There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History

by Rory Carroll

She was a Conservative, yes, but believed that for things to remain the same, everything must change.

An informal IRA survey found up to 90 percent of volunteers joined not through ideological conviction but to hit back after security force violence or harassment. They viewed violence as a legitimate response because if the state broke the law, then there was no law.