Rachel Caroline Kowalski

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.

This thesis examines the first ten years of the campaign of political violence that was waged by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) during the Northern Ireland Troubles (c.1969–1998). The primary aim is to understand how and why the PIRA chose to apply violence, and the consequences of these decisions. What is significant about this thesis, is the volume and range of PIRA violence that has been disaggregated and assessed – fatal and non-fatal acts of violence; targeted assassinations that were planned and executed as intended; operations that were stillborn, off-target, or thwarted by the security forces; attacks that maimed or killed unintended targets; and acts that were never intended to and did not cause physical harm to others. The work uncovers a richer account of the relationship between PIRA agency, chance, and the character and consequences of PIRA violence than has hitherto been possible.

The research has involved a detailed investigation of the PIRA’s activity to establish how, when where and why the violence took different forms. The PIRA’s operations have been examined in minute detail to identify and evaluate the significance of various characteristics that are apparent in each stage of the process: its design, execution, outcome, and reception. This has involved first, identifying why the PIRA selected certain targets and tactics, and the extent to which they perpetrated violence with accuracy and discrimination in each scenario. Second, the different outcomes that are produced – directly or indirectly – as a result of PIRA violence (including the material damage, deaths and injuries caused) and the relationship between these outcomes and the actions taken by the perpetrator(s), have been explored. Finally, the thesis considers how and why the armed struggle was perceived in disparate ways by others.

Every reader of Snapshot Stories will have been both the photographer and the photographed at some point – probably more times than they’d care to remember. As Erika Hanna’s research testifies, the habit of recording our lives through images existed long before Instagram. But how many of us have reflected on the purpose and meaning of our own photographs, or the impact of the images that flood our consciousness each day through the media? By drawing our attention to changing photographic practices in Ireland in the 20th century, Hanna’s work might just inspire us to think more deeply about how and why we compose, capture, edit, use and consume those ‘snapshots’. 
https://isaanz.org/ajis/past-issues/volume-21/

The lives claimed during the conflict which raged between 1969 and 1998 commonly known as the Northern Ireland 'troubles', have regularly featured in the press, memoirs, popular, and academic histories. Unsolved crimes, nodal events, high profile participants, and commemorations of the conflict polarise opinion. Understandably, much of the material published and consumed regarding the troubles is victim-focussed. Accounts of the tragic way in which individuals lost their lives, however, tend to portray events in a somewhat abstract manner. The intensity of the conflict cannot be sensed, and any notion that the events were part of a wider escalating narrative of antagonistic violence is lost. This discrepancy can have an impact on popular understanding on the conflict which is both quantitative and qualitative in nature.