In his seminal work on irregular conflict, The logic of violence in civil war, Stathis Kalyvas argued that political actors invariably seek the exclusive collaboration of the whole population. Active collaboration – such as sharing information, carrying or hiding arms, and providing supplies or accommodation – is only required from a minority but compliance from the rest of the population should be exclusive. Collaboration with the opposition must also be prevented. Armed actors, therefore, ‘prefer exclusive but incomplete collaboration to nonexclusive collaboration (such as neutrality or hedging) … they prefer a low level of collaboration to no collaboration at all’. Allowing defiance or defection to go unchecked can result in it increasing and becoming overwhelming. Faced, as Chapter 3 has shown, with incomplete cooperation, how did the IRA punish ‘ordinary’ defiance and deal with the far more dangerous ‘spies and informers’ that occupied much of their attention? This chapter will divide IRA punishment into two main categories: non-lethal and lethal. It will explore the nature of each in relation to the perceived offences that prompted it. A key area of debate among the historiography of the Irish Revolution is the victimisation of specific minority groups and this chapter will also explore the violence suffered by loyalists, most particularly Protestants and ex-servicemen, and ask if they were disproportionate or deliberate victims of excessively violent retribution. The chapter will then examine the punishment inflicted on women who defied the will of the IRA before finishing with a discussion of regional variations.

Non-lethal violence as punishment

Following Chapter 3, the vast majority of civilian defiance can be considered minor, or everyday. Most were not informers or enemy agents but instead guilty of ‘non-cooperation’ and ‘nonconformity’. In the midst of a guerrilla war, non-cooperation was an affront to the authority of the army of the republic and, if left unhindered, potentially dangerous. Though insignificant in isolation, minor acts had a recognised potential to accumulate and spread. To that end, individual or communal instances of defiance were punished. If a pattern can be established among the wildly varying and often chaotic conditions of the many small wars that comprised the Irish Revolution, then it might be suggested that the punishment usually fit the perceived offence.