UNDERSTANDING DISSENT

AND DISSIDENCE IN THE

NORTHERN IRELAND
PEACE PROCESS

Dr Paddy Hoey
paddy.hoey@edgehill.ac.uk

Establishment republicanism: SF
Dissidents/ dissenters: RSF/ 32CSM/ IRSP

Cultural dissent: Fourthwrite/ The Blanket

New dissenters: irg/ RNU

REPUBLICANISMS
Historically: Nationalism & militarism
- cultural romanticism
- national and ethno religious identity
- Irish self determination
- national and social liberation
- class identity
- socialism

NEW REPUBLICANISMS
- equality
- emancipation
- empowerment
- liberation

CULTURAL DISSENT
More broadly an era of protest has passed. There are still
a few who are attempting to carry on the armed struggle
the IRA effectively abandoned fourteen years ago. But for
many others, The Blanket gave another, more civil account
of a term that has more commonly been reserved for
Republican paramilitaries who refused to follow the lead
of the Provisional IRA: dissident.
M. Fealty, In praise of a journal of dissent, the Blanket,
May 18, 2008

The Hibernian
- Catholic rural
Ireland left behind
by urban growth
- Traditional &
nostalgic
- Conservative

NEW DISSENTERS