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On the Horizon was born in the mind of our current Editor Emeritus, Jim Morrison, as an environmental scanning journal. Published for a number of years by Jossey‐Bass, On the Horizon was acquired by a small, selective, house in the UK, Camford. Today we are pleased to announce that OTH will be published by Emerald, http://emeraldinsight.com, a major international publisher of over 130 professional journals. Beginning with Volume 10, in January 2002, OTH becomes a quarterly, doubled in size with expanded features, longer, more in‐depth articles, and a global focus, as it adds regional editors to its board.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the public relations strategies of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and their political wing Sinn Féin, throughout the historical period known as the Northern Ireland “Troubles”.

This study uses semi‐structured élite interviews as its primary data. The study structures a historical account of the development of republican public relations around three main phases: the “propaganda of the deed” phase; the development of political public relations phase; and the peace process phase.

Much previous research traces a common trajectory for terrorist organisations, where they begin with large‐scale “propaganda of the deed” activities, and then move toward more typical PR activities when their “message” begins to be heard. The findings suggest that this is only partially true for the republican movement. Previous research also claims that peace settlements virtually never acknowledge the demands of terrorist groups. However, the findings indicate that the republican movement, via the use of skilful public relations techniques and disciplined internal organisational communication, pushed itself to the forefront and remained central in the efforts to develop a peace process.

The study draws on interview data with a small group (six) of republican strategists, all of whom where involved in some capacity in public relations activities. While it is not claimed that they represent the views of the whole republican movement on the issues discussed, they do arguably represent the views of a “dominant coalition”. Future research could usefully investigate the public relations of power sharing since the Good Friday Agreement.

Previous approaches to analysing the subject of public relations and terrorism have tended to regard it as an activity engaged in by psychopaths or criminals. This paper's starting‐point is to problematise this definition of “terrorism” and at the same time widen the application of the term to include State actors. In this regard, it is in opposition to much current Western media, governmental and academic usage of the term. This research also differs from most other studies of terrorism in the public relations literature, in that it uses élite interviews as its primary source of data.

Drilling blind vias with lasers has become more and more popular over the past three years as PWB fabricators and OEMs recognize the benefits of a process that has high throughput, is versatile with materials, has a fairly large process window and requires little to no changes in their existing manufacturing line. Laser drilling systems have improved in throughput over the past two years and as fabricators develop close working relationships with the laser system suppliers, better laser drilling systems emerge. This paper will discuss a laser drilling system that is a direct result of input from fabricators around the world. Details will be provided on compatible materials, and processing speeds.