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

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By this point Unionism had splintered, with Faulkner prepared to negotiate, Paisley pressing for integration, and Craig apparently bent on confrontation. Prominent Unionist former ministers such as Harry West and John Taylor demanded a return to the old Stormont system, while many other politicians added to the general confusion by changing their minds and their political lines, sometimes several times. Faulkner found it difficult to hold his party together, particularly since he was advancing the problematic policy of negotiating with a British government which had, in the eyes of most Unionists, been guilty of a betrayal in removing the Stormont system. Some liberal Unionists drifted away from politics entirely, depriving Faulkner of potentially useful support. The other hungerstrikers weren’t far behind. Seven days after Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes died, 9 days after him came Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara on the same day, 18 days later, Joe McDonnell, and so on…. Ten men, all in their mid-20s, dying of starvation one after another, between May and August. It was so gruesome. He associated with some loyalist paramilitary organisations such as the UDA. Advocating a semi-independent Northern Ireland he staged a series of Oswald Mosley-style ‘monster rallies’, arriving complete with motorcycle outriders to inspect thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands, of men drawn up in military-style formation. What Craig said at the rallies and elsewhere was even more alarming. In a series of what became known as the ‘shoot-to-kill’ speeches he openly threatened the use of force, declaring: ‘We must build up dossiers on those men and women in this country who are a menace to this country because one of these days, if and when the politicians fail us, it may be our job to liquidate the enemy.’ 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?” 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.

A last-minute breakthrough was achieved with the aid of the ingenious device of creating a new category of extra ministers. Faulkner would have a majority within the eleven-strong executive, which was to be made up of six Unionists, four SDLP and one Alliance. But four extra non-voting ministers were to be appointed, so that the full executive would consist of seven Unionists, six SDLP and two Alliance members. This piece of sleight-of-hand meant that Faulkner could claim he had a Unionist majority while non-Unionists could simultaneously claim he had not. 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. He sounded out loyalist paramilitaries too, on one occasion meeting loyalists wearing masks and sunglasses in his Stormont Castle office. But a few days after his encounter with republicans a brief IRA ceasefire broke down. The IRA and the British government had met face to face, each concluding that the other was unreasonable and in effect beyond political reach. The IRA stepped up its violence with a vengeance, while loyalist groups also began killing on a large scale. The Protestants wanted to keep being the majority, thank you very much, and the Catholics wanted Northern Ireland to re-join the Republic of Ireland so they could be in the majority. And it wasn’t just a whimsical notion either, it was a fight to get the hands of the strangler off their throats. There’s no doubt the Catholics were viciously denied every possible social and human right between 1922 and, well, the outbreak of peace in 2004. They were denied housing, jobs, votes, decent treatment by the police and courts, you name it. They had been kept down for so long. Well, isn't democracy the rule of the majority? If so, Northern Ireland 1922-2004 was intensely democratic.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. 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.’

urn:oclc:850193292 Republisher_date 20180111100324 Republisher_operator [email protected] Republisher_time 629 Scandate 20180110211430 Scanner ttscribe5.hongkong.archive.org Scanningcenter hongkong Top_six true Tts_version v1.57-initial-82-g2b8ab4d Worldcat (source edition)Buried in the text of most histories you can detect the views of the author. Making Sense of the Troubles, the first attempt to tell the whole story of the past 30 years in Northern Ireland, is an exception. The white paper reaffirmed that the concepts of powersharing and an Irish dimension were to be the mainstays of a new settlement. It said that government ‘can no longer be solely based upon any single party, if that party draws its support and its elected representatives virtually entirely from only one section of a divided community’. The white paper advocated the creation of a Council of Ireland for consultations and cooperation with the south. At the beginning of 1973 the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic became members of the European Economic Community (EEC), a development which over time had a major effect on Anglo-Irish relations. Disparity in the wealth of the two countries had added to the historical distance between coloniser and colonised, with Irish dependence on British trade reinforcing this. Their simultaneous entry to the EEC, however, helped alter some of the fundamentals of the relationship and in-creased the south’s international standing. Joining Europe also markedly increased the Republic’s sense of national self-esteem as Irish ministers, and some talented Dublin civil servants, were seen to perform well on the international stage. British and Irish officials also formed useful working relationships which would later be important in developing greater understanding and mutual respect. The Sunningdale conference was something of a cultural clash: the Unionist delegation decided not to use the drinks cabinet provided in their room in case their judgement should be affected. Other delegations laboured under no such inhibitions, first exhausting their own supplies and then gladly accepting the Unionist supplies. Faulkner’s team instead sent out for Polo mints. However, the hours of intense negotiations engendered growing understanding and respect. Faulkner would later write: ‘There was a feeling of comradeship and trust between those of us who had been through hundreds of hours of negotiations, and a sense almost of moral purpose.’ The image of prisoners naked in their cells with nothing for company but their own filth is undeniably potent, and it was being trumpeted round the world. But despite the adverse publicity I couldn’t give in. To do so would give the IRA its biggest victory in years. It would mean the abandonment of…the rule of law.