Making Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict

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The names of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams were mere boogymen. To be conjured as insult on the teenage playground. “You fancy Gerry Adams!” “Would you rather kiss Gerry Adams or marry Ian Paisley?” Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-02-11 06:12:09 Associated-names McVea, David Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA40362214 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier This book is a chronological summary of more than 100 years of the troubles of Northern Ireland. In essence, "This is what happened in the 1920s, this is what happened in the 1960s, etc." It is certainly true that violence increased greatly in August 1971, though it is also probably true that it would have gone up in any case, given that both the IRA and loyalist groups were becoming bigger and more organised, as the increase in IRA violence and the bombing of McGurk’s bar testified. Nonetheless, three events taken together - the introduction of internment, Bloody Sunday and the fall of Stormont -served to trigger the worst violence ever seen in Northern Ireland. Faulkner portrayed Stormont’s end as primarily the achievement of the IRA, declaring: ‘Chief amongst those who have sought the emasculation and ultimately the downfall of Stormont have been the IRA terrorists themselves.’ Heath also admitted that he was shaken by the violence, and that he feared complete anarchy. On the nationalist side the SDLP dominated, having taken 22 per cent of the overall vote and representing in one party virtually all of constitutional nationalism. Nationalism had by this stage regrouped into two very distinct and opposing positions, most Catholics voting for the SDLP. Republicans were not, however, represented, having boycotted the elections: in the 1980s they would build a significant vote but during the 1970s they did not contest elections. Most of those who opted for a violent path came together in the IRA, known in those days as the Provisional IRA, which believed in an eventual republican victory achieved through force. Only a few individuals and organisations, such as Bernadette Devlin, the rump of the Civil Rights Association, and the Official IRA, did not align themselves with either of the two large nationalist groupings.

Whitelaw was as unimpressed with the republicans as they were with him. He recorded in his memoirs: ‘The meeting was a non-event. The IRA leaders simply made impossible demands which I told them the British government would never concede. They were in fact still in a mood of defiance and determination to carry on until their absurd ultimatums were met.’ The very fact that the meeting took place, however, was of great psychological importance in both political and paramilitary circles, being regularly cited in support of the argument that Britain might someday not rule out doing a deal with violent groupings. Although the rejectionist Unionists were against Faulkner and against Whitelaw, personality and political differences meant they were clearly not united in leadership, aims, methods or alternatives. Political groupings, and sometimes loyalist paramilitary groups, from time to time formed umbrella groups but these tended to be shifting, unstable and suspicious coalitions which knew what they stood against but disagreed on what they stood for. Horror piled on horror in July 1972. The restlessness of the mid-1960s had first degenerated into the violent clashes of August 1969 and now descended further into killings at a rate of three a day. That month had many of the features which were to become all too familiar as the troubles went on. Republicans killed Protestants while loyalists claimed Catholic lives, often with particular savagery. On 11 July a number of drunken loyalists broke into the home of a Catholic family, killing a mentally handicapped youth and raping his mother. At the resulting murder trial a lawyer told the court: ‘The restraints of civilisation on evil human passions are in this case totally non-existent. You may well think that in this case we have reached the lowest level of human depravity.’The election result was yet another illustration of Unionist divisions. Thirty-nine of the Unionist party candidates gave their allegiance to the Faulkner approach but, in an echo of O’Neill’s 1969 crossroads election, ten others refused to do so. Unionist rejectionists won 27 of the 78 assembly seats with 235,000 votes, while Unionists supporting the initiative won 22 seats with 211,000 votes. Faulkner thus emerged from the election leading a bitterly divided party and without a majority among Unionist voters. His best hope was that, if a working system of government could be set up, its successful functioning would gradually attract more Unionist popular support. These ideas held no attraction for the IRA, which saw them as desperate attempts to shore up crumbling British rule. It remained intent on fighting on in the hope of wearing down the British will and bringing about a British withdrawal. But the new concepts were much welcomed by the SDLP and the Irish government, both of which had been lobbying for such an approach. Extraordinarily well-balanced, sane, comprehensive and rich in sober understatement' Glasgow Herald There could have been no more definitive display of political motivation than the spectacle of ten men giving their lives in an awesome display of self-sacrifice and dedication. It was possible to view this as outlandish fanaticism, and many did; but it was not possible to claim that there were indistinguishable from ordinary criminals. Within the Unionist community, however, many did not believe that Stormont was secure or that the IRA was on the road to defeat. This was put most forcibly by William Craig, who had been roundly beaten by Faulkner for leadership of the Unionist party. He formed an organisation called the Ulster Vanguard movement, and, while remaining a member of the Unionist party, used Vanguard as his own power base, designing it as an umbrella group to enlist as many supporters as possible from the various loyalist groupings which were springing up in response to the mounting tension.

Although London and Dublin were able to reach agreement on most issues, they had to agree to differ on a number of points and especially on one hugely important issue. In the absence of an agreed single statement on the status of Northern Ireland, the governments agreed that separate statements should be printed side by side in the final conference communiqué. This was seen both as an oddity and as a sign of continuing British-Irish differences. The Irish government statement ‘fully accepted and solemnly declared that there could be no change in the status of Northern Ireland until a majority of the people of Northern Ireland desired a change in their status’. Dublin did not, however, propose to delete or change Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution, which Unionists regarded as an offensive claim to jurisdiction over Northern Ireland. Some in Dublin favoured such a move, but the problem was that the constitution could only be changed by a referendum. If a referendum had been held and lost, the entire initiative would have been undermined.The Troubles in Northern Ireland rolled grimly on for almost thirty years from the late 1960s until the onset of the current shaky peace process. In that time, the conflict never strayed far off the news schedules of the world’s media. Thousands of books, articles and theses were published, dissecting every possible aspect of the problem and making it the most researched civil conflict in history. Peace came to Northern Ireland because the truculent parties got the best that was available to them after taking decades to work out that they had been pursuing political fantasies, not because Blair or anyone else showered them with wisdom and grace or applied any particular genius to contriving a deal." The worst year of the troubles was 1972, its death toll of almost five hundred far exceeding that of any other year. Fourteen of those deaths occurred in Londonderry on 30 January, in what was to be remembered as one of the key events of the troubles, Bloody Sunday. What happened on that day was to drive even more men and youths into paramilitary groups. Thirteen people were killed and another thirteen were injured, one fatally, when soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and other units opened fire following a large illegal civil rights march in Londonderry city. In 1972 a total of 498 people were killed in Northern Ireland, which had a small population of around 1.5 million. It was a very violent place. The total body count of The Troubles is 3,739 between 1966 and 2012 (but the murders have not been in double figures since 2004.) Now – can anyone tell me how many people have died in Iraq’s complex internal wars since 2003? Is anyone counting? And that’s just one example. How long have you got? However, if you know some Irish history and/or can appreciate the ethno-nationalist competition in Northern Ireland, then you may very well be let down.