[Book Reviews] "Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland"
I've finished Ed Moloney's "Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland", and it was every bit as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I was hoping to come out of the read with a clean narrative about how to persuade people of opinions provably detached from reality that this was so. Hahaha, no such luck. As far as I can tell, the ceasefire happened because Gerry Adams is a good liar and people listened until they had little in the way of other viable options. Few people actually changed their minds. My picture of how everything came about is more complicated, and while I have more data about the internals of the paramilitaries than I did before I read this book, my sense of understanding the situation has been substantially undermined. (This probably means that I understand it better, despite the fact that I feel more confused. False assurance of comprehension is so much more *comfortable* than juggling conflicting data!) Unknown unknowns, argh.
Perhaps the most illuminating part of the book to me were the sections where both Hughes (IRA) and Ervine (UVF) discussed and clarified the organizational structure and tactics of their respective paramilitary organizations. I was pretty familiar before this read with the structures of the IRA, particularly with Belfast and the Long Kesh inmates. However, I didn't realize how well they did at targeting particular combatants with snipers. I retain the opinion that infighting was one of the major causes of their eventual loss (curse of the Gael, really), but the format of the quoted interviews really makes it clear that the IRA successfully took out many of the intelligence officers of their counterpart units. In the interviews, both sides, anyone still living is represented by ______ unless they are a famous person known to be a paramilitary operative. Anyone who has died, their name is included, and there's a little asterisk telling you how they died. There are a substantial number of high ranking Protestant Volunteers that you get to hear about because the IRA assassinated them. I didn't think they'd done that well (for values of "well" that include "killing the people that you meant to kill"). But for most of the violence during the troubles, the Provos set out to kill specific people, to destroy specific targets, or to acquire specific resources. They did bank robberies and other sorts of predation on Protestant businesses and communities, but much of their violence was planned to defend Catholic neighborhoods from Protestant mobs attacking, to take reprisals for killings of Catholics (until relatively late in the Troubles, anyway), or to attack particular infrastructure targets of the British, police forces, and military.
Surprisingly to me, this was not the case among the UVF until relatively late in the Troubles. This was the first book I'd read that discussed the UVF in any great detail, so I falsely assumed that they had similar approaches to war. Not hardly! While both sides weren't above rounds of "oh shit, someone is shooting, quick shoot back" unplanned action (and the resultant deaths by friendly fire), Ervine described the motivations of his UVF units as solely "we felt we were being hit, and we wanted to hit back". So whereas the IRA mostly targeted either specific people or perceived hostile combatants, the UVF set out to strike fear into the hearts of Catholics by targeting just any Catholic, or person they thought was probably Catholic. Ervine's descriptions of chucking no-warning bombs into Catholic bars and shops are deeply disturbing to read, and that's before you get to the sections on the Shankill Butchers. (Pretty much anyone, Catholic, Protestant, or other, would call that torture and war crimes. ObObvious, disturbing link.)
While both sides had neighborhoods to defend and base themselves out of, militarily and politically (West Belfast and Falls Road for the Nationalists and Provo IRA, East Belfast and the Shankill Road for the Protestant Loyalist paramilitaries), and therefore some vesting in "stay and defend" rather than the booby-trapping cut-and-run that the Finns made such a success of, I was surprised by what was most effective. While the Butchers and their ilk were a PR disaster, the Loyalists did very well by just not admitting to their bombing fuckups and letting the IRA take the blame for them. Since the cops and the military were mostly on the side of the Loyalists there (even though Loyalist sentiment didn't feel that way because they didn't think the RUC and SAS went far enough), this worked very well. The UVF didn't win because they were an effective military force, they won because they were riding on Britain. (And Gerry, but we'll get to him.)
[failed UVF bomb]
UVF: [makes the "not it!" gesture, silently]
IRA: "..."
IRA: "That wasn't us!"
[no one who isn't already Catholic and oppressed and in Ireland/the US believes them]
IRA: "DAMNIT."
UVF: [smirks, makes another bomb, only takes credit if it kills the people they wanted]
IRA: [sends snipers out, ten years later they get the dude, but it's ten years later]
IRA: "DAMNIT."
I did, however, have to admire the quick planning and execution of the Provo's prison break. Given the small amount of time they had to set that up, damn.
So what makes people capable of picking up a gun to commit war crimes, or to see other people as so alien that they can torture strangers off the street? Part of it seems to be the feeling of threat, whether or not that feeling is justified. The mindset of the IRA was, as far as I can tell, of political actors fighting for freedom from an occupying force. There were cultural forces at play -- this is one reason that speaking Irish in Northern Ireland is sometimes seen as a revolutionary act, and tends to make some police nervous. In the streets and in Long Kesh, the IRA used Irish as a weapon for quick and dirty secure communications, banking on the fact that most British and most Protestants wouldn't be able to understand them. They passed orders in prison down the line as Gaeilge... and it worked. Protestants complained that Irish culture and, of all things, Irish dancing was valued above their culture, and that they resented it and felt threatened. So to folks on the paramilitary edge, any Catholic stood for all Catholics, and terrorizing one was only just retribution for the looming threat of numbers. There were fears about democracy, in the "but what if they outbreed you?" line. The Loyalists saw themselves as being hyper-loyal, taking up the dirty work of killing Catholics that the British and the cops shied away from, and expected that they deserved thanks (that they weren't going to get) and that they would be persecuted (unjustly by the very people they were saving) for their troubles. Most of those fears were self-reinforcing. The way Ervine describes the mentality of his units, they were bitter but unsurprised when they were arrested, and absolutely gobsmacked when they won.
A good part of the mentality reminds me of the similar persecution complex that evangelical American Protestants sometimes have. This is, frankly, pretty scary. That's not to say that the IRA didn't also have their moments of descending into war crimes territory... see the case of Jean McConville, mother of ten, executed and hidden by the IRA. But they were still most often trying to take out a military target by so doing. The edgiest Loyalist paramilitaries like the UVF were happy to take out any Catholics at all, and that was the more successful approach. It didn't alienate the world's media nearly as much as the IRA's bombings did.
The other major point that came out of reading this for me... holy crap, Gerry Adams just comes off like an utter sociopath. He lies repeatedly to pretty much everyone, including his followers, and retains power. Everyone on the Provo side continues to listen to him, even when what he's saying (we're going to carry on the armed struggle, just... not right now, we're building up, we're garnering support, we'll strike at any moment now... aaaaaany moment....) is at great odds with what he was doing (long, military-strength sapping ceasefires which ultimately led to the Good Friday peace accords). Hughes and many of the other Provos who were committed to the armed struggle over the ballot box and the rise of the IRA's political arm Sinn Féin felt tremendously betrayed. After many years of cooperation and closely working together, Hughes disowned Adams. He wanted nothing to do with him, didn't want Adams even invited to his funeral, no forgiveness, no association. Adams, the consummate politician, made sure that this photogenic moment happened at Hughes' funeral. So the press was full of reconciliation stories. Hughes did not forgive, but Hughes was dead and voiceless. I have to both admire the skill with which Adams managed that (he attended Ervine's funeral too, and that took guts) and deplore his utter disregard for the wishes of, oh, everyone else. It is separately disturbing to me that the objective of peace in Northern Ireland seems to have been achieved not through changing hearts and minds, not through the efforts of the several peace coalitions, not through superior diplomacy which made everyone happy, but through the manipulations of a central figure whose motives are unknown and who sold out the core principles of his side, inexplicably and with great deftness. It doesn't fill me with hope for my own diplomatic skills, that's for sure. I can't do that well because I can't lie like that. I am not sure what motivated Adams to do so, or how to achieve peace without similar means.
The UVF painted graffiti in Belfast accepting the unconditional surrender of the IRA. They weren't all that wrong. Ervine was ecstatic, Hughes crushed, betrayed, and impotently angry. Five deeply unsettling lines of speculation out of five. Absolutely worth reading, Boston College did a superb job of curating the interviews (and this is the first in a series!), inside data from the horse's mouth of major participants in opposing paramilitaries with little left to lose. As close to neutral data on the Troubles as you're going to get... but damn, is it like settling down for a nice afternoon of movies about Rwanda or something. Worth staring into that abyss, but you'll probably come away shaken.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/147737.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.
Perhaps the most illuminating part of the book to me were the sections where both Hughes (IRA) and Ervine (UVF) discussed and clarified the organizational structure and tactics of their respective paramilitary organizations. I was pretty familiar before this read with the structures of the IRA, particularly with Belfast and the Long Kesh inmates. However, I didn't realize how well they did at targeting particular combatants with snipers. I retain the opinion that infighting was one of the major causes of their eventual loss (curse of the Gael, really), but the format of the quoted interviews really makes it clear that the IRA successfully took out many of the intelligence officers of their counterpart units. In the interviews, both sides, anyone still living is represented by ______ unless they are a famous person known to be a paramilitary operative. Anyone who has died, their name is included, and there's a little asterisk telling you how they died. There are a substantial number of high ranking Protestant Volunteers that you get to hear about because the IRA assassinated them. I didn't think they'd done that well (for values of "well" that include "killing the people that you meant to kill"). But for most of the violence during the troubles, the Provos set out to kill specific people, to destroy specific targets, or to acquire specific resources. They did bank robberies and other sorts of predation on Protestant businesses and communities, but much of their violence was planned to defend Catholic neighborhoods from Protestant mobs attacking, to take reprisals for killings of Catholics (until relatively late in the Troubles, anyway), or to attack particular infrastructure targets of the British, police forces, and military.
Surprisingly to me, this was not the case among the UVF until relatively late in the Troubles. This was the first book I'd read that discussed the UVF in any great detail, so I falsely assumed that they had similar approaches to war. Not hardly! While both sides weren't above rounds of "oh shit, someone is shooting, quick shoot back" unplanned action (and the resultant deaths by friendly fire), Ervine described the motivations of his UVF units as solely "we felt we were being hit, and we wanted to hit back". So whereas the IRA mostly targeted either specific people or perceived hostile combatants, the UVF set out to strike fear into the hearts of Catholics by targeting just any Catholic, or person they thought was probably Catholic. Ervine's descriptions of chucking no-warning bombs into Catholic bars and shops are deeply disturbing to read, and that's before you get to the sections on the Shankill Butchers. (Pretty much anyone, Catholic, Protestant, or other, would call that torture and war crimes. ObObvious, disturbing link.)
While both sides had neighborhoods to defend and base themselves out of, militarily and politically (West Belfast and Falls Road for the Nationalists and Provo IRA, East Belfast and the Shankill Road for the Protestant Loyalist paramilitaries), and therefore some vesting in "stay and defend" rather than the booby-trapping cut-and-run that the Finns made such a success of, I was surprised by what was most effective. While the Butchers and their ilk were a PR disaster, the Loyalists did very well by just not admitting to their bombing fuckups and letting the IRA take the blame for them. Since the cops and the military were mostly on the side of the Loyalists there (even though Loyalist sentiment didn't feel that way because they didn't think the RUC and SAS went far enough), this worked very well. The UVF didn't win because they were an effective military force, they won because they were riding on Britain. (And Gerry, but we'll get to him.)
[failed UVF bomb]
UVF: [makes the "not it!" gesture, silently]
IRA: "..."
IRA: "That wasn't us!"
[no one who isn't already Catholic and oppressed and in Ireland/the US believes them]
IRA: "DAMNIT."
UVF: [smirks, makes another bomb, only takes credit if it kills the people they wanted]
IRA: [sends snipers out, ten years later they get the dude, but it's ten years later]
IRA: "DAMNIT."
I did, however, have to admire the quick planning and execution of the Provo's prison break. Given the small amount of time they had to set that up, damn.
So what makes people capable of picking up a gun to commit war crimes, or to see other people as so alien that they can torture strangers off the street? Part of it seems to be the feeling of threat, whether or not that feeling is justified. The mindset of the IRA was, as far as I can tell, of political actors fighting for freedom from an occupying force. There were cultural forces at play -- this is one reason that speaking Irish in Northern Ireland is sometimes seen as a revolutionary act, and tends to make some police nervous. In the streets and in Long Kesh, the IRA used Irish as a weapon for quick and dirty secure communications, banking on the fact that most British and most Protestants wouldn't be able to understand them. They passed orders in prison down the line as Gaeilge... and it worked. Protestants complained that Irish culture and, of all things, Irish dancing was valued above their culture, and that they resented it and felt threatened. So to folks on the paramilitary edge, any Catholic stood for all Catholics, and terrorizing one was only just retribution for the looming threat of numbers. There were fears about democracy, in the "but what if they outbreed you?" line. The Loyalists saw themselves as being hyper-loyal, taking up the dirty work of killing Catholics that the British and the cops shied away from, and expected that they deserved thanks (that they weren't going to get) and that they would be persecuted (unjustly by the very people they were saving) for their troubles. Most of those fears were self-reinforcing. The way Ervine describes the mentality of his units, they were bitter but unsurprised when they were arrested, and absolutely gobsmacked when they won.
A good part of the mentality reminds me of the similar persecution complex that evangelical American Protestants sometimes have. This is, frankly, pretty scary. That's not to say that the IRA didn't also have their moments of descending into war crimes territory... see the case of Jean McConville, mother of ten, executed and hidden by the IRA. But they were still most often trying to take out a military target by so doing. The edgiest Loyalist paramilitaries like the UVF were happy to take out any Catholics at all, and that was the more successful approach. It didn't alienate the world's media nearly as much as the IRA's bombings did.
The other major point that came out of reading this for me... holy crap, Gerry Adams just comes off like an utter sociopath. He lies repeatedly to pretty much everyone, including his followers, and retains power. Everyone on the Provo side continues to listen to him, even when what he's saying (we're going to carry on the armed struggle, just... not right now, we're building up, we're garnering support, we'll strike at any moment now... aaaaaany moment....) is at great odds with what he was doing (long, military-strength sapping ceasefires which ultimately led to the Good Friday peace accords). Hughes and many of the other Provos who were committed to the armed struggle over the ballot box and the rise of the IRA's political arm Sinn Féin felt tremendously betrayed. After many years of cooperation and closely working together, Hughes disowned Adams. He wanted nothing to do with him, didn't want Adams even invited to his funeral, no forgiveness, no association. Adams, the consummate politician, made sure that this photogenic moment happened at Hughes' funeral. So the press was full of reconciliation stories. Hughes did not forgive, but Hughes was dead and voiceless. I have to both admire the skill with which Adams managed that (he attended Ervine's funeral too, and that took guts) and deplore his utter disregard for the wishes of, oh, everyone else. It is separately disturbing to me that the objective of peace in Northern Ireland seems to have been achieved not through changing hearts and minds, not through the efforts of the several peace coalitions, not through superior diplomacy which made everyone happy, but through the manipulations of a central figure whose motives are unknown and who sold out the core principles of his side, inexplicably and with great deftness. It doesn't fill me with hope for my own diplomatic skills, that's for sure. I can't do that well because I can't lie like that. I am not sure what motivated Adams to do so, or how to achieve peace without similar means.
The UVF painted graffiti in Belfast accepting the unconditional surrender of the IRA. They weren't all that wrong. Ervine was ecstatic, Hughes crushed, betrayed, and impotently angry. Five deeply unsettling lines of speculation out of five. Absolutely worth reading, Boston College did a superb job of curating the interviews (and this is the first in a series!), inside data from the horse's mouth of major participants in opposing paramilitaries with little left to lose. As close to neutral data on the Troubles as you're going to get... but damn, is it like settling down for a nice afternoon of movies about Rwanda or something. Worth staring into that abyss, but you'll probably come away shaken.
This entry was originally posted at http://ivy.dreamwidth.org/147737.html and has
comments there. Please feel free to comment on either site; comments rock.