The Red Hand

by Steve Bruce

Since the start of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland", working class Protestants have used violence and terror to "defend Ulster from traitorous republicans". Despite being responsible for about half the civilian casualties of the present conflict and despite having subverted major political initiatives, the loyalist paramilitary organizations - The Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Red Hand Commando and others - have been relatively neglected by scholars. This study, based on extensive interviewing of loyalist terrorists, is a comprehensive survey of a group that is central to the Ulster conflict. "The Red Hand" recounts the history of loyalist terorism, analyzes the motives that inform it, examines the political innovations of the terrorists, critically explores claims of security force collusion with loyalist terror, and concludes by arguing that what appear to be unconnected aspects of loyalist paramilitarism can be understood as having common origins in the problems of trying to use terror to defend, rather than to destroy, the state. The primary importance of the book is in filling a large gap in our understanding of the Northern Ireland conflict; its secondary purpose is to extend our understanding of the relationship between terrorism and the modern state.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Irish Literature

325 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Steve Bruce (born 1951), Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen since 1991, elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2005, he has written extensively on the nature of religion in the modern world and on the links between religion and politics.

Reviews

[Sirana · Rating 5 out of 5]

You probably need more than a passing interest in the Troubles to enjoy this book, but if have a firm grounding what the conflict was about, this book provides a much needed counterbalance to the IRA focused narrative of most books about the Northern Ireland conflict. It is very rare to read about the Troubles from a unionist view and it is vitally important to understand the loyalist paramilitary organizations if you want to understand the conflict.

Steve Bruce is by no means an apologist for the brutal murders commited by the UDA/UFF and UVF, but he still manages to make people like Lennie Murphy and Michael Stone seem human instead of cartoonish monsters. He is also very open about where he gets his information and has no problems to tell readers about places where he is not sure what actually happened, something that I admire tremendously in an academic author. Bruce has also no problems calling out errors and misconceptions in other books about the Troubles.

Certainly not the book to start with if you have read nothing about the troubles (I would recommend Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland, although The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace is nearly as good), but if you know the basics, this is an absolute must.