Radical violence and the beginning of "Tthe troubles" — Northern Ireland 1965–72

pp. 45-72

in: Audra Mitchell, Lost in transformation, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Abstract

Mainstream narratives of the prolonged cycle of violence that took place in Northern Ireland during the twentieth century tend to frame it as the explosion of tensions between ethnic groups (see McGrattan, 2010). Yet, as I argued in the last chapter, the conditions of tension, division and overtly conflictual forms of world-building had existed in the region for years, even centuries, prior to the outbreak of this particular cycle of violence. Established threatworks were often in place, which helped groups, communities and individuals to resist radical threats and thus to coexist for the most part non-violently. What, then, changed these conditions? Here, I shall re-examine the beginning of the Troubles from the perspective of threatworks and their destruction by means of radical violence. The source of this radical violence was not the spontaneous or opportunistic clash of rival groups; rather, it was in large part caused by the dilution or destruction of threatworks, or violence against conflictual forms of world-building, that occurred through large-scale social, economic and political change.