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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.

Outlining the historical background to the Northern Ireland conflict, this introduction delineates salient themes in the historiography of Irish republicanism. Introducing the book’s archival sources, oral histories, and interpretive methodologies, it signals attention to republicanism’s internal dynamics. Understanding republicanism’s mosaic quality and strategic transformation, it argues, necessitates a focus upon how republicans have historicised, spatialised, framed, and adapted their struggle differently. The introduction counterposes the tensions between republican attempts to build a uniform, unified movement, and the dissonances and dilemmas which pervaded the movement, especially during strategic review. Explaining variations within Irish republicanism, this introduction foregrounds the key, interconnected factors which simultaneously sustained, complicated, and fragmented republican politics: class, space, and networks within republicanism.

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.

This chapter situates republicanism in the context of the global New Left and the ‘afterlives’ of the global ’68: assessing how republicans by turns imitated, refracted, and repudiated New Left ideas illuminates the multiplicity of Irish republicanism in ‘the ’68 years’. Assessing the acutely local character of republican reawakening in 1969, this chapter juxtaposes republicans’ international political perspectives and the primacy of a supposedly unique Irish national struggle. Analysing the commemorations of Northern Ireland’s ’68 on its tenth anniversary, it discusses the potency and contentiousness of collective memory of civil rights among republicans historicising and rethinking their ongoing campaign in 1978.

This chapter analyses how republicans negotiated left-wing ideas within an enduring master frame which emphasised the British presence, rather than global capitalism, as its enemy. It disaggregates the structural pressures towards radicalism, particularly in an international context, and the importance of local circuits and milieux in mitigating socialism’s impact on republicanism. While socialism was an important influence throughout the Provisional republican movement, a powerful tradition in Irish republicanism persistently stressed the primacy of the distinctly nationalist struggle, even to the point of national exceptionalism. Analysing republican engagements with the Soviet Union and the so-called ‘Third World’ in the 1970s, alongside republicans’ socioeconomic programmes and leftist critiques in the 1980s, this chapter assesses how divergent interpretations of class politics and networks within the movement informed republicans’ global politics.

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 conclusion elaborates the key explanatory factors which the book identifies as integral to Irish republican heterogeneity. Place remains salient among republicans, informing identities within the movement and continually reframing the conflict’s legacies. Republican experiences of class and interactions with socialism also undergirded the movement’s complex ecology. Especially after 1969, networks within republicanism usually formed what this book terms ‘pragmatic’ and ‘orthodox’ milieux. The distinction between these networks was more fluid and contingent than fixed categories of generation, geography, or rank within the movement. Especially at moments of crisis or heightened debate within republicanism, pragmatists were more open to tactical adaptation, perceiving new political opportunities. Their degree of readiness to alter course usually correlated with confidence in the movement’s leaders. By contrast, orthodox republicans stressed the political authority of tradition in ‘the age-old struggle’.