John F. Morrison

Here to Stay? The Rising Threat of Violent Dissident Republicanism in Northern Ireland

Since the advent of the Good Friday peace agreement, violence associated with dissident Irish Republican groups continues to present major security challenges. While there has not been a tragedy on the scale of the 1998 Omagh bombing, the level of violent dissident Republican (VDR) activity has risen steadily in frequency since then, and in 2010 reached unprecedented levels. This article presents findings from the VDR Project at the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Pennsylvania State University. The research is based on the extensive identification, collection, and analysis of open source material examining the nature and extent of VDR activity from 1997 to 2010. The project analyses data on VDR activity across this period as well as the individuals taking part in these violent events. The data suggests that while originally recruitment was predominantly southern based it is now more focused on Northern Ireland. Analysis of the data also indicates that the VDR leadership continues to recruit individuals with skill-sets to serve the movements aims.

Copying to be Different: Violent Dissident Irish Republican Learning

ABSTRACT While the impact of the Troubles retains centrality within much of Northern Irish political life, the spectre of almost daily violence is becoming a more distant memory. Peace has come to the region. In spite of this, however, there are those who wish to maintain the utility of violence to achieve their stated aims. Most dominant among these are the violent dissident republican groups. No longer is their existence solely defined by their desire to bring about a united Ireland. In order to have any opportunity of longevity, they must first legitimize their continued existence, and in turn distance themselves from their former Provisional comrades. This article assesses how groups, such as the Continuity Irish Republican Army (IRA), Óglaigh na hÉireann, and the IRA/New IRA utilize the lessons learned from their Provisional history to differentiate themselves from the politicized dominance of Sinn Féin. This evaluation is carried out through the analysis of interviews with leadership and rank and file members of both political and paramilitary dissident groupings, which is complemented by the analysis of the Violent Dissident Republican events database. These sources are supplemented with the assessment of organizational statements, from 2007 to the present day. The article focuses on violent, and nonviolent, learning.

Reloading the Armalite? Victims and Targets of Violent Dissident Irish Republicanism, 2007–2015

The centenary of the 1916 Rising marks a time of peaceful commemoration, across the island of Ireland. However, several violent dissident republican groups wish to seize it as an opportunity to re-organise in an attempt to bolster and legitimise their sustained paramilitary campaign. This study seeks to provide a greater understanding of how this paramilitary activity has manifested from 2007 to mid-2015. We do this by assessing target selection, through analysis of the Violent Dissident Republican (VDR) events database. The data suggest that civilian targets are the most regularly attacked. However, when exclusively analysing targets of detonated explosives, the data show that police, security personnel, and their infrastructure are more consistently targeted. The target selected can and does have an effect on attack method. These findings can both assist in protecting the potential targets of VDR attacks and contribute to the development of a strong nationalised, and localised, counter VDR narrative.

Fighting Talk: The Statements of 'The IRA/New IRA'

With the advent of the new violent dissident merger, “The IRA/New IRA,” the group and its affiliates have had to legitimise their new existence. They have utilised the maintenance of paramilitary activity to achieve this. However, they have also produced a number of organisational statements, justifying their position, tactics, and strategies. This article analyses the evolution of these statements, both pre and post-merger from 2007 to 2015. 126 individual statements and four magazines are analysed using grounded theory. This analysis found that the statements have a dual strategy, aiming to foster trust in the movement and distrust in their perceived enemies. One of the dominant ways in which the group aims to foster trust is by proposing their possession of an historical mandate from the republican forefathers of 1916, as well as the internally lauded paramilitaries from The Troubles-era Provisional Irish Republican Army. The focus of the distrust narrative has been on the “constitutional nationalism” of Sinn Féin. However, it also pours scorn on the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and capitalism, across the island of Ireland. The analysis of these statements can provide us with an understanding of the future direction of the group, as well as giving us insight, which can inform the development of any counter-narrative.

100 Years of Irish Republican Violence: Introduction to the Special Issue

This is the closing line of The Proclamation of the Irish Republic, issued by the Easter Rising leaders on April 24th, 1916. It has proven to be a call to arms, not just for the men and women of 1916, but for each future generation of Irish republican paramilitaries. From the ashes of the Rising, came the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) and the Irish Civil War (1922-23). The Easter insurgency has also since provided the perceived historical mandate for the recurrent campaigns of the Border Campaign2 (1956-1962), the Troubles (1969-1998) and that of modern day violent dissident republicans (19943-present day). This history of insurgency and terrorism, which predates even the events of 1916, has shaped the political, social, economic and cultural identity of modern-day Ireland, both north and south of the border. The centenary of the Rising is being embraced, as a time of celebration and introspection. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the journey that Irish Republicanism embarked upon one hundred years ago.

MICRO-MORAL WORLDS OF CONTENTIOUS POLITICS: A RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF RADICAL GROUPS AND THEIR INTERSECTIONS WITH ONE ANOTHER AND THE MAINSTREAM*

The emergence, or resurgence, of radical political groups invariably provokes a struggle between activists, academics, commentators and policymakers over the particular configuration of nouns and adjectives that best correspond to the group in question. While such debates are an integral part of political practice, scrutiny of the claims made within these debates reveals significant limitations in standard strategies of description – most notably their inability to satisfactorily render either the essential cultural messiness and dynamism of contentious politics or the intersections between the so-called extreme and mainstream. We propose an alternative, albeit not mutually exclusive, strategy of description. This entails decentering the group per se and focusing instead on mapping the micro moral worlds of contentious politics – the patchwork of intersubjective contexts of belief and behavior through which activism takes place. We illustrate this with two empirical cases: The English Defence League in Britain, and Republican Sinn Fein in Ireland.