Publication Date
Spring 2013
Degree Level
B.A
Program
Honors
First Advisor
Hufford, Larry
Second Advisor
Uhlig, Paul
Document Type
Thesis
Medium
Manuscript
LCSH subject
Paramilitary forces; Women and war; Women and the military; Women soldiers
Abstract
"Peace is not what our people fought for. They fought for independence." Declared Bernadette Sands-McKevitt in response to the Provisional Irish Republican Army's acceptance of the Belfast Agreement. A former member of the PIRA, Sands-McKevitt is now an active member of the "Real IRA," a splinter group formed by republicans who were disillusioned by Gerry Adams' acceptance of the Mitchell Principles during the Northern Ireland Peace Process. She is the founder and current Vice Chair Person of the 32-County Sovereignty Committee, a single-issue pressure group designed to eliminate the partitionist articles of the Agreement and unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. Sands-McKevitt has described the committee as "watchdogs over Ireland's sovereignty." As the sister of the late, republican hunger striker, Bobby Sands, and the wife of the leader of the Real IRA, Michael McKevitt, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt now actively promotes referendums to reverse the almost century old British rule of Northern Ireland, and the return to a united and sovereign Ireland.
Bernadette Sands-McKevitt is not the typical picture of a female former paramilitary member. The experiences of female paramilitary prisoners have been neglected in the research publications regarding the 30-year period of violence over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, commonly referred to as "The Troubles." The experiences of the female former prisoner differ from those of males in three main ways: female paramilitary members were divided on the relevance of the national question to the liberation of women (Loughran, 1986); republican female prisoners were considered distinct from the male republican prisoners by leadership, evidenced by attempted exclusion from certain protests (Galligan, 1998); literature of the conflict depicts women as "passive figures" and "waiting witnesses" (Galligan, 1998) which renders the female former prisoners' involvement in paramilitary activity as superfluous if it conflicts with domestic responsibilities and thusly creates barriers to political leadership.
The striking difference between the contemporary attitudes of previously "hardlined" paramilitary women highlights the need to examine the reasons for variance among the post conflict attitudes and activities of women during the Northern Ireland, "Troubles." Because female former prisoners have complex relationships with women's groups, male party members, and prison staff, research should examine the role of former female prisoner reintegration in Northern Ireland.
Recommended Citation
Artalejo, Emily, "Female Paramilitary Experience in Northern Ireland" (2013). Honors Program Theses and Research Projects. 67.
https://commons.stmarytx.edu/honorstheses/67
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