ABSTRACT
The controversy illustrated how the Provisional IRA's military campaign, what it referred to as "the armed struggle", continues to bitterly divide popular opinion, north and south. A series of decisions taken by British and unionist politicians, such as the Falls Curfew, internment, and Bloody Sunday, created conditions for escalation of the IRA's war and provided a ready pool of recruits to fight it. When the African National Congress sought aid to sabotage of the Sasol oil refinery in Johannesburg, it was the IRA it turned to. As former IRA volunteer Kieran Conway explained, the authors lied whenever they thought they could get away with it. Lorenzo Bosi has argued that IRA recruits included 'those who sought to defend their local areas, those committed to republican ideological goals, and those motivated by transformative events', such as internment or Bloody Sunday.
