"Since in some cases I gather the choice of IRA terrorists was either to be kneecapped by the IRA or join,"
Do you have any solid evidence for this Richard? It's always seemed more than a little incongruous to me that a clandestine organisation should fill its ranks with reluctant recruits who are quite likely to do a runner and grass them up at the earliest opportunity.
This was equally the case with organisations like the Nazis; why waste time, energy and manpower forcing people to join their ranks when German people were queuing to become members; very soon the reluctant 'volunteers' would outnumber those who 'forced' them to join - a dodgy position to be in, to say the least. I'm afraid I take stories of people being 'forced' to join such bodies with a large pinch of salt, be they pope or ordinary man-or-woman-in-the-street.
I sometimes think people took our propaganda machine far too seriously.
Jim Carroll