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Within debates on how terrorism ends, political historians will want academic analysis to reflect the frequently unpredictable messiness of such processes. When terrorist groups desist, they often do so in ways that involve violent spillage across the historical line which broadly divides conflict from peace. This chapter focuses on one significant case study in terrorist persistence: dissident Irish republican violence in the wake of the decision by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) to end its own armed struggle. I will offer a brief account of dissident republican activity, and then explain such activity by situating it within a wider hermeneutical framework of nationalism as such. The central argument will be that we can only properly understand and appropriately respond to dissident Irish republican terrorism if we interpret it as a recognisable species of nationalist zealotry, with family resemblances to many other nationalisms throughout politics and history in Ireland and elsewhere. Such an account normalises dissident republicanism and explains its (to some observers, surprising) durability; it does not ignore the non-ideological motivations and dynamics of Irish dissidents; nor does it offer any legitimising framework for such ongoing violent republicanism.

By considering the evolution of republican political thought this chapter explores the basis of republican ideology and how it has been adapted and accommodated within the Irish variant of the tradition. Such exploration of the roots of the tradition determines how the many forms of modern Irish republicanism ‘deviate’ from supposed ideological principles, yet claim attachment to the same tradition. Discussion of republican principles highlights the fault line between purist and pragmatist interpretations of the tradition, a fault line which allows the phenomenon of dissent to emerge. For both purists and pragmatists the goal is the same yet the methodologies differ. In analysing the articulation of what constitutes the republican core, this chapter also explores the significance of historical tradition and the role of martyrdom within the republican psyche.

This chapter provides the historical and contextual backdrop to the emergence of dissident republicanism. The aim is to address the gaps that exist in the literature in order to go beyond the description of dissidents as, ‘irritants, embarrassing Sinn Féin’ (Mac Ginty, 2006). Irish republicanism has never been cast in a rigid mould making it harder to define and therefore easier for Sinn Féin, despite the obvious compromises made, to proclaim they remain the embodiment of republican principles. Similarly, ‘dissident’ groups fail to represent a monolithic entity, meaning they cannot be easily slotted into simple categorisations and easily labelled. This chapter explores the impact of external ideological forces, social, political and military circumstances and the influence of other global peace processes on republicanism in Northern Ireland.

The evolution within Sinn Féin and ‘Provisional’ republicanism involved the broadening of ideas, the rearranging of principles and a change of tactics. The sum of these parts was a considerable transition. This chapter examines the ideological and political change within Sinn Féin. The academic literature that considers the evolution of Sinn Féin is wide-ranging in assessing the impact of military fortune and British state strategy but has appeared reluctant to comprehend Sinn Féin as essentially an ordinary political party in modern times, conditioned by the rules of the electoral game and successfully adapting to those rules. In order to begin understanding the dissident ideological standpoint it is necessary to consider Sinn Féin’s movement into constitutional politics within a consociational power-sharing agreement and to what extent that represented the updating, revising or contorting of Irish republican principles.

Borrowing on a tradition of radical journalism dating back more than 200 years, modern Irish republicans, in particular, Sinn Féin, have used activist media to articulate their ideological since the late 1960s and the start of the Troubles. At times of marginalisation from the political mainstream through broadcasting bans and structural bias in the media, republicans used their own activist newspapers, pamphlets and promotional materials to convey their political messages. In the same period Sinn Féin began and finished the journey from being the marginal political wing of the Provisional IRA to being arguably the most prominent political party in Irish nationalist politics. Its transformation from minority voice of an armed organisation which saw violence as central to its goals to the main voice of republicanism that had accepted ceasefires and the political path was remarkable. Activist media was central to ideological journey of the Shinners, providing an internal space in which to articulate and interrogate dynamic shifts in ideology and an outward face to communicate these developments.

Irish republicanism during the 1980s is inextricably linked to the hunger strikes of 1981, the culmination of five years of protest inside Northern Irish prisons as a result of the 1976 normalisation policies that the British government introduced as a means to de-legitimise the republican struggle. The prison campaign had massive ramifications domestically and internationally, as republicans in the United States enjoyed something of a renaissance during the early 1980s. With the strategic focus of the movement now firmly on the political arena, the American dimension evolved similarly as prominent political figures exerted increasing influence on the Northern Irish situation. This chapter re-evaluates the period in light of the considerable dissent that has fermented against the Provisional republican leadership.

The Introduction gives an overview of republican ideas in the history of thought and it considers how these apply to constitutional problems. It considers the development of “republican constitutionalism” in various jurisdictions. It then considers the specificity of republicanism in the Irish setting and its possible application in the constitutional-law context.

The Emergency years drew the IRA into attacks on both sides of the Irish border and in Britain, which proved to be beyond its resources. It was severely hit by coercive measures applied against it by both the Stormont and Dublin governments and, by 1945, there was little its leadership could claim to have achieved. The moral myopia of so many Irish republicans of this era could simply take the form of apparent indifference to dramatic and historic events beyond Éire's borders. Others saw the armed struggle within a context of suffocating self-righteousness. Militarily, the IRA never posed a serious threat to an Irish state which, from the outset of the Emergency, was equipped with formidable powers to keep its activists under surveillance and have them charged or interned. The real danger would have been if Germany had ever been able to co-ordinate operations of its own on Irish territory with the IRA, and the Abwehr did have contacts with it that pre-dated the outbreak of war.

This chapter discusses the changes in contemporary Irish republicanism by drawing on some of the perspectives and analyses of the resurgence of nationalism as an international contemporary political phenomenon. It challenges the view of Irish republicanism as simply a tradition–driven paradigm in which, ‘the mandate of the dead outweighs that of the living’. Instead, it adopts a structural approach which sees post–republicanism as a facet of wider ideological and political change. By placing the discussion within this framework, the chapter shows that in these aspects Northern Irish politics are not sui generis and that the transformation within republicanism is not simply ideological but organizational. It concludes by outlining some possible structural determinants of this shift towards the forms of new nationalism.

Sinn Féin’s far reaching commitment to activist materials since the late 1960s included a devotion to the newspapers An Phoblacht/ Republican News. It was almost quixotically committed to producing AP/ RN and the paper became a far-reaching organ of political identity. During the Hunger Strikes of 1980/ 81 it was the authentic voice of those on the protests. Later, during the reforms of Peace Process era it articulated the changes in policy. However, Sinn Féin activists were keen to develop a mainstream vehicle for the newly dominant and optimistic strand of republicanism, one that might compete against the media outlets that had been overtly critical and hostile towards the party dating back to the beginning of the Troubles. The Belfast Media Group whose primary paper, the Andersonstown News, became associated with articulating Sinn Féin’s position throughout the 1990s and 2000s launched the republican daily newspaper Daily Ireland in 2005 in competition with the Irish News, the paper that has traditionally captured sales among the nationalist population of Northern Ireland. It was an experiment in assessing how far the shifts in the cultural and political tectonic plates of nationalism played into the media consumption habits of the people.

The introduction to this book outlines the contemporary nature of republicanism in Northern Ireland. Irish republicanism embraces a broad spectrum of tactics and principles, ranging from those who consider armed struggle to be an essential element of any republican campaign to reformers of existing constitutional arrangements. This section then moves on to explore the meaning of the label ‘dissident’ within Irish republicanism and suggests the term should be utilised with caution on several counts. Firstly, the term does not provide insight into what dissent actually constitutes. Does it mean dissent from Sinn Féin, or from peace, or from a political process, or a constitutional process, or does it constitute all of these things? Secondly, it denies any acknowledgement of republicanism as a heterogeneous entity, a varied and diverse phenomenon, reducing it as an ideology to what one particular party (Sinn Féin) offers.

The peace process in Northern Ireland has not ended the debate on how Irish republicanism is defined. This section highlights that whilst dissident groups exert a significant amount of energy articulating their critique of Sinn Féin, there is a void in terms of offering a viable alternative. In rejecting constitutional politics as an area in which to gain a mandate or legitimacy, dissidents do not provide convincing explanations of how the continued use of armed struggle, abstention or political campaigning can reach the final constitutional goal, or even why support for each of these is a republican absolute. However, this concluding chapter notes that there is also no guarantee that Sinn Féin’s institutional participation will be any more successful in achieving a united Ireland.