The Green Book (IRA) - Propaganda Techniques in The Green Book

Propaganda Techniques in The Green Book

The 1977 edition stresses that the volunteer is ultimately responsible within the framework of the movement for ensuring the formulation, dissemination and efficiency of propaganda. This process was to begin within the mind of the volunteer himself:

"A new recruit's immediate obstacle is the removal of his (her) ignorance about how to handle weapons, military tactics, security, interrogations etc. An O.C.'s might be how to put a unit on a military footing; an I.O.'s how to create an effective intelligence network; a Cumann na mBan Chairman's how best to mount a campaign on a given issue, e.g. H Blocks etc., and for all members of the movement regardless of which branch we belong to, to enhance our commitment to and participation in the struggle through gaining as comprehensive an understanding as possible of our present society and the proposed Republican alternative through self and group education."

The stated war objectives of the IRA within the 1977 document included the success of national and international propaganda as a war objective:

"We exploit these mistakes by propagating the facts. So it was with their murderous mistakes of the Falls Road curfew, Bloody Sunday and internment, which were exploited to our advantage support- wise as was the murder of John Boyle in Dunloy."

The 1956 edition is a lot more practical, suggesting a more limited, less well oiled organisational machine of the IRA then than today:

"The main channels of information available to the guerrillas are newspapers, leaflets, radio, word of mouth. Other methods may be worked out and new ones invented. For example: Painting of slogans, proclamations and manifestoes and so on. All the means of winning the confidence of the people must be utilised. The ideas of the movement must be so popularised that no one is in doubt-least of all the enemy-that it will win eventually."

"This information service must function continuously to get maximum results. Among the things it must do are:

• Show weakness of enemy position and propaganda used to bolster that position.
• Show what is wrong with political and social order.
• Suggest remedies and how they can be brought about.
• Be in touch all the times with thinking of the people."

"The world must know and understand what is being done, what the enemy is trying to destroy and why, and the way these things can be ended and peace restored and freedom won. The use of regular bulletins for foreign newspapers and news-agencies becomes a necessity. The bulletin should be of the documentary type: no room for emotional pleas or the like. Just the facts."

While IRA volunteers also engaged in the above efforts, the techniques are not described in the 1977 Green Book.