An English professor is an unlikely man for IRA members to give candid interviews to. But they did. Suzanne Breen meets the author of a new book on the republican movement

There is a stereotype of those who write books on the IRA. He - and it's invariably a he - is usually a hard-nosed Irish hack, who meets shady characters in dark corners of dodgy bars. Prof Richard English might be the "right" gender, but in every other regard he is atypical.

The son of a Methodist minister from Co Durham, he had a respectable bourgeois upbringing in England. His mother was a Belfast Protestant whom he describes as a "moderate unionist". A high-flying Oxbridge graduate, he became professor of politics at Queen's University, Belfast, aged only 35.

He accepts that some might think him an unlikely author for Armed Struggle, which chronicles the IRA from 1916 to today. "My accent and surname are quite obviously English but they weren't barriers," he jokes. He found the past and present IRA members he interviewed "helpful and courteous . . . They gave generously of their time when there was nothing in it for them. I came to like them a lot."

He didn't always feel that way. "When I began my research, I was very critical of the IRA. I believed their violence was completely unjustified. I thought unionists had a reasonable case. I have come not to support, but to understand, a political movement that is not my own."

He admits some unionists mightn't like his book. "Some might say it doesn't go into enough gory details about IRA operations. Of course, I don't approve of killing, but comprehending people is more valuable than condemning them."

English's interviewees include the Brighton bomber, Patrick Magee; hunger-strikers Marian Price and Laurence McKeown; Danny Morrison; American gun-runner George Harrison; prominent dissident Anthony McIntyre; and Sinn Féin's Tom Hartley.

"I wanted to write an accessible book that told a human story, not something just for undergraduate reading lists. Previous representations of the IRA have been simplistic. They are either unblemished heroes or unredeemed psychopaths. I wanted to be neither celebratory nor accusatory."

English rejects the portrayal of IRA violence as illogical. "The IRA was as rational as any other player in the conflict. It wasn't steeped in romantic Celtic mysticism. There was a practical logic to its military strategy - to raise the cost of remaining in the North to such a high human, financial, economic and political level, that Britain would decide to leave." The IRA inflicted terrible violence on others and its members daily faced prison or the grave. Yet English found "black humour and a sense of adventure" in its ranks.

Ex-provisional Tommy Gorman recalled an IRA member who took over a pensioner's house, with orders to keep her at the back and hide his face. Gorman later found the woman chatting over tea with the activist who wore a wicker basket over his head.

An IRA member recalls being on the run. "It was an exciting time. I was 19, sleeping in ditches, outbuildings or safe houses, always with my clothes on, always armed." Another recollects, "We didn't really think about killing or being killed . . . it was all a high. There was a feeling of great exhilaration after an operation. We'd go back and wait for the news to hear the damage we'd done."

English's interviews offer an insight into the changing climate in the H-Blocks. During the 1981 hunger strike, Anthony McIntyre railed at the provisionals' "inadequate" military response to its enemies. "We felt the IRA could have been slaughtering these people in 20s and 30s. We were expecting Warrenpoints," he says, referring to the killing of 18 British soldiers two years earlier.

By 1993, the anger of the days when the prisoners donned blankets and smeared excrement on their cells had diminished. When the authorities introduced duvets, Danny Morrison noted: " 'I did four years on the duvet' wouldn't get you as many free pints as having been a blanket man". The rosary was recited daily in the 1980s but, by now, in one republican's words, the inmates were "an irreligious bunch . . . nobody gave a hoot about the Bible".

After the collapse of Soviet communism, they joked the only two places communism survived were "f***ing Albania and Cell 26". Yet, despite all the debate and radical literature, there was censorship. One ex-prisoner told English of newspapers arriving with pages taken out - "not by the screws but by our own (IRA) staff".

In recent times, tensions have emerged with the ideological compromises of the peace process. Patrick Magee, Tom Hartley, and Danny Morrison are proud of Sinn Féin's position. For Marian Price of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, the party is no longer republican. Former Belfast IRA commander Brendan Hughes now sees Sinn Féin as "part of the occupation forces".

Anthony McIntyre, who served 18 years imprisonment asks, "Why did so many people have to die to bring us back round to accepting what we rejected in 1974 (Sunningdale Agreement) and called everybody else bastards for accepting?" For these republicans, English says, "GFA stands not for Good Friday Agreement but Got F*** All".

He sees continuity between today's anti-Agreement republicans and their anti-Treaty predecessors.

"Ernie O'Malley and Marian Price have the same uncompromising attachment to republican principle. The Belfast Agreement is closer to traditional British aims than to IRA ones. Post-1916 and post-1981 hunger-strike, the IRA fought tenaciously for their goals, which ended with a compromise supported by Sinn Féin.

"There is consistency to the argument of dissenters, now and then, that the deal accepted wasn't what the armed struggle was about, that Irish national self-determination is still being denied, and republican campaigns do not depend on electoral mandates. But my own view is that such a firm adherence to principle is never likely to succeed in the world of practical politics."

English acknowledges the remarkable ideological journey of the Provisional IRA. "They killed people for saying the Northern Ireland State was reformable, and yet reforming it, to improve the position of Catholics, is now in practice more important to them than campaigning to end partition."

Sinn Féin's continuing electoral success will be "based on the kind of political arguments the SDLP once made". He believes the Provisional IRA's days are numbered.

"They will probably cease to be quite soon. There isn't much point in the IRA any more for the Sinn Féin leadership. It's better for them, and their capacity to get votes, if the IRA is out of the picture."

Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA by Richard English is published by Macmillan, £20 in UK