HIS33000 Political Violence in Ireland

Academic Year 2023/2024

This module will introduce students to the phenomenon of political violence. Beginning with an examination of Charles Tilly’s groundbreaking work on collective violence, the module will study theories on banditry, crowd violence, faction fights, civil wars, insurgency and paramilitarism. Taking loyalism as a case study, this module will chart the different types of violence employed by loyalists in Ireland (especially in Ulster) since the 19th century to alter or overturn state policy and put pressure on rival political communities. The module asks whether such strategies and tactics of violence have been successful or counter-productive. It will also closely examine the complex relationship between loyalism and the British state. Among the key events covered in the module will be loyalist opposition to Catholic emancipation, clashes with Irish nationalists and Home Rulers in the late 19th century, police-loyalist violence in Belfast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the formation of the Ulster Volunteer movement, loyalist veterans, paramilitaries, and the creation of the Northern Ireland state in the 1920s and, finally, loyalist violence during the Troubles at the end of the 20th century.