The Double IRA

An evaluation of the 'strands' of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in Northern Ireland that have made Protestant-Catholic relations in the modern era a thing of 'media' hospitality!

Here's a generic Irish history essay about the development of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and the complexities that have made Irish politics and Protestant-Catholic relations in Northern Ireland so equally lofty and alienating in the modern era. Thanks for reading and God bless,

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DISCLAIMER: I have no official ties or connections or sympathies with the Irish Republican Army and offer this free-speech essay in this public forum as an American writer who cares about democracy in this modern age of gobalized media and worry about the deep and terrible problem of deformed relations between Protestants and Catholics. After all, we're all Christians! I'm a practicing Catholic by faith.

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The Easter Rising of 1916 was a symbolic and monumental achievement for the Irish struggle for autonomy from England. Under the leadership of Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) waged a guerrilla war on the British government for home-rule and independence and achieved it for Dublin (Ireland) but Belfast (Northern Ireland) was partitioned and kept as part of the British Empire. This dissatisfied many Irish radicals who sought to keep Belfast part of Ireland and despised losing it to England because of the population demographic statistic of a large number of British Protestant colonialists and their descendants who'd settled in Belfast for generations. The troubles between the British Protestant majority and Irish Catholic minority in Northern Ireland continued through the 20th Century, and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams worked tirelessly to promote legal and political negotiations between the IRA and British Parliament.

The demand in Belfast among the new IRA was to obtain more civil rights and employment opportunities for the Irish Catholic minority still living in Northern Ireland alongside the British Protestants. The new IRA went through various stages of development and evolution after really diverging and bifurcating during the original struggle for Irish independence following the Easter Rising which resulted in the disappointing statistical partition of Northern Ireland. The new IRA sought more radical means to demand home-rule in Northern Ireland and drive British influence out of the are and out of Belfast. This passionate demand created differing 'brands' of IRA, with earlier brands being more moderate in approach while later brands being much more violent and sectarian, insisting on finding new and creative ways to attack the British Protestant police-force and military in Belfast to create an atmosphere of pure unrest throughout the 20th Century.

The new developing and extreme brands of the IRA were the ones painted in the media as radical and dangerous terrorists for their insistence on using violence and bombs and unpredictable terrifying attacks on British Protestant strongholds and residential infrastructures to create fear about British presence in Northern Ireland. Early pioneering leaders of the original IRA including Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera had warned of this surge in natural passion which would result in various social depictions of the Irish struggle as fanatical or childish. However, the new brands of the IRA were stubborn in their view that there was no perceptible 'normal' way to persuade the British to leave Northern Ireland forever.

Thus developed a 'Double IRA' consciousness. The 'standard' IRA was devoted to armed revolution and freedom-fighting for republican and democratic achievements and milestones with confessions about acceptable costs and losses. The 'radical' IRA had no qualms with using any kind of violence directed at any kind of target in Northern Ireland simply to create enough unrest to draw global attention to the dissatisfaction of the Irish Catholic minority enduring civil inequalities and unemployment challenges in Belfast while living alongside the equally-stubborn British Protestant majority. This 'Double IRA' consciousness often crystallized into complicated negotiations between differing leaders and factions of the evolving IRA throughout the 20th Century and even into the 21st Century, despite the constant efforts of Sinn Fein leaders such as Gerry Adams.

All of this intrigue led to new age British officials and leaders and statesmen including Margaret Thatcher to pursue a vigorous sociopolitical policy of criminalization, seeking to portray and cast the new brands of IRA as simply factions of dangerous fanatics and madmen. The Double IRA consciousness required Parliament and the police and military to treat the IRA as scattered and confused and emotional and non-negotiable. Meanwhile, the IRA continued its various policies of active engagement, going so far as to try to assassinate Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Parliament was visibly disturbed by this bifurcated 'quality' of the IRA and what it meant for modern era anti-governance intelligence.

To understand the Irish struggle, one must consider the important and deep ways in with the Irish are simply different as a cultural people from the British. Protestant-Catholic conflicts in Northern Ireland arise from this deep difference. The Irish were simply unable to digest the presence of British Protestant rule in their green Irish Catholic lands. Because differing 'brands' and strands of the IRA emerged amidst all this sociopolitical complexity, the Double IRA consciousness created a real air of fear and worry, even among progressive Sinn Fein leaders such as Gerry Adams who sought active negotiations between Parliament and the radical messengers of the evolving IRA.

In the modern developed age of media, Internet, and TV, Protestants and Catholics alike sought wide access to social platforms and public forums and were intrigued by free-speech topics. While Hollywood (USA) created glamorous images of beautiful celebrities paraded on-screen and in society as vanity role-models, the Double IRA consciousness created a natural worry among Sinn Fein leaders such as Gerry Adams regarding the transmission of democratic ideas in the modern media regarding a balanced presentation of the lifestyle frustrations in Belfast created by uncomfortable silences between Protestants and Catholics. The Double IRA consciousness made many people wonder, including IRA sympathizers/financeers in America, mostly Democrats such as John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, if what Northern Ireland really needed was some kind of 'IRA-TV' to create a social celebration of basic human and cultural (and religious) magazine imagination.

Would the modern era of Microsoft Windows Mobile and EWTN (Catholic-TV) in consumer markets create a balanced demand among Sinn Fein and Parliament for more democratic talks between British Protestants and Irish Catholics in Belfast on public stages? Would there be a real interest in an 'IRA-TV' as other comparable forms of modern democratic media on the globalized stage of consumerism such as Al Jazeera (Muslim-TV) rose to prominence in the late 20th Century? How would Sinn Fein and the Double IRA consciousness be coordinated with this civilization triumph in excellent socialization technologies and social media such as MTV and Facebook? Would hypothetical 'IRA capitalism branches' be democratized as bridges to Sinn Fein banner-flags?

HYPOTHETICAL IRA SOLDIER: We're not terrorists. We're not dangerous. We've evolved the Irish Republican Army to account for the continuing failure to meet the realistic needs of the Irish Catholic minority in Belfast who still live under constraining forms of British rule and Parliament policy. We want equal access to media and forums to persuade British officials that all of Ireland simply feels uncomfortable living alongside a Protestant majority in a time of explosive commercial networking and capitalism activity! We demand home-rule simply to obtain a greater right to celebrate modern amenities such as Catholic television. Perhaps what we might debate about is a 'folk-tale' or 'chess' contract with Microsoft! God bless Ireland. 

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)