Open AccessThe Maintenance of Republican Ideology and Tactics in the Discourses of IRA Former Prisoners
Author(s) -
Peter Shirlow,
Jonathan Tonge,
James W. McAuley
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
peace and conflict studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 6
ISSN - 1082-7307
DOI - 10.46743/1082-7307/2008.1093
Subject(s) - ideology , irish , abandonment (legal) , politics , political science , meaning (existential) , law , sociology , epistemology , philosophy , linguistics
The debate concerning ideology and ideological shifts during peace-building in Northern Ireland has generally failed to account for the attitudes and opinions of former combatants concerning the nature and meaning of discursively constructed identities and political strategies. This invisibility is peculiar in that debates concerning ideological shifts have been driven by academic analysis or by those former combatants who maintain that the Irish peace process is paralleled by core ideological abandonment. The material presented within this article indicates that former Provisional Irish Republican prisoners do not view the peace process as involving ideological ditching but instead that their commitment to republican discourse remains complete.