The IRA: The Irish Republican ArmyAuthored by an individual with 30 years of experience studying terrorism as well as access to the most senior counter-terrorist army and police officers combating the IRA, this book provides the first complete analysis of the world's premier terrorist group to explain them in ideological as well as operational terms. The IRA: The Irish Republican Army begins by examining the historical background to the development of the IRA, the group's basic ideology, and its aims and objectives. The second part of the book concentrates on the IRA—specifically the Provisional IRA—as a contemporary phenomenon, explaining its organization, how it operates, who joins the IRA, and why. The book explores how the IRA was formed from a Romantic reaction against modernity, and is an expression of a vehement rejection of the liberal, individualist, and scientific values of the Enlightenment. The IRA's attachment to violence almost as an end in itself, its conflation of Catholicism with Irish-ness, its rejection of big-business for peasant-proprietor economics, and its disregard for individual rights in pursuit of group rights is explained in terms of the groups' scholastic Catholicism foundation. For academic audiences in Irish studies, politics, sociology, history, and security and defense studies, as well as professional security forces and interested general readers with an interest in current affairs, this book supplies a wholly new perspective on both the IRA and terrorism in general. |
Contents
A History of Ireland and the Emergence of the | |
1916 to 1923 | |
From IRA to PIRA | |
Strategy and Tactics | |
Weapons and Targets | |
Organization and Structure | |
Prison Sinn Fein and Finance | |
Conclusion | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
activities Anglo-Irish War areas Armed Struggle Army attacks became Belfast Belfast Agreement bombs border British campaign Catholic Catholic Church Catholic communities Catholicism centers Chapter civil Crown Forces culture Dail dominated Dublin Easter Rising economic English especially ethnic Fein’s Fenians Fighting for Ireland forensic Gaelic Gerry Adams Gill & Macmillan History Home Rule hunger strikes ideals identity important increasingly individuals industrial IRA’s Irish nationalism James Dingley killed legitimacy legitimate London Londonderry major Meanwhile moral movement murder Nationalist Northern Ireland one’s operations organization Oxford University Press Parliament patrol Paul Bew PIRA members PIRA’s police Politics of Enmity Presbyterian prison problem Protestant Provisional IRA recruits religion religious Republic of Ireland riots role Romantic Routledge rural scholastic sectarian Semtex simply Sinn Fein social society South Southern strategy surveillance symbolic tactics targets Terrorism terrorists traditional Ulster Unionists United Kingdom violence weapons