The sociogenesis of ‘terrorism’ as part of British-Irish relations during the nineteenth century

In this paper, I examine the ‘sociogenesis’ of terrorism in the context of established–outsider figurations involving the English and Irish Catholics during the nineteenth century. I do this through an analysis of newspaper reports over the course of that period. I locate this within a wider framework of research on terrorism that has tended to essentialise the concept of terrorism, while at the same time reproduce ‘established’ group narratives of the phenomenon. I seek to show how the meaning of the concept of terrorism changed, following its first use during the French Revolution, coming to be used by established groups to define the ‘barbarous’ Irish in opposition to the ‘civilised’ English. I explain how this antithesis was, in part, used as a justification for English ‘civilising offensives’ in Ireland, while at the same time, wider structural inter-state relations between England and France also contributed to the English seeking monopoly control in Ireland. I conclude by showing that these processes were central to the development of terrorism as part of English–Irish relations during the twentieth century, including how the main groups involved became ensnared in a ‘double-bind’.