Provisional Irish Republican Army

Wind that Shakes the Barley is not easily labeled as an Irish or British film. It was nominated simultaneously for “Best British Film” in the United Kingdom and in Ireland for “Best Irish Film.” The film explores a nation being born, a colonized country coming into the postcolonial moment. The spaces of the film are mundane, counter to a more typical Hollywood story of the major leaders and big battles of a war. The history of the IRA and the Irish Wars against the British are a history of the…

mentioned in Machiavelli’s words on page 96 of The Prince, “He who will, therefore, carefully examine the actions of this man will find him a most valiant lion and a most cunning fox; he will find him feared and respected by everyone, and not hated by the army; and it need not be wondered at that he, the new man, well, because his supreme renown always protected him from that hatred which the people might have conceived against him […]” (Machiavelli) to be Machiavellian means to be cunning in…

of United Kingdom while the nationalists wanted to join the Republic of Ireland. The Catholic in Ireland felt discriminated against by the Protestant majority who made up most of parliament. The conflict began in 1968 and ended in 1998. First, Irish people rioted against British rule, and eventually parted from them creating the Republic of Ireland. Then, the Catholic in Northern Ireland, which continued under British rule, faced heavy discrimination. For example, the Catholic were offered…

the leadership and followers of the Russian Orthodox Church were imprisoned in forced labor camps or outright executed (Spindlove and Simonsen, 2013, pp. 211-212). Another use of terror on a long term basis started in 1970 with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA or IRA) and other smaller independence militias using 153 bombs or fire-starting explosives against businesses in Northern Ireland that were owned by Protestants. This movement was a successor to a much earlier…

citizenship led to systematic, institutional discrimination against the Catholics and Nationalists. In addition, a series of treaties around the 1920s also increased violence and led to the development of guerrilla wars of independence and an Irish Republican Army (IRA) campaign. These conflict escalated to levels of civil war, where “over 550 people, mainly Catholics.5 (BCFP152) The Special Powers Act passed in 1922, further granting the state with draconian “emergency” powers which led to the…

John Conroy’s Belfast Diary: War as a Way of Life is an example of how an outsider can provide reliable analysis regarding how communal violence has consumed Northern Ireland. Through his detailed descriptions of paramilitary organizations and the “law and order” of Belfast, Conroy provides a unique journalistic viewpoint of an area often plagued by inaccurate examinations. Therefore, I disagree with the statement that outsiders are always ill-equipped to provide an explanation for communal…