‘On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace’. Pope John Paul II, an iconic opponent of Soviet-led communism, made this futile appeal in September 1979 to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other paramilitary organisations involved in the Northern Ireland Troubles. With no end in sight to the ‘long war’ waged by the Provisional IRA against ‘British imperialism’ in Ireland – more specifically against the security forces in Northern Ireland maintaining its inclusion in the United Kingdom (UK) – the Provisionals had recently killed eighteen British soldiers in explosions near Warrenpoint. The same day, south of the border, they assassinated Lord Mountbatten, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, in an explosion which killed three others. Mountbatten, a naval hero in the Second World War and the last viceroy of India, was ‘executed’, the Provisional IRA said, to highlight ‘the occupation of our country’. In March, another republican paramilitary group, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), had assassinated the Conservative Party politician Airey Neave, a close friend and colleague of Margaret Thatcher, who became British prime minister shortly afterwards. The crucial question of what tactics could best secure a united Irish Republic had been debated by republicans for decades. This argument revolved around a strategy privileging either ‘the gun’ or ‘the ballot box’ – or both. When the Troubles broke out ten years earlier, the parliamentary abstentionism issue, and a fear of Marxism – ‘an alien ideology’ – had split militant republicanism into Official and Provisional strands. With the Provisional movement in the late 1970s coming increasingly under the control of Gerry Adams, he and his cohort, employing leftist rhetoric, emphasised that ‘armed struggle’ had to be complemented by political activity. The Provisional traditionalists, who cherished abstentionism and the physical-force tradition, lost the argument following the H-Block hunger strikes, which sought to restore ‘political status’ for paramilitary prisoners.

best secure a united Irish Republic had been debated by republicans for decades. This argument revolved around a strategy privileging either ‘the gun’ or ‘the ballot box’ – or both. When the Troubles broke out ten years earlier, the parliamentary abstentionism issue, and a fear of Marxism – ‘an alien ideology’ – had split militant republicanism into Official and Provisional strands.