ABSTRACT
At the end of February 1972, the newspaper Republican News published on its front page the photographs of six IRA activists who had died some days earlier. Right in the middle of the page, under the headline, ‘They died so that we can live’, was the very young face of David McAuley, a ‘volunteer’ of Fianna Éireann, the youth wing of the IRA. Despite being only fourteen, McAuley was acclaimed as a member of the organisation after having died ‘accidentally’ while using a firearm.1 What could have caused such a young person to enter into a group that allowed him to handle lethal weapons? Was he really, as the republican term ‘volunteer’ suggests, recruited of his own free will? If this child had survived the Troubles and was asked today what led him to become a member of the terrorist group at such a young age, the chances are that his motivations would be very similar to those of a large number of his republican peers. Bearing in mind that the vast majority of activists took such a crucial decision during their adolescence or even earlier, what does this tell us about the true intentions used to rationalise their participation in acts of violence and their membership of an organisation like the IRA, which claims that such acts are both necessary and effective? Were they capable of assessing the real significance of their decision to join and its consequences when they became activists? Are other motivational factors underestimated when an interpretation is adopted which is much more acceptable for the individual and the group image?
