‘Committed to the ideals of 1916’. The language of paramilitary groups: the case of the Irish Republican Army

Abstract

The objective of this article is to describe and understand the language of paramilitary groups in the Northern Irish context, taking statements issued by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as an example. In order to do so, we depart from a broad understanding of political discourse. So as to understand how beliefs, actions and the IRA existence are legitimised in those statements, Text-World Theory is combined with critical discourse analysis approaches. Chilton's notion of ‘discourse worlds’ is considered the main legitimising strategy, and these – understood as mental representations – are identified by relying on a micro-analysis of linguistic choices. Thirty-nine IRA statements delivered after the 1998 Agreement have been analysed in order to understand both synchronic responses to given socio-political events and diachronic changes related to the advances of the Northern Irish Peace process.