywhere between now and two years. That is worrying.

Although this is a more sober and, probably, more honest assessment, it echoes what Paddy Gallagher from Derry said: “The more Saoradh resists, the more pressure is applied. Likewise, the more pressure that is applied, the more Saoradh will resist.”

However, with the arrest of ten leading members of Saoradh, the threat of charges is still hanging over the party. If some of their national leadership members are charged under the Terrorism Act, only time will tell if and how Saoradh can recover from such a blow. 

Dieter Reinisch is a Historian of contemporary Irish history at the National University of Ireland in Galway, and an Adjunct Professor in International Relations at Webster University. 



Operation Arbacia Clamps Down On Saoradh

Dieter Reinisch writing in Times Higher Education discusses the measures used by prison managements to curb the intellectual development of prisoners.

Readers of Paul Basken’s recent feature in Times Higher Education on prisoner education in the US could be forgiven for assuming that foolish restrictions on inmates’ access to college-level courses is a uniquely American phenomenon.

As the article sets out, the positive effect that reading and education has on prisoners has been well established by scholarly research  and by prison initiatives themselves. That has not stopped New Jersey from recently adding more titles to its list of books off limits to inmates. Nor has it prevented the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the governor of HMP Maghaberry from banning certain books requested by prisoners seeking to further their education.

Continue reading @ Times Higher Education


Dieter Reinisch is a historian at the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum, 
and a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, in Budapest.

Prisoners Need Full Access To Higher Education

Dieter Reinisch went to the Saoradh party conference to see where radical republicanism is going. The article featured in The Journal.

Saoradh is an attempt to give a political face to the growing republican dissent in nationalist areas north of the border, writes Dieter Reinisch.
Members of Saoradh marching on the 103rd anniversary of the 1916 Rising earlier this year.
The Radical Republican party Saoradh held its fourth Ard Fheis in Newry last weekend, and although many observers consider it the unregistered political wing of the New IRA, party members continue to deny this.

Formed in 2016, Saoradh is the newest and most influential republican group opposed to the Good Friday Agreement. The party is an attempt to give a political face to the growing republican dissent in nationalist areas north of the border.

Following a large commemoration on the Easter Rising centenary in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, that attracted over 3,000 participants, Saoradh as a political vehicle was formed.

The decommissioning of the Provisional IRA took place in 2005, while the Northern Irish police service (PSNI) was accepted at an extraordinary Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in January 2007.

Over the following decade, militant republicans, many of them experienced members of the Provisionals, joined with members of so-called dissident republicans to form the New IRA in 2012.

The past year has been a dense period for militant republicanism. In January, the New IRA detonated a car bomb outside a Derry courthouse on the occasion of the 1919-Soloheadbeg ambush.

Before Easter, a New IRA member fatally injured journalist Lyra McKee during riots in the Creggan area of Derry. In a statement, the New IRA offered “full and sincere” apologies for her killing.

Statements regarding the killing were read at Saoradh commemorations, and the group called the killing “heartbreaking”, saying that McKee was killed accidentally while a republican volunteer “attempted to defend people from the PSNI/RCU”.

Many observers expected, or rather hoped for, a decline of the party in the aftermaths of the killing.

Due to the activity of the New IRA in the past year, fears of increasing violence over Brexit and a hard border dominated the public debate. In a recent Channel 4 interview, a New IRA spokesperson warned of attacks on any border infrastructure.

In this situation, this year’s Saoradh Ard Fheis provided a crucial window into the state of radical republicanism.

The Ard Fheis

Over 150 delegates assembled on Saturday afternoon in Newry for the conference.

Among them were Saoradh chairperson Brian McKenna, a former IRA prisoner from Dublin, and vice-chairperson Mandy Duffy from Lurgan – both were re-elected in their positions.

Other attendees were Dee Fennell from Belfast, Paddy Gallagher from Derry, and Davy Jordan and Sharon Jordan, both Tyrone.

Thomas Ashe Mellon, who recently spoke at a press conference about house raids and stop-and-search practices in Derry, was another delegate. The Derry office, Junior McDaid House, was searched by the PSNI two days before the party conference took place.

While Brexit occupies the public debate, it merely played a minor role at the Ard Fheis.

“There was hardly any debate on Brexit, our position is clear and has not changed,” explained national public relations officer Paddy Gallagher.

In his address, Brian McKenna stated:

Saoradh supports an exit from the super-imperialist EU, this has been a long-standing revolutionary position. We see Brexit as a defeat for the business and political elite of Britain, Ireland and Europe.


This should not be interpreted that Saoradh is a pro-Brexit party. Instead, as McKenna outlined in an interview after the publication of the party’s Brexit policy, Saoradh has a largely defeatist view on Brexit.

While the party welcomes the chaos brought to the UK, the party’s goal remains a united Ireland, with or without Brexit. This unified island should then leave the EU.

This anti-EU stance is, indeed, a long-standing republican position developed since the Sinn Féin opposition to the European Economic Community (EEC) – the former name for the EU – in the 1960s.

Sinn Féin itself was a strong opponent of the Lisbon and Nice treaties and only later became an ardent supporter of the EU.

Since its formation, Saoradh was only partially able to provide a political face to their movement. Their Brexit document remains the sole position paper. “We are still in a self-finding process. We are intensely discussing the future direction of the party,” a delegate explained.

In her address, party vice-chairperson Mandy Duffy said that “a series of all-day conferences to debate and form a consensus on policy regarding the issues of drugs, abortion, housing and elections” were held. Whether this will result in further policy documents remains to be seen.

The speeches stressed a democratic-socialist ideology. Strikingly, the word nationalism was largely omitted, instead replaced by revolutionary republicanism. Another term that often appeared was internationalism.

Speakers stressed the links they saw with the Palestinian struggle. A message was read from Issam Hijjawi of the Palestine Democratic Forum in Europe.

The Palestinian delegate was detained at Madrid airport on his way to the event. Greetings were also heard from Scotland and Sweden.

Overall, the party was satisfied with the outcome of the weekend, with one delegate saying “we come out of the Ard Fheis with a clear message for the coming year”.

The killing of Lyra McKee was only mentioned once at the conference.

Mandy Duffy said in her speech:

Easter 2019 proved a very difficult time for the party and for Irish republicanism, the death of Lyra McKee killed tragically by the IRA while defending a Derry community under siege by the British Crown Forces was swiftly and cynically used against Irish republicans.

Another delegate said: “We lost members after the death of Lyra McKee, but we were still able to grow.”

New branches of the party in South Derry, North Antrim, and Scotland and the opening of an office in Newry were announced.

Saoradh is strongest in deprived Catholic areas in Belfast and Derry, as well as areas in rural areas such as North Armagh and East Tyrone. It also witnessed growth in Dublin, while the rest of the Republic remains underrepresented.

The weekend showed that since the killing of McKee, Saoradh consolidated. While observers hoped for the decline of the party in the aftermaths of her death, the party experienced slow but steady growth.

For many in Ireland, the most worrying message that the radical republican party sent from Newry is that it has found its place among traditional republicans and disillusioned youth on both sides of the border, and it is prepared to stay there for many years to come.

Dr Dieter Reinisch is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University and an adjunct professor in International Relations at Webster University.


Dieter Reinisch is a historian at the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum, 
and a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, in Budapest.

Saoradh Ard Fheis 2019

Dieter Reinisch with a review that originally appeared in An Spréach, issue 4, April-June 2019. 

On 6 May 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke, two of the highest representatives of the British colonial administration in Ireland, were stabbed to death by a conspirative group within the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish National Invincibles. A new book by the late Shane Kenna sheds light on these assassinations, its circumstances, and the trials that followed this event.

The assassination of Cavendish and Burke sent shockwaves through the British Empire. The assassination is a classic example of what David Rapoport described as the first wave of political violence in the modern era. This first “anarchist wave” is characterised by individual political violence and high-profile assassinations from Tsarists Russia to the Habsburg Empire. As in the succeeding two waves, the anti-colonial struggle of Irish Republicans was at the forefront of this wave.

The Irish National Invincibles occupy a prominent role in the current mythologization of the bygone militant struggle among Republicans upholding the right to wage armed resistance in 21st century Ireland. A tight-knit, well-disciplined group of conspirators staging a high-profile “blow against the Empire”, as the late Ruairí Ó Brádaigh called it, attracts many militant Republicans today.

The 2015 publication of Heroes and Villains: The Rise and Fall of the Invincibles by Irish Freedom Press in Dublin serves as one notable example. The author, Seán Óg Ó Mórdha, is a former POW who served time in Portlaoise Prison during the 1990s for charges related to the Continuity IRA.

Earlier this year, O’Brien Press published a detailed and highly readable book on the same topic by the late Shane Kenna. Kenna sadly passed away in February 2017. At the time of his death at the age of 33, he had already established himself as one of the specialists of Fenianism and late Victorian Republicanism. His books included a study of the Irish-American Fenians and a biography of O’Donovan Rossa.

His deep knowledge of Republicanism of this period is reflected in the book. The first chapters explain the social and political context that gave rise to the Invincibles, the day of the assassination, and the investigations. The second half of the book provides a detailed account of the trials and the executions.

Readers already familiar with the subject will find new insight for Kenna provides fresh understanding, based on detailed research. He quotes lengthy from archival documents, statements, and pamphlets. The editors of the book, Liz Gillis, Gerry Shannon, and Aidan Lambert deserve praise for turning Kenna’s manuscript into this volume.

In Kenna’s contextualisation of the Invincibles lies the significance for Republican activists today. Several Republicans would consider themselves as modern Invincibles; the militant vanguard that stands in opposition to a much larger, opportunistic nationalist movement. While this may be true in terms of ideology and commitment to scarify one’s own liberty for the freedom of a nation, the Invincibles were the radical outburst during a time of social revolution. Despite the social protest in recent years – water charges, anti-eviction, etc. – Ireland faces no large-scale civil unrest comparable to the Land Wars, and no pre-revolutionary movements attract mass support as the Land League did. To be sure, while ideological continuity persists, the tactics do not reflect economic and social developments.

The Invincibles is a timely publication. The National Graves Association launched a campaign to reinter the remains of the Invincibles, currently buried in Kilmainham Gaol and give them a dignified burial in Glasnevin Cemetery. Writing in the afterword, Aidan Lambert, secretary of the Invincibles Re-internment Committee explains: 

We made a pledge that post the 2016 celebrations, we would campaign with the NGA to have the remains of Joseph Brady, Daniel Curley, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey and Timothy Kelly exhumed from the prison yard where have lain since 1883.
The Irish National Invincibles were executed for being Irish Republicans. As such, they fought for the establishment of an independent Republic, as women and men did all over Europe in the 19th century, from Hungary and Italy to Poland and Russia. They understood their actions against the colonial rule as their chosen medium to communicate these aims. In that regard, they were no different from Roger Casement. However, while Casement is remembered as an early advocate of modern human rights who received a state funeral when his remains were finally repatriated in 1966, the five Irish National Invincibles are still hidden in Kilmainham Gaol almost inaccessible to their descendants and the public.

As Irishmen who were executed by a foreign ruler for their fight for the independence of their country from colonial rule, they deserve to be honoured accordingly. Shane Kenna’s book will strengthen the NGA campaign’s argument to honour the Invincibles as true anti-colonial fighters against British colonialism in Ireland.

The Invincibles: The Phoenix Park Assassinations and the Conspiracy that Shook an Empire by Shane Kenna includes a foreword by Liz Gillis and an introduction by Ruan O'Donnell. It was published in February 2019 by O’Brien Press, Dublin.


Dieter Reinisch is a historian at the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum, 
and a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, in Budapest.

The Invincibles


Dieter Reinisch writing for Writing The "Troubles" discusses the use of a term like psychopath to describe the mindset of IRA volunteers like Dolours Price.
(Image: PPCC Antifa Flickr Account)
The recent RTÉ screening of the I, Dolours documentary, directed by Maurice Sweeney, received much media attention in Ireland and was reviewed by several national newspapers, including the Irish Times, Irish Independent, and Irish Mirror. The documentary is, indeed, a gripping, and at times disturbing, insight into the history of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’, and into the mind of arguably one of its main protagonists. The public reaction to the documentary provides important challenges for those writing the history of the ‘Troubles’.

I have researched Irish republican women, as I described in a previous article for this blog. Thus, unsurprisingly, many friend and colleagues have mentioned this new documentary about Provisional IRA Volunteer and outspoken critic of the peace process Dolours Price to me. I was led to believe that almost everyone in Ireland had watched it? And, for many this was the first time they had seen (or read) the testimony of a woman involved in paramilitary activity during the conflict.

This explains some of the terms used to describe Dolours Price and her testimony to me; they ranged from ‘hard-line’ and ‘extreme’ to ‘soulless’, ‘mental’, and ‘psychopath’. For most, her account of the disappearance of Jean McConville was particularly disturbing; people were genuinely shocked by what she said. While acknowledging that Price was at the time of the interview struggling to cope with her past, suffering from PTSD, as many other former actors of the conflict, the refusal to condemn the killing of Jean McConville stuck out as one of the most shocking scenes.[1] The reactions to her account reflect two key challenges for researchers: countering the prevailing gender stereotypes and understanding the individual choices for political violence.

The documentary is based on interviews conducted by renowned journalist Ed Moloney; also the lead researcher of the ill-fated Boston College Oral History Project. In 2010, he published a volume containing the testimonies of two participants: Belfast IRA man Brendan Hughes and the loyalist PUP founder David Ervine. In essence, the content of Hughes’ interpretation of the events surrounding the disappearance of Jean McConville from her Divis flat in front of her nine children, her transport south of the border, and the subsequent killing and burying on a beach in Co Louth is almost identical to the interpretation provided by Price in I, Dolours.

While the publication of Voices from the Grave also received considerable media attention, including front-page coverage over several days in the Irish News, people and commentators discussed the content of the interviews rather than how they were made. This stands in stark contrast to the public dismay and outcry at Dolours interview: how could a woman feel so little remorse for what she did. Hence, if she doesn’t feel sorry for the disappearance of McConville and apologises, she must be a psychopath.

This reaction reflects the prevailing gender stereotypes linked to activism during the Northern Ireland conflict. These gender stereotypes existed in the media at the time, in coverage of the sisters’ arrest for the Old Bailey bombing in March 1973, and in dire warnings about the use of women as ‘honey traps’. However, they have been allowed to continue to influence how we understand female republicans by scholars’ decade-long negligence of women in (Northern) Irish paramilitary organisations. In the early 1980s, Margaret Ward broke ground with her study of women activism in Ireland in the early 20th century. Her book, Unmanageable Revolutionaries, set the research agenda for the following decades and still does.[2] Her seminal work, however, stretches only until the 1940s; thus, militant women activism after 1945 remained under the radar of researchers.

In the past decade, several important publications have contributed to closing this research gap on republican women as paramilitary activists during the ‘Troubles’; among those are the works of Miranda Alison, Sikata Banerjee, Tara Keenan-Thomson, Theresa O’Keefe, Azrini Wahidin, and most recently Niall Gilmartin, but this remains an under-developed corner of the field.[3] There exists an even wider gap in the research of loyalist women, an area almost entirely unresearched.[4]

As a result of this, merely a handful of prominent women were singled out by writers, who portray them as the exceptions, while overlooking the vast majority of women activists in republican organisations. The German book by Cologne-based former journalist Marianna Quoirin-Wichert is one example. Quoirin-Wichert devotes separate chapters to distinct hard-line republican women such as Marian and Dolours Price, Rose Dugdale, and Josephine Hayden. Other women singled out as exceptional republicans by other writers are Mairéad Farrell, Máire Drumm, Ella O’Dwyer, or Martina Anderson.

There is a widespread myth, that when the male-only Provisional IRA Army Council passed a resolution to accept women into the PIRA in September 1971, the Price sisters Marian and Dolours, opposing the secondary role of the women’s organisation Cumann na mBan in the Provisional movement, joined as the first two female volunteers.[5] In fact, Marian and Dolours were among a group of three young women who applied to join their local PIRA unit in West Belfast. Several women were to follow serving their movement on all levels; to be sure, they undertook the same paramilitary and non-paramilitary activities as men from the mid-1970s onward. While this did not make women equal members of the Provisionals, it made Dolours one of many women who were actively involved in paramilitary activities. As such, these women showed the same persuasion to the republican struggle as men did.

The testimonies included in I, Dolours reflect this loyal conviction to the republican struggle rather than the words of a psychopath. In his most recent book, Richard English reminds us that:

despite the doubts of some, a persuasive body of scholarly literature now suggests that those who engage in and support terrorism tend to display the same levels of rationality as do other people.[6]

This brings me to my second thought about the psychopath-comment. Dolours and her sister Marian grew up in a republican household in the nationalist neighbourhood Andersonstown in West Belfast. They were reportedly good at school; the sisters had a bright future ahead of them. When the Civil Rights Movement emerged, they became active, joining the peaceful People’s Democracy march from Belfast to Derry in January 1969. The attack on the march by loyalist protesters at Burntollet was a life-changing event for the sisters, which ultimately led them to join the PIRA.

In a recent article, Lorenzo Bosi and Niall Ó Dochartaigh explain that the identity rather than ideology was the main recruitment factor into the PIRA in the early 1970s. They argue:


that those who joined the Provisional IRA between 1969 and 1972 did so in order to respond to a need for action by a northern nationalist community that stemmed from a perceived, alleged or actual, sense of second-class citizenship.[7]

This ‘need for action’ resulted in the recruitment of Dolours Price into the PIRA. For these recruits, joining the PIRA meant joining an army and following orders. For them, this was a necessity to fight for their cause. It needs to be highlighted that loyalist and republican members of paramilitary organisations considered themselves as soldiers; being a soldier and following military orders does not make you a psychopath. So by sticking to this label, allowing it to influence what aspects of the ‘Troubles’ we research, we risk becoming blind to the nuances that women represent in their paramilitary organisations. On the contrary, as I outline in an article for the magazine Merkur, published earlier this year, these were ordinary people who did extraordinary things during exceptional times.[8]

This blog post intends to shed light on two key issues, which reactions to the I, Dolours documentary have illuminated. These are, first, the still under-researched role of republican and loyalist women in paramilitary organisations in Ireland and, second, the recruitment factors into and life in militant organisations. Investigating this will reveal that Dolours Price was not a ‘psychopath’ but a young woman who grew up in a particular place during a particular time, but will also give researchers a unique insight into the motivations behind individual members of the PIRA. We should make it our task, therefore, to research these two fields further to re-balance the gender history of the ‘Troubles’.

[1] Adrien Grounds & Ruth Jamieson, ‘No sense of an ending: Researching the experience of imprisonment and release among Republican ex-prisoners’, Theoretical Criminology 7(3), 2003, pp. 347-362.

[2] Margaret Ward, Unmanageable revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism, New Edition, London: Pluto Press, 1995.

[3] Miranda Alison, Women and political violence: Female combatants in ethno-national conflict, London: Routledge, 2009; Sikata Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism: Gender, Violence, and Empire in India and Ireland, 1914-2004, New York: NYU Press, 2012; Tara Keenan-Thomson, Irish women and street politics 1956-1973, Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010; Theresa O’Keefe, Feminist Identity Development and Activism in Revolutionary Movements, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013; Azrini Wahidin, Ex-Combatants, Gender and Peace in Northern Ireland: Women, Political Protest and the Prison Experience, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; Niall Gilmartin, Female Combatants After Armed Struggle: Lost in Transition?, London: Routledge, 2018.

[4] Miranda Alison, ‘”That’s equality for you, dear”: gender, small arms and the Northern Ireland conflict’; in V. Farr, H. Myrttinen & A. Schnabel (Eds.), Sexed pistols: the gendered impacts of small arms and light weapons, New York: United Nations University Press, 2009, pp. 211-45.

[5] Dieter Reinisch, ‘Women’s agency and political violence: Irish Republican women and the formation of the Provisional IRA, 1967–70’, Irish Political Studies, 2018.

[6] Richard English, Does Terrorism work?, Oxford: OUP, 2016.

[7] Lorenzo Bosi & Niall Ó Dochartaigh, ‘Armed activism as the enactment of a collective identity: the case of the Provisional IRA between 1969 and 1972’, Social Movement Studies, 17(1), pp. 35-47.

[8] Dieter Reinisch, ‘Nordirland: Die Gegenwart des Terrors‘, Merkur (839), pp. 84-91.


Dieter Reinisch is a historian at the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum, 
and a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, in Budapest.

I, Dolours … Broadcasting a Psychopath?

Though nobody has claimed the weekend bomb attack on the North’s police, it has all the hallmarks of republicans, says Dieter Reinisch in the Irish Examiner.

While no group has yet claimed the bomb attack on the PSNI and the ATO in Wattle Bridge, Co Fermanagh, the target and the deployed tactics point to militant republicans.

The bomb was the fifth attempt to kill a police officer in Northern Ireland this year.

Fermanagh is known for militant republicans. In 2009, the PSNI warned that villages Donagh and Newtownbutler had become “no-go-areas” due to the high intensity of militant republican activities.

Then, the main threats were the Real IRA (RIRA) and the Continuity IRA (CIRA).

There are now three republican groups involved in paramilitary activities. The New IRA (NIRA) is the biggest and most capable.

The smaller CIRA, however, attempted an attack on the PSNI in Co Armagh in July, and Arm na Poblachta is believed to have a small presence in Fermanagh.

Since January, the NIRA has claimed responsibility for a car bomb outside the Derry courthouse, a series of letter bombs in England and Scotland, the killing of Lyra McKee (during riots in Creggan), and an attempted attack on a PSNI officer in east Belfast.

The organisation formed in 2012, when former Provisional IRA (PIRA) members merged with the Derry/Strabane-based Republican Action Against Drugs and sections of the RIRA.

Its origins, however, stretch back to the decommissioning of the PIRA in 2005 (see Irish Examiner, April 27, 2019).

In late July, the smaller CIRA lured the PSNI to the outskirts of the Drumbeg estate, in Craigavon, Co Armagh. A previously placed mortar device failed to explode.

It was the first notable attack by the CIRA since they detonated a small amount of Semtex just before the Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) Easter commemoration in the Kilwilkee estate of the neighbouring town, Lurgan, on March 30, 2013.

The north Armagh unit is arguably the last pocket of the CIRA; though individual supporters remain active throughout the whole island.

In an attempted show of strength, the CIRA fired a volley of shots during the RSF commemoration in Carrickmore, Co Tyrone, during Easter 2019.

In June 2008, the CIRA injured two police officers via a landmine in Roslea, less than 10 miles from Wattle Bridge, the location of yesterday’s bomb.

Later that year, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported CIRA activity in nearby Lisnaskea and Newtownbutler.

However, CIRA and RSF lost their support in Fermanagh following a devastating split in 2010.

Fermanagh broke from the movement. CIRA has not been active since then, and RSF maintains no active cumann in the area, either. Nonetheless, the CIRA should not be ruled out as the group behind the recent attack.

A previously unknown group, named Arm na Poblachta, has emerged recently. The group has been blamed for a series of smaller attempted attacks in the Greater Belfast area over the past year.

While little is known about this group, it is believed that they have a small core of members in Fermanagh.

Neither the timing, nor the location of the bomb attack should come as a surprise.

The use of hoax devices to lure the PSNI into remote parts along the border is a frequent tactic employed by militant republicans.

The attack comes immediately after the 50th anniversaries of the battle of the Bogside, the burning of Bombay Street, and the deployment of the British army to Ireland.

Similarly, the January car bomb by the Derry Brigade of the NIRA came on the centenary of the Soloheadbeg ambush.

The most recent attack in Wattle Bridge provides several important observations for the assessment of today’s militant republicans: First, despite the high-intensity of intelligence activities, republicans are able to continue a low-intensity armed campaign, and have done since 2008.

While observers had hoped for a rethink among militant republicans after the death of Lyra McKee, I argued, in this paper, that the support for groups like the NIRA would be unaffected.

Unfortunately, the attempted killings of PSNI officers in Belfast, Armagh, and Fermanagh, over the summer, have confirmed this.

Second, the most recent campaign, initiated with a car bomb in January, has introduced a range of different tactics, including car bombs, hoax devices, booby-traps, shootings, and letter bombs.

The main activities still focus on Derry and Belfast. The attempted attacks in Armagh and Fermanagh, however, indicate that republican groups are expanding their operational areas.

Hence, this recent regional spread, and the variety of tactics deployed, show that republican militants operate in an increasingly sophisticated way, through a growing network of supporters.

Third, the location of the Fermanagh bomb attack, close to the Irish border, indicates that republicans use the Republic of Ireland as a safe hinterland, as was the case during the Troubles.

While there will be no return to the mass violence of previous decades, a no-deal Brexit, and a subsequently imposed hard border, may provoke similar attacks along the border in the future.

Dieter Reinisch is a historian at the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum, 
and a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, in Budapest.

No-Deal Brexit May Provoke Further Attacks Along The Border

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