ABSTRACT
To counter the Irish Republican Army (IRA) hold on key districts, urban or rural, on the nationalist population, the security forces did not rely on either military tactics, police procedure, or technology alone–a dirty war required unappealing means. Unconventional wars are unconventional in all sorts of ways and yet most have rules, self-imposed restraints, limits. The Price sisters ended their hunger strike after two hundred days as a result of promises, but so had in time both were transferred to Armagh Prison–and force-feeding had been formally discarded by the authorities. In retrospect it would be clear that the conventional response of the authorities, in particular the Northern Ireland Office, to the end of the hunger strike lacked elegance and anticipation. The IRA won in perception of the world, in many Irish hearts, and won a novel way into future while the British received nothing but more potential trouble and no special route out of their Irish bog.
