ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an in-depth discussion of the informal justice practices which preceded the current community restorative justice projects in Northern Ireland. It particularly explores the intricacies of paramilitary punishment violence, practices for which community restorative justice was explicitly established as an alternative. Earlier practices of informal justice in Ireland also form part of the discussion, partly because they demonstrate the long tradition of informal justice on the island and because current restorative justice practices in Republican communities in the north initially drew legitimacy from such precedents. The discussion then moves on to focus on more contemporary practices of informal justice in Northern Ireland — apart from the recent community restorative justice developments — which can be divided into two overarching categories: paramilitarism and vigilantism. These are analysed as two different categories of community action, where the first is viewed as an expression of the ‘organised community’, and the second as indicative of the ‘disorganised community’. Discussions of informal justice in Northern Ireland often refer to it as vigilantism, and little regard is given to the source of such violence, be it paramilitary organisations or ‘ordinary’ community members. However, the distinction is important since they require different means by which their practices can be challenged and changed within the transitional context.
