So whats the craic with the IRA?

The other day i was very upset after i was denied permition to join an irish republican forum. I was very worked up about it, being friends with actual former members of the IRA from the time i spent interviewing some of them, i felt really annoyed that i hadn’t “made the cut” of the admitions filter. Later on, i realised it might have something to do with my email address, but that didn’t stop me from wondering why such secretism in an online forum. I mean, clearly splinter or dissident groups aren’t gonna be talking serious business in a forum.

So what’s the story with the IRA these days? Where does it stand? is there a real threat from dissident groups? and if so, what do they want… exactly?.

A few weeks back, i think it was Gerry Kelly or Danny Morrison that was asked about the dissident groups by one of the big newspapers. Whoever it was, wisely enough replied:

” I don’t really understand what they are trying to achive here, i mean is not like they are ever going to get the structural base that the Provos were handling back in the late eighties. How can they possibly think they can do what the PIRA couldn’t?”

This got me thinking.

Early this year i had a very interesting conversation with an ex PIRA member and we got to talk about dissident groups. I was actually very interested in working out why were these splinters arising: Why now? was there a connection between recession and the “renewed” terrorists groups? how far were they willing to go? were they a real threat to society?

The short answer is yes and no.

The problem with terrorists groups in the era of globalization and mass media, is that they are interconected on a whole other level, and they are recruiting kids from social backgrounds that, thanks to the Celtic Tiger Era and the easy access to technology, spent most of their childhoods playing games like counterstrike or COD and where now joining an out-of-date cause, whose leadership is made out of those who just can’t accept the deal made in 1998 and just won’t move on with their lives after fighting for something for 30 odd years and being “sold out” by their leaders. Or so they think. It’s like the 1921 treaty all over again.

To be fair though, from a psychological point of view, you have to give it to them, it would take a LOT of therapy to move on, but seriously, hasn’t history showed us already there is no point repeating past mistakes?.

RIRA vs OIRA vs Provos…  the neverending story.

Parlez-vous irish republicanism?

Interesting how things develop, i think this is a great way to start this blog.

Yesterday i got a comment regarding my understanding on the word “republicanism” in an Irish context. Now don’t get me wrong, i KNOW where i come from and why it would be easy to think i might be attaching the wrong meaning to the word. So lets talk “Irish Republicanism” and its implications. While doing so, we might define other words in an Irish context along the line.

I’m gonna start by quoting one of my favorite authors when it comes to irish politics, Paul Dixon:

“(..) nationalists and unionists ideologies are not static but dynamic, shifting over time in response to changing circumstances. The term ‘nationalist’ is often used to describe someone who aspires to a united Ireland but is opposed to the use of violence to achive it, while ‘republican’ often shares much of the analysis of the ‘nationalist’ but is prepared to use violence. So all republicans are nationalists, but not all nationalists are republicans(…)“

Paul Dixon, Northern Ireland: Politics of War and Peace, page 7

So there you have it. What does this mean in my world? exactly that.

As a young girl making my way into irish history on my own, with no help whatsoever considering i was growing up on the other side of the world, in another language and with little notion of the island of Ireland’s current history, you can imagine how films and other media affected my so called “self-thought” education as regards to past events. As you can imagine, there was no independent line of opinion in the so called “self-taught” first few years of my Irish history education. (then again, is there ever one?)

Films like Michael Collins or Braveheart, while might help creating this very unique and nationalist sense of self about what “I” am and what I’m not by defining myself as part of something, it also brings along this confusing idea of taking other people’s views on different matters as your own. This lead to some very funny debates in forums (specially with uneducated Americans who took Breaveheart as a historical fact and didn’t know the difference between Ireland and Scotland) that ended up making me even more interested to find out the “truth”(if there is one) about the past.  Sometimes a mirror to the future of what you can become if you don’t take matters into your own hands, can be a very hard reality to face for a 18 year old girl.

But back to the subjective views of Irish history in film, now being aware of this at the start of my journey, it had a counter effect on me: If the director of the film Michael Collins is portraying him as the underdog hero and demonizing De Valera, surely there must be more to the story….. right?

Little did i know the historic rendezvous i was getting myself into.