ABSTRACT
Sean Cronin, the IRA chief of staff for part of the organisation’s failed border campaign in the middle of the twentieth century, was hardly inaccurate in his depiction of IRA members as being the quintessential rebels (Flynn 2009: 10). When chants of ‘up the rebels’ were reported (Hart 1998: 62), it was with the IRA in mind that they were shouted and heard. While no longer in frequent use, having being displaced by the equally subversive description ‘Fenian’ (O’Tuama 1998), the term ‘rebel’ was for a long time synonymous with IRA members, and rebellion was indivisible from the body to which they belonged. The rebellious sentiment was expressed by one Provisional IRA Maze escapee, who put it thus: ‘I do not recognise the Brit legitimacy in my country. I do not give a sweet fuck what the Brits in a sense impose. If it is against my will then I will rebel’ (Toolis 1995: 189).
