Comparing Moloneys View on the Position of the IRA With That of Bruce on Paisley

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The history of Northern Ireland is littered with a mixture of religion and politics. Indeed in this republic, religious differences have been a major issue that made government work. In this paper, I will discuss Moloney’s views on the Irish Republican Army, Bruce’s views on Ian Paisley the leader of Democratic Unionist Party, and finally compare Moloney’s views on IRA with Bruce’s view on Ian Paisley.

Discussion

Moloney chronicles in detail the over-imagination of the military mind as a cause of the long and pointless campaign that was murderous. A campaign that he feels in so far as the desired goals were concerned bore little relations to the means to achieve it. For instance, when a ceasefire of 1974-75 was made the Irish Republican Army expected confidently that it would have led to an announcement of withdrawal by the British. The Irish Republican Army was furious when this did not happen; depicted when a spokesman responded stating that IRA would dialogue with British again only when the British government would come to IRA to seek for assistance to secure their immediate withdrawal from Ireland. Activists within Irish Republican Army ranks seriously compared their struggle to that of Cuba’s insurgent campaign waged by Fidel Castro. They also had a widespread believe that they would be able to effectively take an offensive against the British army with additional weaponry from Libya. The Irish Republican Army also discussed carrying out “a night of long knives against the loyalists paramilitary” (Moloney, 141).

According to Moloney, these acts by the Irish Republican Army were interpretative leaps and transformative acts of different dimensions compared to political maneuvers of Unionists or nationalist’s politicians. Moloney consistently highlights the sought of military actions which inspired Irish Republican army fantasies. The type of actions the IRA was incapable of mounting and at the same time actually unwilling to conduct. If they could have contemplated those actions, it would have meant taking serious casualties and there was no evidence that this was ever contemplated. The loss of eight IRA men in Loughgall on May 1987 compounded this theory as IRA went into deep shock. One middle ranking commander admitted to Moloney that IRA was incapable of conducting a military campaign and that it would have been a disaster if it had tried (Moloney, 327).

Bruce examines the involvement of Ian Paisley, the evangelical protestant religious and political leader in the political violence of Northern Ireland. According to Bruce, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) led by Paisley to embody both “irrationality and bravado”. He describes the extreme facet of the involvement of clerics in party politics. For example, Bruce highlights the close relations that exists the Democratic Unionists Party formed by Rev. Paisley in 1971 and the conservative evangelical Presbyterian Church. The persistent issue Bruce is Rev. Paisley’s commitment to constitutional politics. He also explores Paisley’s contributions to the unionist’s loyalists struggle in Northern Ireland. He works through a number of arguments linking Paisley to violence and concludes that although Paisley had tended to maintain bad company and had twice collaborated with paramilitaries in civil disobedience, there was no evidence that Paisley himself was directly involved in terrorism (Moloney, 323).

Bruce views the Democratic Unionists Party led by Rev. Paisley to embody both irrationality and bravado. He looks at Paisley as almost having a ‘demonic capacity for destructiveness’. He paints Paisley as a leader who attempted to exploit the tendencies of populism within unionism which the Ulster Unionist Party lost partly in the 1970s. Paisley’s politics is explored intelligently by Bruce. For instance, he expresses the close relation of the vision exhibited by the protestant evangelicals in the Unionist politics. The Democratic Unionist Party believed that ‘political liberty is linked to the religious heritage of the nation’. This belief was held and conformed to the political fundamentalists’ attitudes shared by majority of Democratic Unionist Party members. Furthermore, Bruce argues that Paisley is the core of Unionism and also provides a distinctive position within it that emphasizes the religious dimension. He reveals that Paisley’s followers from the Free Presbyterian Church form the solid organizational backbone of Democratic Unionist Party. Paisley’s adherences were strongly committed to Unionism and were prepared to defend it all costs even if it meant them casting aside their evangelical beliefs. This contrasts the popular believe that all there is available for Unionism is an identity evangelical religion (Bruce, 375).

Bruce acknowledges that much of the electoral support for Paisley and his party DUP particularly in Belfast is not connected in his particular religious believes. The popularity of Paisley and the strength or his party DUP is laid in its purpose of defending communal political interests of the Protestants. Paisley articulated loudly the need to protect these interests from subversion whether from the Ireland Republican Army, constitutional nationalism, or the British government (Bruce, 137).

Conclusion

In comparison, Moloney’s views on the position of IRA are almost identical to Bruce’s views on Paisley the leader of DUP political party. Both of them seem to concur to some extent that religious division was the cause of the conflict. According to Moloney, the IRA ideology was primarily based in defending the communal interests of the Catholics. Similarly, Bruce views DUP ideology to be based on protecting the interests of evangelical Protestants. Moloney notes that in the early 1990s both Sinn Fein led by Gerry Adams and paramilitary counterparts reassessed their positions on the use of violence. They questioned the strategy of the long war. Gerry Adams called attention to the suffering of the Catholic community of Ulster. Moloney and Bruce both portray the leaderships of IRA led by Adams and DUP led by Paisley as violent.

Works Cited

Bruce, S. God Save Ulster! The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism. London: Oxford University Press, 1986

Moloney, E. A Secret History of IRA. London: Oxford University Press, 2002

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Comparing Moloneys View on the Position of the IRA With That of Bruce on Paisley

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