Social Items

TPQ
Showing posts with label Physical Force Republicanism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Physical Force Republicanism. Show all posts
Dr John Coulter ✍ so-called dissident republicans who disagree with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the peace process need to recognise the concept of ‘armed struggle’ is well past its sell-buy date and only democratic politics can further the aspirations of the dissident republican movement.

Dissident republicans are not stuck historically in 1916 and the failed Easter Rising; they are stuck in 1956 and the failed Border Campaign which began that year and eventually fizzled out in 1962.

Four years ago in 2019, I penned an article emphasising the futility of ‘armed struggle’ by dissident republicans.

The Official republican movement realised the futility of terrorism in 1972 when the Official IRA called a ceasefire. Nine years later in 1981, the Provisional republican movement realised the advantages of the ballot box when hunger strikers won seats in the Dail and Westminster, especially the victories of Maze PIRA OC Bobby Sands and his election agent Owen Carron in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone Commons by-elections.

As a young cub BBC Radio Ulster freelance, I covered Carron’s victory. Could you imagine what his reaction would have been if I’d told him that one day the Provisional republican movement’s former Derry IRA commander Martin McGuinness would operate a successful partitionist power-sharing parliament at Stormont with DUP boss Rev Ian Paisley!

Or, that opinion polls would indicate that the Provisional republican movement’s political mouthpiece, Sinn Fein, would be odds-on to form a coalition government in the next Dail General Election in the Irish Republic, let alone Sinn Fein TDs taking their seats in the Dail!

But Sinn Fein has worked the ballot box to its advantage to the point where in Northern Ireland, with the exception of a couple of constituencies, it is electorally eclipsing the moderate nationalist SDLP in the same way the SDLP eclipsed the old Irish Nationalist Party from the original Stormont Parliament which was prorogued in 1972.

After the Provo ceasefires of the 1990s in the run-up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, republicans who vehemently disagreed with the Sinn Fein peace strategy formed a series of terror gangs and political wings.

In those years, we have seen the New IRA, the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, and Oglaigh na Eireann (ONH) to name but a few of the splinter groups. Their reasoning for so many groups was to try and make it more difficult for the intelligence community to infiltrate their ranks.

But as the security forces on both sides of the Irish border have demonstrated, surveillance techniques have developed to such a capacity that infiltration of the dissident movement has become almost second nature and dissident terror leaders are having to try and rely on new, young republicans for whom people such as Martin McGuinness and Rev Ian Paisley are now merely names in their history books.

For a start, dissident republicans will have to rebrand themselves. Just as Provisional Sinn Fein abandoned the ‘ballot box and Armalite’ tactic in favour of the ‘ballot box and honours degree’, so dissident republicans will have to create a new identity for themselves as the Alternative Republican Movement - but with no violence!

Two decades ago in 2003, there was some hope so-called dissident republicans might adopt this path when during the Northern Ireland Assembly election of that year, a number of republicans entered the fray under the banner of Concerned Republicans.

That was the election in which Sinn Fein overtook the SDLP as the leading voice for nationalism, and Concerned Republicans failed to win any seats.

Rather than focusing on an ill-fated terror campaign, those republicans who do not agree with the Sinn Fein peace strategy should bond together and form a new alternative and united republican party capable of giving Sinn Fein a run for its money in future elections.

Then again, does the old jibe come to mind - that when a new republican group is formed, the first item on the agenda is ‘the split’! This brings to mind the comic scenes from the 1979 Monty Python blockbuster film, The Life of Brian, featuring the Judean People’s Front, the People’s Front of Judea, and the Popular Front of Judea!

With each of the dissident republican terror gangs having a so-called political wing, could a combined new Alternative Republican Party be a non-starter as each of these political groups would claim to be the true political descendants of the 1916 Rising, or even the United Irishmen of 1798.

What would really throw a spanner in Sinn Fein’s works would be if any new Alternative Republican Party opted to take its ‘fight’ right to the very heart of the British Establishment by taking its seats at Westminster. Look at the impact which the then Bernadette Devlin had when she took her Mid Ulster Commons seat as a Unity candidate in the late 1960s. If the Scottish National Party and the Welsh nationalists as well as republicans within the Labour Party can take their Commons seats, then imagine the impact an Alternative Republican Party could have especially after the next Westminster General Election if either Labour or the Tories have only a wafter-thin majority?

Just as former Tory PM Theresa May needed a ‘confidence and supply arrangement’ with the DUP to keep her administration in power, could Labour boss Sir Keir Starmer need a couple of Alternative Republican Party MPs to hand him the keys to 10 Downing Street? Where would that leave Sinn Fein’s strict abstentionist policy?

With the cost of living crisis biting hard and so much being decided at Westminster because of a lack of a Stormont power-sharing Executive, each vote in the House of Commons will be vital in the coming months of 2023.

Put bluntly, given the importance of such votes, Sinn Fein MPs are meaningless at Westminster no matter how much they might chuckle on about influence in the corridors of power! Makes you wonder that one of the main reasons the SDLP still have Commons seats in Foyle and South Belfast is because its MPs take their seats?

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

Time For A New United Dissident Republican Party

Suzanne Breen solicits a range of republican opinion on the state of armed republicanism. 

'I believe 100% that all republican groups should call a ceasefire': Dominic McGlinchey

Many dissident republicans, including Dominic McGlinchey, feel the armed struggle has long served its purpose, but there are still diverging opinions.

Dominic McGlinchey is steeped in militant republicanism. As a teenager, he would visit Bellaghy Cemetery on Easter Sunday morning - lily proudly pinned on his lapel - to lay wreaths on the graves with the rest of the village after Mass. A few years later, he was "deeply honoured" to read out the Easter statement on behalf of the Provisional IRA in Swatragh 10 miles down the road. 

In 2006, McGlinchey split from Sinn Fein and became prominent in dissident republican circles. Today, he is among those arguing that 'armed struggle' should end. "I believe 100% that all republican groups should call a ceasefire," he says. 

Of course, it's up to them, but you can't continue doing the same old thing over and over again. You can't keep doing it just because you've always done it, and that's the way it is. Why should we keep putting generation after generation through this? People are fed up with armies dressed up in uniforms marching down roads. They know it doesn't work. As republicans, we have to stop living in our bubble and look to the outside world.

The son of INLA leaders Dominic and Mary McGlinchey, he was nine years old in 1987 when his mother was shot dead in Dundalk as she bathed his brother Declan.  Aged 16, he was with his father when he was shot dead in a Drogheda phone box in 1994. McGlinchey was questioned by the PSNI about the 2009 murder of two British soldiers at Massareene. He strongly denies any involvement. 

He says if republicans are to justify using violence, then "it has to take you somewhere" which the New IRA and Continuity IRA campaigns don't. "There is nothing about them that would make the British apprehensive," he says. He dismisses the traditional argument that "an armed campaign is needed to keep the flame lit" for the next generation. "That can be done through education or producing Irish history podcasts," he says. McGlinchey stresses the consequences of violence:

Once you pull that trigger, someone is dead, and it's more than one individual. It's the life of their family, and your family. It's the shopkeeper who witnessed what happened. It's the child on the passing bus, forever traumatised. It's the ambulanceman who picked up the body.

Republicans "must be prepared to go to politically uncomfortable places", he says.

There's a danger that we become conditioned to our doors being kicked in, to standing in white-line pickets, and to going to jail. We need to look at new ways to climb the mountain.

McGlinchey wants young republicans to prepare for a border poll: 

Brexit is the biggest opportunity for us since partition. Yet anti-Agreement republicans are becoming more and more marginalised every day because of armed actions. I'd like to see energy focused on discussing what type of united Ireland we want. How will we establish a link between a young loyalist in Carrickfergus and a young nationalist in Cork? What will we offer women, gay people and ethnic minorities? How will we avoid a society of the haves and have-nots? Look at the advances the far-Right have made in Ireland in a short space of time with negative politics. It's a bad impact, but it's still an impact. Anti-agreement republicanism has existed for over two decades and has made no impact at all - they must take stock. I want to see our youth out there knocking doors, focused on community activism and, most importantly, staying safe.

Anthony McIntyre served 18 years in jail for the murder of a UVF man in 1976. He is a critic of Sinn Fein's political direction but has long opposed continuing violence.  He brands the New IRA "the most ineffective IRA ever" and says it poses a threat predominantly to its own community as it has "inflicted no casualties on the state" in five years. "I see it as a political cult that is self-reverential and has no idea of what is going on in the wider world," he says. 

They may claim to be the same as the 1916 leaders, but they're not. The men and women of Easter week marched down O'Connell Street and fought, and they also knew when to quit. Dissidents are not 'engaging with the enemy' - they spend more time marching around in sunglasses posturing - and they don't know when to end their phoney war. Continuing it only allows MI5 to keep fine-tuning their surveillance, intelligence and security techniques.

Like McGlinchey, he believes dissident groups are "heavily infiltrated". McIntyre went to jail when he was 16: 

I've a son that age, and if he was out doing now what I did then, I'd be distraught. I've an obligation to point out that I didn't make the right choice. If I was to do it again, I'd join St Vincent de Paul rather than the IRA because I'd be making a more useful contribution to society - and I say that as an atheist.

McIntyre wants to see focus on a border poll: 

It doesn't offer revolutionary change, but incremental change is better than none. It's about trying to lessen British influence in Ireland. There are republicans who object, on strict ideological grounds, but it's Latin Mass stuff. They say 'We need to fight', but fight for what? Republicanism doesn't produce victories, it produces political careers.

Former Republican Sinn Fein president Des Dalton resigned from the party last month after he was suspended for saying that dissident republican violence was "counter-productive and copper-fastened partition". He had been a party member for three decades.  "I've no regrets," he says. 

You have to be true to yourself. I didn't do anything wrong or anything that compromised republican principles. It would have been easy for me to sit back and say nothing.

 From Kildare, Dalton was an Ogra Fianna Fail member who joined Republican Sinn Fein at 17: 

I grew up in a staunch Fianna Fail home, but became disillusioned with the party. In opposition, it had rejected the Anglo-Irish Agreement for recognising the unionist veto, then took a different stance when it secured power. It extradited republicans. I remember Dessie Ellis being flown to Britain on a stretcher when on hunger-strike. It was a very emotional image for me.

While Dalton doesn't believe there will be a united Ireland in the short-term, he sees a "far more open political atmosphere" post-Brexit than ever before. 

An armed campaign can't be currently justified from a moral or practical point of view. Community support just isn't there - the water for the fish to swim in is too shallow. The bravery of Bobby Sands and 1916 leaders is inspirational, but it's time for a different type of bravery now. I'd rather see young people channeling their energy into productive political activism than heading like lemmings over the cliff edge and filling Maghaberry and Portlaoise jails for a campaign that just isn't happening anyway. Perpetual armed struggle and repeating the same mantra is not working. It's not advancing republican ideals. It's keeping the groups on the periphery of politics.

Cait Trainor, an independent Co Armagh republican, was charged with encouraging terrorism under the Terrorism Act after a TV interview in 2010. She had told Channel Four: "I support the right of every Irish man and woman to participate in armed struggle." She sees the current situation as unchanging for republicans. "I fundamentally disagree with those who say today is different, and there are opportunities for us now that previously weren't there," she says. 

British rule has never been so strong. Sinn Fein might say that the Orange state has been smashed and there are equal rights for Catholics. But, for republicans, nothing short of an all-Ireland republic is a victory.

Trainor won't "felon-set fellow republicans" who are "doing what they've always done". She says there is a "growing trend of post-republicanism" by those "who present themselves as republican elders, and patronise and demoralise the younger generation". She opposes a border poll and believes, if one is called, nationalists should boycott it as they did in 1973: 

Irish freedom should not be dependent on the whim of a popularity contest called by a British Secretary of State. Ireland is not Scotland or Catalonia. An Irish republic was declared in 1916 and voted for in 1918.

Trainor believes that a border poll is "fraught with danger" for republicans: 

There is a mistaken belief that victory is guaranteed. While more Catholics have been born in the North, the nationalist vote has remained almost static in the last decade. A 'no' vote would set republicans back decades. London would dangle it in front of the world and say, 'The people of Ireland have endorsed British rule.' Republicans seeking a border poll are like turkeys voting for Christmas.

Des Long from Limerick is a founding member of the Provisional IRA and sat on its executive for 17 years. He says he would be lying if he told dissident groups to "abandon an armed campaign". He believes they are "very fragmented with a lot of big egos and many people wanting to be boss", but he doesn't support a ceasefire. As long as the British occupy Ireland there will be people who resist," he says. "British soldiers may not be on the streets, but there are still thousands of them garrisoned in this country." 

Long has "no faith" in a border poll: 

It's 100 years since the signing of the Treaty, and we're no further on in getting rid of the British than we ever were. I would love to see them leaving without a shot fired or anybody killed or sent to jail but the British will never leave until they're driven out.

All Republican Groups Should Call A Ceasefire

Anthony McIntyre tells Suzanne Breen that in his view Saoradh is as big a threat to state as St Vincent de Paul.

 
McIntyre says there is little support for dissident group or its political wing in wake of MI5 sting.

An ex-IRA prisoner has said that the New IRA's political wing, Saoradh, "poses as big a threat to the British state as St Vincent de Paul".

Anthony McIntyre said there was little support for either republican organisation in their own community in the wake of revelations that the dissidents had been infiltrated by alleged MI5 agent Dennis McFadden.

Ten people, including two women and a Palestinian doctor, are facing a range of terror charges following the sting.

Mr McIntyre said that the New IRA was viewed as “a pale imitation” of the Provisionals.

“People see it as an irritant,” he said. 

It is not a serious IRA fighting a determined guerilla war against the state. It is known for its incompetence and ineffectiveness.  It has inflicted no casualties on the state since 2016. Last year it killed journalist Lyra McKee when it opened fire recklessly during a riot in the Creggan, and it came close to wiping out a group of young people when it exploded a bomb on a street outside a courthouse in Derry.

Mr McIntyre served 18 years in jail for the murder of a UVF man in 1976. He is a long-term critic of Sinn Fein’s political direction but opposes continuing any armed campaign.

He added:

Apart from the risk it poses to civilians primarily within its own community, the New IRA does nothing more than make a bit of noise and give the state the opportunity to continue using repressive legislation and curbing people’s civil rights.

Mr McIntyre challenged Saoradh’s claim that last month’s MI5 operation was an attempt to crush the party.

“Few will give any credence to the charge that this is a state attempt to close Saoradh down or wipe them out,” he said. “My feeling would be that Saoradh poses as much a threat to the British state as St Vincent de Paul do — which is none.”

Mr McIntyre claimed he had not seen the party “use its energy on serious and substantive” issues.

What I have seen is Saoradh join others and follow a few groups around Belfast city centre, and shout at them on the street on Saturday afternoons. It’s actually embarrassing. It makes republicans look as bad as those that they claim they are challenging.

Scotsman Dennis McFadden has been named in court as being the alleged MI5 agent involved in the New IRA sting. It has been claimed that he organised safe houses for the paramilitary group which were bugged by the intelligence services.

Mr McIntyre said:

Spying is called the second oldest profession precisely because it is not a new phenomenon. Many agents and informers penetrated the ranks of the Provisional IRA. And the IRA itself has used informers in the past. The late prison officer, John Hanna, spied on his colleagues for the IRA. So when republicans howl about spies it is only because of whose ox has been gored. If a player in any game gives the opposition a penalty kick, their adversary would be a fool not to take it.

Hanna was a senior prison officer in the H-Blocks. In 1990 he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Maghaberry jail for helping the IRA murder his colleague, Brian Armour, two years earlier.

Hanna had been involved in plans to stage a large-scale prison breakout.

He had also given information on other colleagues during an affair with a female IRA intelligence officer. He died of cancer in 1992, aged 45.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

Of Spies And Men

Anthony McIntyre senses a general republican indifference to recent arrests of prominent Saoradh members. 

The arrests of a number of Saoradh activists alleged by British police to be senior figures in the New IRA, as it is frequently described, has prompted a flurry of media commentary and speculation. For the news hounds it is a big story. With the New IRA not doing very much, what is supposedly being done to the New IRA makes the headlines.

Some of Saoradh’s republican rivals are said to be gloating. Those of us who have spent considerable time behind bars avoid that, even if we have little fraternal feeling for Saoradh. There are enough imbibing the sweet juices of Schadenfreude, without ex-prisoners sticking their straw in as well. While gloating has a presence, it seems indifference is the foremost sentiment circulating within republican circles. 

I don’t much follow the internal machinations of that fractious world, tending to see its incessant bickering, backbiting and jockeying for pole position much as Kissinger did when observing the politics of the university scene: they are “vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”

Consequently, I didn’t feel in much of a position to comment when a couple of journalists contacted me, more or less restricting myself to saying that I had next to no interest in Saoradh or the New IRA and that my understanding of either was rudimentary. My curiosity was so stifled that when the arrests were first announced I had no great desire to find out who had been gripped. My response was the same as it would have been had news broken that a lot of clergyman had been arrested, accused of blocking a motorway in opposition to abortion or same sex marriage. The story might be interesting in itself but wondering who might be caught up in it all was absent. So, no point in feigning to journalists an interest that does not exist for the purpose of waxing learned. These things only grab my focus if the arrested are personal friends of mine, as on previous occasions they have been.

What concentrated my mind was the issue of agent involvement. I didn’t know Denis McFadden, but the informed speculation was that he had been a friend of a friend, since deceased. Not just a friend but a great friend. I didn’t see it as a reflection on the late Tony Catney, but that more than anything else drew me to the story.

The British police, back in the day when there was a serious IRA fighting a determined guerrilla war against the state, made use of informers as a counter-insurgency tactic. They invariably brought with them controversy and at one point seriously damaged the reputation of the Northern judiciary as it summersaulted from guilty to not guilty verdicts in the era of the supergrass. Probably the Beaks' worst judicial hour in a clatter of bad ones to choose from. 

Informers are invariably the most unreliable of witnesses. All too often they have with handler approval been up to their necks in the very activity the state likes to claim they have been instrumental in curbing – think Stakeknife and Mark Haddock. Self-serving accomplices, informers have every reason to cover their tracks with the scent of others. The state attempt to tart them up as having undergone some ethical conversion is simply shining a turd.

A species despised the world over because of what debased motives are attributed to them, the image of Gypo Nolan’s monetary reward being disdainfully pushed across a table to him at the end of a stick in the movie The Informer is indicative of even the handler attitude towards the type. The damning line from Louis Borge’s poem The Spy, I betrayed those who believed me their friend, perhaps captures better than most the reason they are held in such low esteem. Perhaps as a result of an evolutionary biological trait towards cooperation for purposes of survival, the stench of betrayal instinctively causes the nostrils to flare in revulsion towards the alien presence. 

For all of that, as reviled as informers are, virtually every agency across the board from states to guerrillas use them. The commodity is secrecy and the marketplace for that particular piece of hardware is densely populated by buyers and sellers. The very term industrial espionage shows its more widespread application.  Spying is not called the second oldest profession because it is a relatively new phenomenon. The IRA too made use of informers in the past – the late prison officer, John Hanna, for example. So when republicans howl about them it is only because of whose ox has been gored. If a player in any game gives the opposition a penalty kick, their adversary would be a fool not to take it.

Colleagues and friends of the arrested will exhibit a sense of entitlement, demanding that all republicans stand shoulder to shoulder with those behind bars. Outside of lip service that is unlikely to happen. Few will give any credence to the charge that it is a state attempt to close Saoradh down, feeling that Saoradh pose as much threat to the state as St Vincent de Paul. If they don't say it openly they seem willing to state privately that the arrests are the inevitable outcome, not of radical politics but of traditional militarism.  Most, while feeling aggrieved that MI5 and informers still figure on the landscape - courtesy of the parliamentarization of the Provisionals - will probably leave the arrested to their fate, feeling that energy is better invested elsewhere rather than in pushing the Sisyphean stone uphill only to have it roll back down again ad infinitum. 

Heroes on horseback, to cite Marx, rarely change society and seem unfailingly willing to place their faith in those ready to change horse.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre

Second Oldest Profession

Alex McCrory ➤ reflects on the ongoing use of the informer by the British state security apparatus.  

He crept in like a thief in the night.
Stealthily, he stalked his prey.
The characteristic smile.
Extended hand of friendship.
He moved quietly amongst the duped.
The gullible who welcomed him with open arms.
But something didn't quite gel. 
Was it his flaky personality?
A square peg in a round hole.
Where did he come from?
To where has he gone? 
Vanished into thin air.
His legacy.
Broken hearts and broken homes.

Gypo Nolan, a dim-witted Dubliner played by Victor McLaglen, is thrown out of the IRA for failing to execute a British solider. He harbours a dream to escape to America with his prostitute girlfriend Katie, but he has no money to buy the boat tickets. A solution presents itself in the form of personal betrayal of his close friend and comrade, Frankie, who is on the run from the Tans. Desperate to see his family after weeks of dodging the enemy, the fugitive plans to return home to see his mother and sister Mary. He is taking a massive risk.

Gypo gets wind of this and decides to squeal on his mate for a reward of £20, a princely sum for the time. As the result, Frankie is killed in a shootout at his mother's house while trying to escape. Gypo starts drinking heavily and spending money freely about town. This is noticed by the local volunteers who begin to suspect him of being a tout. Mary tells the IRA that Gypo was the last person her brother spoke with that day. All the evidence points in one direction. 

The IRA finds Gypo drunk in a local pub and arrests him. Although he denies setting up his friend, the court marshal finds him guilty and sentences him to death. But the condemned man manages to escape through a hole in the ceiling and runs straight to Katie's house to profess his love. She pleads for his life but the IRA commander refuses to intercede on her behalf. IRA men hurriedly go to Katie's house and shoot Gypo dead. 

The Informer is a story of betrayal, greed, love and retribution. These are some of the ingredients that turn a comrade into a Judas Iscariot. Whether it be for money, revenge or self-preservation, the tout relinquishes all bonds of friendship and brotherhood. This he must do in order to effectively serve his master.

In the first instance, informing is usually a panicked response to some type of leverage or threat exerted by interrogators or spooks. Few set out to be stoolies, on the contrary, most are pressurised and cajoled by authority into cooperating. The price is far too high for it to be a voluntary decision. However, a brutal death on a lonely country road has failed to deter some from accepting their thirty pieces of sliver. The certainty of a long prison sentence can override the possibility of discovery. For some it is a chance worth taking in certain circumstances. 

What prompted this post is the recent exposure of Denis McFadden as a British agent. What is his story? We will probably never know the answer.


 
 Informers become adept at telling lies and covering their tracks. It is part of the tradecraft. There are no obvious tell-tale signs to alert us to their presence. In some cases there may be grounds for suspicion, but it usually comes later in the day. An awful lot of damage already be done by the time someone comes under suspicion. The many unanswered questions around McFadden has excited speculation and theories which is understandable, but there is little hard evidence to support them at this time. We may come to learn more as the story unravels. But, from the standpoint of his handlers, it is a job well done.

McFadden was personable, affable, generous, helpful, resourceful, likeable and friendly. These traits did not point him out as an informer rather than being just a nice guy. 20/20 vision makes the fool a wise man after the fact. How much of the above was simply a part of his legend; a clever construction designed to ingratiate and mislead. Again, we may never know the answer.

Today, ten republicans are in jail on the most serious of charges. Families and relationships have been turned upside down in the space of a week. The immediate future looks bleak for all concerned. A man who was embraced as a friend, welcomed with open arms, has left a trail of devastation in his wake. This is the hallmark of The Informer.


Alec McCrory 
is a former blanketman.

The Informer

Matt Treacy ➤ If reports are to be credited, British intelligence appears to have successfully moved against one of the aspirant IRAs – namely those claimed to be in the New IRA and those in the left-wing grouping, Saoradh. 

 

The scuttlebutt is that MI5 recruited a leading member of the organisation in question who embarrassingly it would seem managed to obtain not only audio but video recordings of meetings of its leadership. It would appear that the recordings are to supply one of the key elements in charges against those arrested over the past number of days. Seven of those have so far been charged.

 

he alleged “supergrass” has been named on several social media forums along with his photograph. It would seem that he was a former member of Sinn Féin and was one of those who worked on their internet sites and media. He was involved with the party in Antrim from the early 2000s and when complaints were made about him, people were told that he not only represented SF, but the “whole republican movement.” Indeed.

He was also involved for a time as secretary with a group called Justice Watch which styled itself as a human rights NGO. He also apparently owned a takeaway and a bar in Belfast while involved with Saoradh. Which tells its own story.

A number of things are worth pondering in relation to all of this, not least for those persuaded that a revival of armed struggle might be a good thing. Firstly, it proves once again how easy it is for the intelligence services to infiltrate and manipulate secret organisations.

Without dabbling in the more extreme conspiracy theories regarding the demise of the Provos, it is clear that the IRA was penetrated at all levels and that this played a probably not inconsiderable part in its surrender, disarmament and disbandment. Which you might think would motivate others in questioning the point of attempting to create a retro Provos.

Whatever the intelligence and counter-insurgency aspects of the demise of the IRA, the decision to end the armed campaign was the correct one. It had long since ceased to be a plausible path towards a British withdrawal and the ongoing deaths, imprisonments and collateral damage were pretty much for nothing by the early 1990s.

So calling it off was the correct move. The politics of what followed are a different matter. Certainly, few republicans who supported the ceasefires could have envisaged that Sinn Féin would follow the military capitulation with the acceptance of Partition, and a role in administering the British controlled part of Ireland.

Along with that in short order came the abandonment of any pretence to be a movement standing for the sovereign independence of Ireland. Or having a plausible strategy to bring that about. The acceptance of the EU’s control over vast areas of Irish life is one consequence. The other is the headlong embrace of the mindless liberalism that will if successful make any project for national sovereignty meaningless, even in the unlikely event of it being formally ratified at some stage in the future.

So there is certainly an intellectual and historical argument against the direction which the republican movement in the main has taken over the past 25 years. There is none for reviving a failed armed campaign, which in any event is counter-productive when it does splutter into occasional life. More pointless deaths and more men and women doing jail time when they might be devoting their energies to something more productive.

The politics behind all of this are pathetic. I have seen leading members discussing Maoism. Apart from that nonsense, there is the usual left republican obsession with the past. Connolly for Dummies based on de-contextualised quotes from something written over a century ago. As though any of this has the slightest relevance to Ireland today. Like the Bourbons, they have forgotten nothing, and learned nothing.

It is surely ironic too that one of the political manifestations of the group in question, Saoradh, has been to turn out in support of Irish government ministers to clamp down on free-speech. They joined with the usual Pollyanna NGOs, professional lefties and antifa soccer casuals in support of Charlie Flanagan’s proposed “hate” legislation in a demonstration against free speech at the Dáil.

Of course, once their presence was highlighted, the Care Bears were appalled given Saoradh’s investigation by the PSNI following the killing of Lyra McKee in April 2019. Now the same state on whose side Saoradh is standing “objectively” (Marxists love that word) is doing its best to destroy them. That’s the thanks you get for “confronting the far right” it would seem.

It’s curious to see Saoradh joining with Antifa to try to attack people taking part in anti-lockdown rallies or demonstrations. Surely those demonstrators are ‘anti-establishment’? Does that make Saoradh ‘stooges of the state’, or some such phrase they would use to describe others? Or is this more of the M15 directing operations? Who knows.

Anyone familiar with the Dublin Fenians in the 1880s and 1890s will see some echoes in the current predicament of conspiratorial armed republicanism. As the land reforms and seeming success of the Irish Party at Westminister in advancing Home Rule took hold, some in the Irish Republican Brotherhood were reduced to squabbling factions, led by the nose through Special Branch into bombing schemes and occasionally murdering one another over money and allegations of informing.

Meanwhile the coming revolution was being shaped by those who in a period of political becalment were working through the cultural organisations to re-assert a national consciousness that was under threat of extinction.

The more far-sighted among the Fenians eschewed the plotting in dingy bars for the practical work within the GAA, the Gaelic League, national minded newspapers, and economic co-operation. It was this which laid the basis for what freedoms were won after 1916.

We arguably face a similar period now, as the forces inimical to our culture and sovereignty as a people have the upper hand. Those who think it can all be solved by kindergarden ultra leftism allied to an intermittent “armed struggle” are clearly part of the problem, not the solution.


Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland.
He is currently working on a number of other books; His latest one is a novel entitled Houses of Pain. It is based on real events in the Dublin underworld. Houses of Pain is published by MTP and is currently available online as paperback and kindle while book shops remain closed.

Why Are Saoradh Joining With Antifa To Attack Anti-Lockdown Rallies?

From The Belfast Telegraph as Sinn Fein members say they are under death threats from dissidents for attending a police recruitment event Marisa McGlinchey argues that was a normal step for a party hoping to be in government on both sides of the border. 

The declining number of Catholic police officers in the PSNI has led to a recent recruitment drive by the organisation in a bid to encourage new recruits, particularly from a Catholic background.

It was the attendance of senior Sinn Fein members at this event that provoked a strong reaction from within the so-called 'dissident' republican base; and Sinn Fein has stated that the party has been informed of 'dissident' threats against party members.

Threats against Sinn Fein have been met with widespread scepticism from 'dissident' republicans with many believing that no such threat exists; however it is clear that Sinn Fein members are taking these threats seriously and believe them to be real.

So-called 'dissident' republicans, or traditional republicans, are wedded to the traditional republican campaign for a 32 county Ireland and are therefore fundamentally opposed to the state of Northern Ireland and its associated institutions - including those of law and order such as the courts and the PSNI. While traditional republicans may view Catholic recruits with particular disdain, the religious composition of the police service is not a significant factor in their opposition to it. The fact that a police officer is Catholic is seen as secondary to their role in defending the state.

On January 21, 1919 two Catholic RIC officers were killed by the IRA in Tipperary at the Soloheadbeg ambush which marked the start of the war of independence.

Much was made of the fact that they were Catholic and one was a native Irish speaker from Mayo, thus provoking a response from republicans at the time who stated that the killings were irrespective of religion or language but that they took place because they were 'members of a British police force in Ireland'.

Hard-line republicans today echo this traditional republican position that opposition to the PSNI is based on the fact that they are seen as maintaining the British presence in Ireland.

When in 1998 Sinn Fein accepted the consent principle, the concept of which had been advocated by John Hume and the SDLP since the 1970s, the party was overturning the traditional republican position which referred to consent as a unionist veto over Irish unity. In a series of documents exchanged during the Hume-Adams talks the SDLP advocated that the British presence in Ireland was in fact the unionist people; therefore advocating uniting the people of Ireland in the spirit of Wolfe Tone's call to unite Catholic, Protestant and dissenter.

Sinn Fein's eventual acceptance of the principle of consent and of the need to persuade unionists of the merits of Irish unity was a historic step. When Sinn Fein accepted consent and entered the power sharing institutions of Northern Ireland they were inevitably set on a path of accepting its institutions including the police.

Acceptance of consent and working the institutions of Northern Ireland were major points at which so-called 'dissident' republicans broke away from Sinn Fein or the wider Provisional Movement.

Traditional republicans continue to assert that consent is simply a unionist veto and they fundamentally reject any reform of the state of Northern Ireland, instead seeking revolutionary change and part of that revolutionary change would be a completely new police force, not a reformed one.

Reform of the PSNI is viewed as simply another step in the normalisation of the state of Northern Ireland. A key aim of 'dissident' republicans is to highlight the abnormal nature of the state of Northern Ireland and of the PSNI.

Traditional republicans reject that the PSNI is something new or different or that it is rooted in the community. In fact republicans draw a direct line from the RIC to the RUC to the PSNI, demonstrating this by deliberately and pointedly referring to the PSNI as the RUC.

The message put forward by 'dissident' republican groups such as Saoradh predominantly features anti-PSNI campaigns and highlights current republican prisoners in Maghaberry and Portlaoise prisons.

Saoradh regularly highlight house raids and stop and searches on its members; and Republican Sinn Fein and Saoradh have violently clashed with police at Easter commemorations, particularly in Derry and North Armagh.  

Whilst symbolically significant, Sinn Fein's attendance at the PSNI recruitment drive shouldn't have warranted the reaction it has provoked given that this is a logical step since the party's acceptance of the PSNI in 2007. The decision to accept legitimacy of the PSNI at a special ard fheis was the historic moment regarding the party's attitude to the police. Sinn Fein's appearance at an event which seeks to encourage more Catholics to join the PSNI lends itself to the party's ambition regarding reform of the police, seeking a force which is more representative of the community.

With Sinn Fein's massive electoral success in the recent Dail elections in the South, many see their long term strategy of being in power in the North and South as coming to fruition. The party continues with its strategy to push for a border poll and criticises the lack of a strategy put forward by 'dissident' republicans. Traditional republicans are fundamentally opposed to a border poll on the basis that it would take place exclusively in the six counties of Northern Ireland, that it has to be called by a (British) Secretary of State and that the sovereignty of the Irish nation is a right.

Further, they have argued that the goal posts will inevitably be changed regarding the threshold.

Whilst it looks unlikely that a border poll will actually take place, traditional republicans have stated that they will not partake in a border poll if one is called and they have called on others to not partake. This poses the question for traditional republicans - what if a border poll is lost by a small majority and they could have made the difference?

Regarding an armed campaign, the so-called dissident republican base is a spectrum of opinion including independents who have justified the Provisional IRA's campaign but are highly critical of groups who continue with a campaign at present; and interestingly a senior member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement has stated: "I would go so far as to say that there should be no action in the North against any police."

But armed actions by the Continuity and New IRAs, which have almost exclusively targeted the PSNI, continue on as the organisations remain steadfast in their belief that the PSNI represent the first line of defence of the British occupation of the North of Ireland.

➽Marisa McGlinchey is an Assistant Professor in Political Science in the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University

Dissident Republicans See The PSNI As Upholding The British Presence In Ireland

Anthony McIntyre gave a talk in November at the Political Studies Association of Ireland which was held in Maynooth. 

Marisa McGlinchey’s excellent book Unfinished Business has given the kiss of life to a corpse in terms of once again generating serious intellectual interest in dissident republicanism. Over the years there have been other solid and informative works by writers like Martyn Frampton, John Morrison, John Mooney, John Horgan and Paddy Hoey, for example, but none seem to have ignited the public imagination quite like this one. 

I have commented to Marisa that it is testimony to her patience and resilience that she could sit for so long and listen to it all: the theological-type dogma, the genuinely self-indignant expressions that others do not see the light, the self-righteousness, the contempt for democracy or the popular will, the mantras, the same old, same old. These days, to me, it is like listening to detailed sketches of the bone structure and diet of the unicorn.

The stamina of the author of Unfinished Business is remarkable. A deeply insightful piece of work, it brought into the public arena plenty of heat from the interviewees, but in terms of strategic acumen or vision, absolutely no light whatsoever. And had it existed, I am sure Marisa would have found it.

Had it not been for that work by Marisa McGlinchey, I doubt I would have been sufficiently motivated to talk about armed republicanism. But having had a reaffirmation by the book of my view of the useless violence employed in the service of armed republicanism, here I am.

In Drowned And The Saved Primo Levi distinguishes between useful and useless violence. The twin concept has merit when applied to modern physical force republicanism. Whatever ethical hang-ups people have about the campaign of the Provisional IRA, its limited political outcome measured against the stated goals of the organisation nevertheless show that its violence had some political use value.

This type of observation about the efficacy of republican violence is just that. To observe is not to diminish the serious ethical concerns about the use of violence. Useful violence is not by any stretch of the imagination good violence, just useful in terms of some strategic purpose being served. Levi, although a survivor of the concentration camps of World War 2, for this reason considered the Nazi gassing of Jews as useful. It furthered the Nazi objective. It hardly needs said that he did not approve. Other Nazi practices - violence deployed for the gratification of the guards - was considered useless violence: "occasionally having a purpose, yet always redundant, always disproportionate to the purpose itself."

Much of the Provisional IRA armed struggle might be best categorised as useful violence. It was not just something that produced nothing other than political careers for some of its key leaders. It was an instrument for progress, even if not the far-reaching transformation envisaged by its members and supporters. The IRA’s armed struggle was an agency for change, although in the wake of the excellent BBC Spotlight compilation, A Secret History of the Troubles, we may be forgiven for thinking there were more agents than agency involved.

No such claim can be made on behalf of the utility of the violence employed by groups like the New IRA. In political terms they make absolutely nothing happen. They do not operate in a political vacuum, but independent of one. Or at least the political vacuum that does exist is not the cause of their existence or continued activity. With or without the political institutions, Brexit or a hard border, the New IRA and others of like mind would continue much as they are. As articulated to Channel 4 News earlier this week:

Regardless of the form of occupation, whatever kind of border there is, be it soft or so-called hard border – that’s irrelevant. We are talking about an illegal occupation here that means the IRA reserved the right to attack those who are upholding that illegal occupation along the border and elsewhere and the illegal partition that goes with it. And those who are upholding that.

Determined to persist in their rain dance, they are not driven by wider political considerations, make no effective political interventions, and serve up a discursive diet of self-referential shibboleths. The explicatory and exculpatory statements released by Saoradh after the death of Lyra McKee earlier this year seemed so far removed from reality, that even for republicans who had waged the Provisional IRA’s armed campaign, there was a cringingly embarrassing ring to them.

Jean Hatzfeld in one of his oral histories rooted in the Rwandan genocide reflects on this sense of disconnect. His research brought him face to face with Interahamwe members responsible for the mass killings of civilians. Hatzfeld talks of his dismay at the military theatre language deployed by one of his interviewees, where everything was laid out in terms of a serious military battle with fortified positions assaulted and taken, coupled with huge scale manoeuvres strategically put in place by both sets of military combatants. Hatzfeld merely commented something to the effect that the military framing was all so far removed from the wanton slaughter of babies at the heart of the interviewee’s military operations. While the New IRA is not remotely comparable to the Interahamwe in terms of genocidal intent, the ability to self-delude about fighting a war is wholly similar. Yet, the violence of the Interahamwe was useful in the sense outlined by Levi. The same cannot be said for the New IRA.

The New IRA is like a fish out of water in terms of timing, finding as Heraclitus did the practical impossibility of stepping in the same river twice, the raging insurrectionary torrent that had its source in how the British behaved while in Ireland rather than the fact of their being in Ireland, having become a trickle.

They possess no strategic awareness or military acumen. Unlike the Provisional IRA they lack the military capacity to effect political change and effectively admitted as much in a recent interview given to the Sunday Times by members of the New IRA army council. Which leaves it difficult to see how their violence can be anything other than useless.

During the Provisional IRA campaign had the British state faced the level of armed activity currently being mounted by the New IRA, the attitude would have been one of celebratory delirium. In 2008 I attended a book launch in London and listened to a senior spook tell his listeners that by the early 1990s, the IRA campaign had become so manageable that it no longer absorbed such huge amounts of government time. Yet it dwarfs anything the New IRA serves up and retained the potential to work towards some sort of political solution.

While far short of what the Provisional IRA campaign was ostensibly about, this reinforces the view that because it failed absolutely in terms of usurping the consent principle and expelling the British the likelihood of the New IRA succeeding with much fewer bangs and much fewer bucks in the same tracks where we saw the Provisionals come off the rails is highly fanciful.

Physical force republicanism occupies a space from which it can offer nothing but the "stupid and symbolic violence" described by Levi. A flavour of this is provided in the interview its army council gave to the Sunday Times.

We fully accept we cannot defeat the British militarily, or even drive them from Ireland, but we will continue to fight for as long as they remain here. The attacks are symbolic. They are propaganda. As long as you have the British in Ireland and the country remains partitioned, there will be an IRA. It doesn’t matter if the two governments imprison the current leadership, others will still come forward and fight. Being a member of the IRA was never popular … You ask, is this madness? There will be madness as long as there is armed occupation in Ireland.

Self-confirmed madness to the point that others seem to share it. It seems strange that three decades after the peace process began to be floated by armed republicans, two decades after the stated armed cessation by the dominant republican group, a decade and half after the same group announced its war was over, that the New IRA - the least effective, most incapable armed body in the history of any IRA - continues to grab the headlines.

Witness the large dose of alarmism from security circles about the level of threat. Stephen Martin, a senior PSNI figure, took to describing it as being at the “upper end of severe”. This in turn has helped feed into an amplification spiral in the media where the Pied Piper of Brexit is seen as having the awesome potential to take the peace into a tenebrous cave, where the cave dwellers wearing balaclavas will proceed to strangle it to death in some solemn republican ritual. Banner headlines appear trumpeting to the world that Brexit Will Be A Gift To Dissident Republicans In Northern Ireland. Even more sober commentators like Gene Kerrigan feel that:

the consequences of casual, reckless decisions by British politicians has opened possibilities for the "one more push" brigade. The only people unaware of the dreadful possibilities appear to be Her Majesty's ministers.

Truth is physical force republicanism has the capacity to effect no change with or without Brexit. Violence by its nature is always dangerous but it for the most part the violence of the New IRA is nuisance violence. It will not give rise to a crisis of transformative potential but can only hope, forlornly, to benefit from any that might emerge.

Shortly after the killing of Lyra McKee, the writer Eamonn McCann featured on Prime Time to make the case that NIRA and Saoradh regard themselves as the purist of the pure in terms of republican principles. No doubt a view genuinely held by McCann but it comes from perhaps listening to the rationalisation rather than addressing the facts on the ground.

Perhaps there are some in both bodies who are of such a disposition although I do not know who they are. While ostensibly opposed to the Good Friday Agreement as evidenced from the Sunday Times interview, enough within the New IRA remained with Sinn Fein while it slaughtered every sacred cow of republicanism: some only bolted after they had helped Sinn Fein arrive at its Suck The Truncheon moment when the party fell upon its knees before the PSNI with the promise to put manners on the force. The recent extradition of John Downey at the behest of the PSNI amply demonstrated who is daddy on the manners block. They ostracised, bullied and intimidated republicans critical of the Good Friday Agreement, on occasion expressing a desire to kill them. They simply could not get enough of the bull. If they were purist they would not have been with the Provisionals post 1986; if they were remotely Provisional republicans with their roots very much in the post 1969 insurrections in the North, 1998 would have been the cut-off date.

Anyone who stayed with the Provisional movement after the Good Friday Agreement is in a weak position to shout "sell-out" at others or hoist above their own head the Proclamation of 1916. So whatever motivates NIRA and Saoradh it is certainly not for the purposes of defending purist republican tradition.

By their very allegiances post Good Friday, they have denied themselves the comfort blanket of purist republicanism that might have allowed them to ague a continuation back to 1916.

So what do the New IRA bring in circumstances where there is in the words of Jonny Byrne “no ideological or political rationale."

An alternative view has been proffered which discerns an “emotional longing for the simplicities of the gun" as a means to allow people "to fool themselves they're at one with the heroes of old.” Fooling themselves seems to capture the essence of Levi’s coining of the term useless violence. Republican violence, if ever there are grounds for its application, should only be for the political advancement of the many and not for the psychological gratification of the few.

It might be suggested that there is a hyperdeveloped culture of honour to borrow a term from Stephen Pinker, more subcultural than political. When Saoradh members troop out of a Derry court in unapproachable and haughty fashion, shoulder to shoulder, trapped in their own isolated and insular space the resemblance is more to that of a cult than a mass movement. The contrast with the popular opposition on display in Catalonia this week towards judicial treatment of their leaders could not be greater. As the leadership of the New IRA pointed out to the Sunday Times it knows that the public will not protest if they are “all rounded up” by the security forces and imprisoned.

The leader of Saoradh, widely regarded as being the political face of the New IRA said shortly after assuming the leadership role within the party:

There was no organisation with people that had the political credibility, a revolutionary experience that could install any confidence in republicans to continue the fight for Irish reunification. Saoradh is absolutely necessary. Once there is an occupation of your country, Irish people have the right to oppose this occupation by whatever means necessary.

This type of vision with its nod to political credibility, which can only come via the attainment of popular support, was palpably absent from the actions around the killing of Lyra McKee. According to Stephen Pinker campaigns like that waged by the New IRA reach the “all rounded up” moment when they cross the line into depravity and turn all public sympathy to their victims. Instead of credibility here was useless violence which completely undermined the credibility of Saoradh. Even allowing for the political manufacture of bias and revulsion on a scale probably not seen since the 2005 killing of Robert McCartney, the head of opprobrium steam towards republican actions was significant. The barbaric killing of Paul Quinn by South Armagh republicans did not seem to reach the same level of intensity.

There is also another factor that underscores the uselessness of republican violence. The extent to which secularisation and the rebellion against traditional and unaccountable forms of authority in Irish society has arguably played a part in the alienation of armed republicanism is probably worthy of consideration, even if at present difficult to gauge.

Absolutism should be the antithesis of republicanism. As those structures who have relied on absolutism to enforce their writ have come to find their authority under increasing challenge both North and South it would indeed be strange if the societal mood were to be tolerant towards a new self-appointed and self-anointed committee of public safety claiming the right to wage war on their behalf.

So when armed republicans hark back to the need for observance of republican tradition they sound remarkably similar to and as relevant as the Bishop of Waterford & Lismore Alphonsus Cullinan, who seeks to have yoga and mindfulness prohibited in public schools.

If there is one salutary lesson that should have come out from the Provisional IRA war in the North it is an awareness of the dangers of using violence to achieve ends whether that violence is useful or useless. Useful violence should only be a measure of last resort, when all options run out and when it is a necessity driven unavoidable strategic imperative. It must never be the first and preferred choice born out of tradition.

Unfortunately armed republican necks are never craned far enough to be able to appreciate that the Provisional IRA’s most celebrated volunteer, Bobby Sands, was at the height of his power when using the most passive, not the most violent of tactics.

Useless Violence

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

Are dissident republicans adopting a ‘candle in the wind’ approach to violence, or they simply cannot accept mainstream republicanism’s view that armed struggle is in the past? That’s the key question which political commentator, Dr John Coulter, addresses in his Fearless Flying Column today. 

What is the rationale behind dissident republicans’ current terror campaign? What do groups, such as the New IRA, hope to achieve that the Provisional IRA and the INLA could not achieve after a generation of violence during the Troubles?

These questions have been bugging me in recent weeks. Is the New IRA merely carrying out attacks on the security forces, especially against the PSNI, simply because it wants to keep the option of ‘armed struggle’ on the republican agenda for a future generation of young republicans?

Or, is it a case that dissidents who disagree vehemently with the Sinn Fein agenda (Provisional Sinn Fein that is, not Republican Sinn Fein !) and the direction firmly set down by the Adams/McGuinness peace process want to simply give a two-fingered salute to that process?

During my time as Northern Political Columnist with the Irish Daily Star, I carried out a series of interviews with dissident republican sources which were published in 2012 and 2013. So my observations carry the ‘health warning’ that they were not recently published.

But perhaps these stories can help us understand the mindset of the current dissident republican agenda.

On June 19, 2012, I had an interview with Republican Action Against Drugs published under the headline ‘Vigilantes plot PSNI bomb blitz’. Here’s a few selected paragraphs from that published article;


The Troubles will be back on again - that’s the warning from a secret interview with a source close to the leaders of vigilante group Republican Action Against Drugs.
The source said RAAD will develop into a new, experienced dissident terror group carrying out shootings and bombings against the security forces.
The source claimed:
The majority of RAAD is comprised of former Provisionals from recent times. It was an inevitable progression that because RAAD began in the republican community, the organisation would start attacking the police. This is a natural progression. They (RAAD) want the war. They started out attacking the drug dealers, but the police goaded RAAD into attacking the police.
RAAD will stay separate from these other groups. They believe in the view that if there are a lot of these groups, it makes it harder for the police and MI5 to penetrate them. However, I am not sure that RAAD will want to implement a long war strategy which the Provisional IRA favoured.
But that could well happen if RAAD gains more experienced members. In the early years of the war, there were splits between the different groups like the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. But not now. I believe the situation will stay the same, with dissident groups doing their own individual things. But the big advantage for RAAD is the same as in business - experience works.

Later in 2012, on 28 August, I had an interview published in the Irish Daily Star with a source close to the leadership of the New IRA, under the headline: ‘Actions louder than words … Dissident attack should have preceded merger of factions’.

In this published interview article, I wrote the following:

Dissident republicans should have carried out a major attack first before announcing an amalgamation of some of their terror factions, a well-placed source close to the leadership of the New IRA told The Star last night.
That source in 2012 told me - again quoting from the article - that the delay in publicly announcing the amalgamation was ‘because of personality clashes within the various groups which have now been resolved’.

The source added at the time in my published interview: 

Given this new game they are playing, they didn’t want to make the same mistakes as the Provisionals. They have learned from these mistakes and there are wiser heads running this central command. However, there is still a body of opinion which believes the case now is that it is too centralised. But a combined group needs to produce something to make headway.
But the big point is there already is a loose association and co-operation among the groups so there was really no need to announce a central command. But it does not get around the core issue in that the new combined group should have produced the goods first, then an announcement if they are to be taken seriously. Making an announcement with having first done something makes them look foolish. That’s the sort of stuff that happened to the Stickies (Official IRA) - making announcements, but never following them up.

Again, I am emphasising these quotes are from 2012. Perhaps what we need to ask as a community, what has changed in the last seven years since that interview? 

My final piece from my archives comes from another Irish Daily Star front page lead from April 18, 2013, this time with a source close to the leadership of the Real IRA, under the headline: ‘Warning of RIRA terror onslaught: Insider says dissidents are gearing up for new war.’

My opening paragraphs read:

A new terror war will erupt in a few years’ time, a source close to the Real IRA’s leadership told the Star last night. He said the campaign would take place ‘in the future’ because ‘we are not capable of doing this at the moment’. The source said the RIRA and others needed to build a broader ‘support base’ in the republican community. And he poured scorn on Sinn Fein bids to hold talks with dissident republicans aimed at ending their stop/start terror campaign.

Of course, it can be asked, how relevant are these quotes from 2012 and 2013 to the current thinking and strategies within the dissident republican movement.

What is clear is that the current New IRA does not have the capacity for a long sustained campaign of violence and will continue to operate what has become known as the ‘start/stop’ approach - short periods of violence, followed by lulls in the violence.

It is equally clear that the New IRA has been unable to build up a broad base of support within the republican community unlike the Provisional IRA did using Sinn Fein.

If a ‘no deal’ Brexit emerges on 31 October this year, resulting in a hard border between Northern and Southern Ireland, will the New IRA resort to recreating the failed Border campaign of the so-called ‘old IRA’ of 1956-62? It was a similar ‘start/stop’ terror campaign, which was predominantly halted because of the intelligence-gathering activities of the then B Specials section of the RUC.

The real danger for everyone on the island of Ireland is that albeit a small faction compared to the broad republican family, the New IRA decides to maintain its terror campaign in the hope it can eventually radicalise sufficient young republicans for whom the 1994 IRA ceasefire and 1998 Good Friday Agreement are merely dates in a history book.

Has the current leadership of the New IRA realised that it will never enjoy the broad support of the nationalist community across Ireland, north and south, but hopes to keep the ‘candle in the wind’ option of armed struggle flickering in the hope someone takes up the baton once again.

After all, is Islamic radical terror cells are taken as a benchmark, as well as the ‘lone wolf’ strategies of the Extreme Right terrorists are added - it only takes a handful to cause mass murder.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter

Listen to religious commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 9.30 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online at www.thisissunshine.com

Candle in The Wind

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)