ABSTRACT
A common interpretation of the Irish ‘Troubles’ is that they began in the late 1960s when counterdemonstrators supported by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) attacked peaceful civil rights protesters. ‘Out of the Ashes’ of August 1969 arose the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and ‘Provisional’ Sinn Féin. It is also widely assumed that the conflict ended in 1998 when the Provisionals accepted the Good Friday Agreement and settled for a reformed Northern Ireland (see also Bosi and De Fazio, in this volume).
