Northern Ireland and the Troubles: A Study of the Irish Republican Army, Political Violence, and the Morality behind Terrorism.

This thesis will analyze the political history of Ireland, the centuries of unjust treatment of the Irish people, and what led to the formation of the terrorist organization the Provisional Irish Republican Army. I also plan to discuss the nature of and philosophy behind terrorism The IRA went through many changes and shifts, even splitting into other groups due to disagreement regarding policy. This paper will go through those changes and events decade by decade, in hopes of gaining greater understanding of the nature of political terrorism in the 20th century, its effectiveness, and what marked the shift to a de-escalation of violence in the 1990s by the IRA. The paper will attempt to answer the question: Can terrorism ever be moral?