State of exception : Northern Ireland in the 1970s

Abstract

Responding to the idea of Northern Ireland as ‘a place apart’ or ‘sui generis’, this thesis analyses various aspects of state repression in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, with one eye on how they unfolded and the other on contemporaneous and subsequent understandings of them. In doing so, the aim is to ‘de-provincialise’ Northern Ireland by challenging characterisations of it as singular or unique, and reading it into broader histories of both British domestic and foreign policy and European politics and diplomacy of that period. The extent to which repressive measures were justified by claims of exceptionality, and their relevance to European politics of the time, is assessed thematically: the use of emergency law, with a case study of the emergency laws passed to curb popular resistance to emergency measures; policing in Northern Ireland; the use of torture and its legal ramifications; and the prisons system.