Political Violence in Ireland

In Ireland, where the struggle for independence has transformed generations of former gunmen into established statesmen, political violence offers a less contentious term than terrorism for analysing how non-state actors used force to bring about political change. Conveying how violence was conceived ‘as a form of politics, a bargaining tool in the negotiation process between state and opposition’, it offers a useful (if more diffuse) category to analyse the political impact of violence. Given that ‘terrorists don’t just do terrorism’, there is a strong case for analysing terroristic forms of violence alongside other strands of political and armed struggle which it supplemented or displaced. This chapter will argue that the significance of political violence in Ireland stemmed primarily from its impact on non-violent nationalism and the state, and that the forms of violence adopted by republicans shaped that dynamic relationship in important ways.