The IRA Was Defeated, Not Negotiated With

The Good Friday Agreement followed military defeat, not political brilliance. Today, Sinn Féin dresses up surrender as strategy, and politicians still claim the credit.

The Good Friday Agreement is often hailed as a triumph of political genius. The myth says clever politicians persuaded the IRA to put down their weapons. That is not history. That is self-serving fiction.

The truth is the IRA was broken by force. The security services, especially the RUC and Special Forces, ground them down. By the mid-1990s, the IRA leadership knew the campaign was lost. They could not win. Negotiations were not the victory lap of political brilliance. They were a salvage operation.

Tom Kelly, Blair’s former spokesman, wrote recently in The Times that terrorism collapses once you show violence does not work. He claims this is how the IRA campaign ended. On paper, it sounds neat. In reality, it is a lie.

If Kelly were right, the IRA would not have continued to threaten violence throughout the negotiations. They would not still be using the same threat today: “do what we say or the boys will be back to war.” That is not the behaviour of a group who accepted that violence had failed. It is the behaviour of a group who were beaten into a corner but still want to bluff their way out.

The only tool that worked was force. It forced the IRA to surrender to save their own skin. It always will.

The problem is not that the IRA lost. They did. The problem is that politicians decided they were the ones who created the cease-fire. They turned military victory into a political fairy tale. They convinced themselves it was their negotiating skills, their “vision,” their “statesmanship.” It was not. It was an earlier version of the delusions politicians conjure up to make themselves feel important—and to hand each other awards.

To make matters worse, the IRA and Sinn Féin are now attempting to rewrite history, salvaging some honour from their despicable campaign of violence. They want their defeat to look like a strategic withdrawal, their surrender dressed up as sacrifice. It is nothing of the sort.

As Charles Moore pointed out, this rewriting of history matters. Once you pretend that peace came from words instead of force, you turn appeasement into a model for the future. That is not only dishonest. It is dangerous.

History deserves to be told straight. The IRA was defeated. Politics came after.