 The Red Hand: Protestant Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland 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.
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