ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 outlines a gradual twin process of diversification and intensification in the relationship dynamic between the Irish republican movement and Basque izquierda abertzale political cultures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to the Herri Batasuna-Sinn Féin nexus, it explores the development of relations at youth level (particularly, Jarrai’s influence on the genesis of Sinn Féin Youth), prisoner advocacy, and other movement sectors. The author documents how, from the early 1990s onwards, Basque nationalists utilised the evolving Irish Peace Press, particularly the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, to pressurise the Spanish Government into agreeing a comparable dispensation in the Basque context. A key theme running throughout Chapter 6 is the emergence and development of a ‘shared political culture’ (annual visits, joint protests, Basque-Irish murals, and so forth) at the intersection of both movements.
