IRA associates: understanding non-member participation in the provisional IRA

The wider scholarship on ethno-nationalist terrorism and more specifically, research into the Provisional Irish Republican Army, has long endeavoured to identify the individual actors involved in furthering violence and the motivations which led to their involvement. However, the study of who directly and indirectly participated in the violence of the Northern Ireland Conflict has largely overlooked individuals who directly participated in IRA activities as non-members. This paper begins to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the role of non-members who participated in one or more IRA activities and maintained long-term relationships with the movement as IRA associates. This paper analyses seven IRA associates- a priest, a gangster, a smuggler, two IRA veterans, a British heiress and a schoolteacher turned IRA emissary. Together, they help to form a picture of the relationships and motivational factors which led this diverse cadre of individuals to participate in IRA activities as associates and contributes to a more complete understanding of the range of individuals who participated in IRA activities during the Troubles. The multi-faceted analysis and broader understanding of participation in the Provisional IRA which this research uncovers also demonstrates the need for a more complex and nuanced analysis of non-member or civilian participation in terrorism and political violence as a whole.