The role of sectarianism in the Provisional IRA campaign, 1969–1997

This article concerns the nature of political violence in an ethnonationally divided society. The article engages with the debates surrounding the discrimination employed, or not, by the PIRA when selecting their targets and waging their campaign against British rule and partition in Ireland between 1969 and 1997. The piece challenges the assertion that the PIRA discriminated with religious bias, and that they actively targeted Protestant civilians. It does so by drawing upon analysis of original data collected for the piece, corroborated with qualitative primary sources including the memoirs of former PIRA members, and the sentiments of a former PIRA member turned informer, Sean O’Callaghan, who agreed to be interviewed for the piece. It is argued that the PIRA aimed only to kill individuals whom they deemed to be in some measure actively responsible for the persistence of British control in Ireland, and the prevention of a reunion with the Republic; and did so in a fashion that was, for the most part, blind to religious diversity. It is also argued, however, that the PIRA were either unable or unwilling to recognise the gap between the actual impact of their “armed struggle” and the intentions that lay behind it.