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

by David McKittrick

The creation of Northern Ireland did not bring security for the Protestants despite their comfortable majority, for it was clear that London was never as committed to the Union as they were. They lived in a state of political nervousness, constantly fearing British policy might move to support a united Ireland. They also remained deeply suspicious of the almost half-million Catholics who found themselves within the boundaries of the new Northern Ireland. Those Catholics considered themselves trapped in this new state, denied their Irish identity, cut off from their co-religionists in the Free State and politically powerless. To this was quickly added another complaint: that the Unionist establishment, which was to run the state on the basis of Protestant majority rule for the following half-century, actively discriminated against Catholics in the allocation of jobs and housing, over political rights and in other areas.

The Northern Ireland system was closely modelled on the House of Commons at Westminster, but crucially it lacked the element of alternation in government: the 1920 settlement had ensured that nationalists were forever excluded from power and that Unionists forever wielded it in unbroken one-party rule. The steps the Unionist party took in the 1920s to strengthen its own power, and to defend the existence of the state, created a system of extraordinary longevity which was to preserve and reinforce many of the attitudes of the 1920s.

Consolidating control From the start the Unionist party’s leaders believed that the new state could only survive if the levers of power were firmly in reliable Protestant hands. The first instincts of Unionists, having been put in charge by Westminster, were to ensure that their power should be both undiluted and permanent. Thus one of the new government’s earliest acts was to set about changing the voting system and local council boundaries inherited by the new Unionist government.

The police had at their disposal the Special Powers Act, a sweeping piece of legislation which allowed arrests without warrant, internment without trial, unlimited search powers and bans on meetings and publications, as well as providing far-reaching catch-all clauses. Most of these provisions were used sparingly but their existence, together with the large numbers of police and B Specials, brought Catholic complaints that policing had a military character and very often an intimidating effect. These security forces, once pointedly described as the armed wing of Unionism, not only maintained law and order but also provided jobs for Protestants.

Orange culture set the tone for Unionist rule at Stormont. One classic instance of the Orange Order’s influence prevailing over other considerations was seen in 1934 when the Order complained that a Catholic was working as a gardener in the grounds of Stormont, the large east Belfast estate where a new parliament building had been erected. The fact that the man had a distinguished war record and a personal reference from the Prince of Wales himself was not enough to overcome the Orange objection to his religion.

‘If there is one thing which I have learned in my 30–40 odd years as a community social worker it is this: that, broadly speaking, two communities have lived side by side in Northern Ireland without really knowing each other, or without making any real honest, sincere and conscious effort to bridge the communications gap.’

An anecdote related by a Catholic woman helps explain why even an only theoretically welcoming south seemed preferable to northern realities. She recalled how, as a teenager in a small and predominantly Protestant County Armagh town, she was asked by a local Protestant doctor why she did not play table tennis with young Protestants in the local Orange hall. When she said she did not believe she would be welcome he persuaded her to go along, saying, ‘Nonsense, you’re being silly.’ She recounted, ‘I had a great evening, enjoyed myself very much, but the next day the doctor came to me, all embarrassed, and said: “I’m really sorry about this, but they’ve asked me to tell you not to come back. They were going to tell you this but I said I’d tell you.” He was shocked and embarrassed. I never forgot that.’

Unopposed elections were a feature of the Stormont system. Since elections were essentially decided on a religious headcount, the side which was in the minority in a constituency often simply gave up and stopped fielding a candidate there. In the South Antrim constituency, for example, the Unionist majority was so secure that for nine consecutive elections no nationalist went forward, a Unionist candidate being returned unopposed each time. This meant that no polling took place there in Stormont elections between 1929 and 1965.

This had considerable political significance, in that an important component of Unionism has been a distrust of the English and a suspicion of English motives. This derives in part from the fact that many Protestants come from Scottish Dissenting stock, a tradition which has its reservations about the English, and in part from the psychology of the settler who is forever nervous about sentiments back in the homeland. O’Neill, who projected complete faith in Britain, worried many Protestants in that he did not appear to share their almost genetic unease about London.

Although the media in general initially portrayed him as an anachronistic crank, it gradually became obvious that he had substantial support within a section of rural and working-class Protestants. His mix of religious fundamentalism, political opportunism, personal charisma and talent for self-publicity was a potent one.

He was essentially an Englishman. He was desperately out of touch with everything. I remember reporting on a speech he made at an Orange hall somewhere in County Down. First you had a speaker who got them all fired up with ‘no surrender’ stuff. Then you had another who told a lot of anti-Catholic jokes. Then you had Terence, stiffly reading out a 20-minute speech about the successes of a Belfast factory. Then you had another speaker and you were back to the good old Orange stuff again.

In the years that followed, Dublin never again extricated itself from the Northern Ireland issue, though the south’s private position was very different from its public position that Irish unity was the only solution. One of Harold Wilson’s aides would later describe a lunch at which the British Labour leader floated a plan for a united Ireland: ‘The fascinating moment at the Taoiseach’s lunch came when Harold Wilson put forward the plan for turning the dream of unity into reality. I had thought they would jump for joy, but their reaction was more akin to falling through the floor.’

The searches uncovered more than one hundred weapons but in the process considerable damage was done to hundreds of households as soldiers prised up floorboards and ransacked rooms. In addition to such personal indignities there were four deaths, all caused by the army: three men were shot dead by troops while a fourth was crushed by a military vehicle. None of those killed had any IRA or other extreme connections. The sense that the army was being deployed against the general Catholic population was compounded when troops brought in two Unionist ministers to tour the area in armoured cars.

‘What you got from Maudling was the impression of a massive intelligence, only partly in gear, which moved sideways towards the problem, like a crab, and then scuttled back into its hole without actually coming to grips with it.’

To the outside world internment might be seen as a response to IRA violence, but many Catholics in areas such as west Belfast regarded IRA activity as a response to violence from the authorities.

The official rhetoric had it that the time had come for ordinary Catholics to choose between terrorists and the men of peace, the security forces. The flaw in this projection was that, at ghetto street level, the security forces looked not so much like men of peace as agents of a state intent on attacking their neighbourhoods.

‘In order to give Catholics a real stake in society, it was not enough for them to be protected from discrimination. They also had to be given a positive role in governing the country in which they lived. I also believed that the Republic of Ireland had to be brought into the relationship once more.’

A newspaper quoted one of his officials as saying, ‘I don’t mind Merlyn wrestling with his conscience for ages over every issue. What I mind is that the result always seems to be a draw.’

Furthermore the partnership concept was shattered by the harsh reality of the strike, which demonstrated that Protestants collectively had both the determination and the ability to bring down a system they opposed. They had a clear numerical majority in Northern Ireland; they held the key jobs in the key industries; and they had shown they could bring Northern Ireland to a standstill. Although some argued that Rees had been at fault, the general moral drawn was that Unionists had demonstrated their power of veto.

The schizophrenic Unionist attitude towards law and order and legitimate protests had rarely been seen in a more illuminating light than in the strike’s aftermath. The part of the Unionist psychology which held that protest was legitimate and sometimes essential meant that there was widespread Protestant support for the stoppage, despite the obvious use of violence and intimidation. During the strike senior politicians, who would later express horror at any idea of contacts with ‘IRA terrorists’, routinely sat in meetings with representatives of paramilitary groups which had many members serving prison sentences for murder. Yet once the collapse of the executive had been achieved, the law-and-order strand of the Unionist psyche reasserted itself.

The IRA responded by becoming embroiled in what were described as sectarian ‘tit-for-tat’ exchanges, with more than forty Protestants killed in 1975 and January 1976. A few of them had loyalist connections but most were chosen at random. The attacks included an attack on an Orange Order meeting in south Armagh in which five were killed, a bombing and shooting attack on a Shankill Road pub which also killed five, and the killings of ten Protestant workmen, again in south Armagh, in retaliation for loyalist killings. Republican theorists, who say that loyalist groups are sectarian but insist that the IRA is not, look back on this particular period with some embarrassment.

Before convention members got together at Stormont, Rees ordered workmen into the chamber to rearrange the furniture in the hope of encouraging them to think in terms of consensus rather than confrontation. Curved cross-benches were installed to make the point that Unionists and nationalists should aim to meet each other in the middle. The UUUC’s overall majority ensured, however, that the creative carpentry was in vain.

‘When I consider the drunkenness, lewdness, immorality and filthy language of many MPs, I care absolutely nothing for their opinions. Ulster Protestants are not interested in gaining the goodwill of such reprobates.’

many Irish-Americans simplistically viewed the conflict in Northern Ireland as a classic colonial struggle between British occupying forces and the gallant freedom-fighters of the IRA. In this romantic version of events many complicating factors, including the very existence of the Unionist population, simply did not exist when viewed from across the Atlantic. This enabled the IRA to obtain both money and guns from Irish-Americans.

Up until the La Mon bomb the IRA had been causing fewer civilian casualties, partly because the drop in loyalist violence had brought a sharp decrease in tit-for-tat killings, and partly because it knew how counterproductive civilian deaths were.

A frequent Unionist, and sometimes government, misconception throughout the years of protest was that these prisoners were unfortunate victims who were being sacrificed by a ruthless IRA leadership. In fact all the evidence points to an IRA leadership opposed to and frustrated by the tactics of the prisoners. These formed the one group within republicanism which was in a position to act against the wishes of the leadership in that they were accorded a freedom of action not normally permitted to others. They also had strength of numbers, for at any given time there were probably more IRA members in prison than outside: in 1980 for example there were over 800 republican prisoners.

In launching the second hungerstrike Sands and the others again rejected the advice of the outside IRA leadership. The IRA felt the hungerstrikes represented a serious diversion of resources of all kinds from their main campaign of violence, and feared another damaging and divisive failure. From the beginning of the second hungerstrike it was judged highly likely that this time there would be deaths, for Sands and the others believed the fiasco of the first strike had to be avenged.

In propaganda terms Sands benefited from the fact that he developed an aura of victimhood and self-sacrifice. He was a convicted member of the IRA yet his personal image was highly media friendly. He had been jailed for having a gun rather than for murder, and the photograph of him which appeared thousands of times in newspapers and on television projected a good-looking young man with long hair, sporting a fetching grin. The fact that he looked more like a drummer in a rock band than a ruthless terrorist was important in the propaganda battle that raged all around the world.

Even after six hungerstrike deaths Brendan McFarlane, who had taken over from Sands as the IRA OC in the Maze, wrote in a smuggled message to Adams, ‘I do feel we can break the Brits.’

This has been one of the best times the IRA has ever had. The Northern Ireland problem is seen worldwide as the IRA has always wanted it to be: the hammer and the anvil, the Brits versus the Provos, nothing in between and nobody else relevant. The paradox at the centre of all this success for the Provisionals is that their gains have come through an election won by the very opposite of a Provo campaign, a campaign based on an appeal to save life, and through the self-sacrifice of their men. Somebody somewhere among the Provos has finally come to accept the truth of the old saying that it is not those who inflict the most who ultimately win, but those who endure the most.

something much more potent: political status. 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 these were indistinguishable from ordinary criminals. The hungerstrikers thus won political status in the eyes of the world.

Although attention has tended to be concentrated on such well-remembered incidents, the sobering fact is that over the years of the troubles tens of thousands of men became involved with violent republican and loyalist groups. 600 or more men were convicted of murder, while many times that number were jailed for lesser offences. Republican groups estimate that there are 15,000 republican ex-prisoners while at a rough guess around the same number of loyalists also served sentences. In other words, more than 30,000 men were involved with groups that have carried out killings and a great deal of other violence, a statistic which illustrates how deeply society was permeated by paramilitarism.

In the 1970s London and Dublin were thought to be pursuing different policies with different attitudes, because the focus of attention in people’s minds was on Irish unity versus Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK. It was therefore thought to be a conflict of interest. But the reality, because of the IRA, has been that that long term divergence of interest has been subordinated to the common concern, the restoration of peace. That change from a position of polarised attitudes to one of common purpose has been the fundamental change of Anglo-Irish relations in the last twenty years.

The new nationalist theory, as evolved by Hume, FitzGerald and others, rejected many of the old assumptions. In this revised view the key to the problem was not Britain but the Protestant community. The import was that the British presence was not imperialist but neutral, that the border was maintained not because of British interests but at the insistence of the Unionists, and that Irish unity could only come about with Protestant consent. The real border, it was now said, was not geographical but in men’s minds.

The authorities knew nothing of the Libyan link, which amounted to the worst British intelligence lapse for decades. Both the IRA and Libya itself were under surveillance from a battery of security agencies, yet all the resources of the RUC, military intelligence, MI5 and MI6 had failed to uncover the Libyan connection. In the meantime the authorities at first mistakenly believed that the fight against the IRA was going fairly well, for the death toll was down and republicans seemed if anything to be short of weapons. No one realised that the organisation was simply keeping its powder dry by not using any of the heavy weaponry in case its appearance should disclose its Libyan source and cut the supply route.

The combination of the Enniskillen bomb, the Libyan guns and the O’Hare dragnet created widespread alarm that the northern conflict was spilling across the border and threatening the stability of the entire island. For years afterwards, Sinn Féin expansion would not be a possibility in the south: the republican ambition of having up to five members holding the balance of power in the Dáil was set back for many years.

Although loyalists always harboured the ambition to kill active republicans, they rarely managed to do so, with only half a dozen Sinn Féin or IRA members or supporters among the dead in this three-year period. More republicans were to be targeted in subsequent years but at this stage Catholic civilians bore the brunt of the loyalist violence.

‘At times the fate of this struggle is in your hands. You have to be careful and careful again. The morale of your comrades in jail, your own morale and of your comrades in the field, can be raised or dashed by your actions. You can advance or retard the struggle.’

The different viewpoints of the two communities led to radically different perspectives on the IRA campaign. Republicans would say they deliberately killed only those involved with the security forces, but many Protestants pointed out that most of the victims, deliberate or accidental, were Protestants, and alleged that all or part of the motivation was sectarian. Many Catholics tended to accept the republican explanation, but very many Protestants did not.

On the surface Hume appeared to have breached the general rule that mainstream politicians should not speak to those associated with violence. Yet although few knew it at the time, the Hume–Adams channel was just the tip of an iceberg, since for years many surreptitious contacts had taken place. It was not only Hume who had been in touch with the republicans but also the Catholic Church, the Irish government and, above all, the British government. London’s line to the republicans stretched back not just for years but, intermittently, for decades. Almost all of this was however hidden from public view.

They and most of the other new spokesmen were ex-prisoners who had learnt the hard way the cost of violence. Some like Hutchinson had served life sentences, spending a dozen years or more behind bars. A number had established discreet contacts with republicans whom they had met in jail, had come to know individual IRA members, and kept up contact with them after their release, often through community groups. The sight of the previously violent loyalists embracing the peace process with such enthusiasm gave the process a huge boost, for many had assumed the loyalist groups would continue to pose an active threat. Instead they became at many points a force for moderation, eager for dialogue and presenting a very different approach from that of mainstream Unionist politicians.

The Unionist community was uncertain and nervous about the future, and although many grassroots Protestants welcomed the ceasefire, most of their political representatives found it an unsettling experience. Unionist party leader James Molyneaux said of the cessation: ‘It started destabilising the whole population in Northern Ireland. It was not an occasion for celebration, quite the opposite.’ Major noted that Unionists were ‘deeply troubled’ by the ceasefire.

Within weeks of the announcement it became obvious that the ‘cessation of military operations’ did not mean that the IRA would be entirely inactive. The practice of carrying out ‘punishments’ of alleged wrongdoers in republican areas continued, and although the practice of shooting them in the legs was temporarily ended, scores of men and youths were savagely beaten. It also emerged in late 1994 that the IRA was still watching members of the security forces, and continued to size up potential targets for attack in both Northern Ireland and Britain.

The framework document envisaged Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom, stressing the importance of Unionist consent. But it stipulated that the Irishness of nationalists should be formally expressed through progressively increased Dublin input, most tangibly through new cross-border institutions. Unionist politicians took strong exception to the document, refusing to accept it even as a basis for negotiations, while by contrast it was welcomed by nationalists.

Those who were always sceptical of the ceasefire argued that the IRA was never serious, and that the resumption of violence proved that the government and the Unionist parties were right to react to it with the utmost caution. Those who believed in the cessation by contrast contended that it was faulty intelligence and analysis, married to excessive caution and delay, which helped bring about its breakdown.

At twenty-one, the death toll in 1997 was just one down from the previous year. The pattern of killings had reversed, with loyalists responsible for two-thirds of the deaths whereas republicans had killed roughly two-thirds of those who died in 1996. The end of the year brought turmoil, however, created once again by paramilitary violence.

When UDA prisoners in the Maze voted to withhold their support from the peace process, Mowlam took the unprecedented step of going into their H-block to meet them. Though controversial the move worked, and within hours of the meeting UDA prisoners renewed their support for the peace process.

The principles of powersharing and the Irish dimension, familiar from the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement, were very much in evidence. But this document went further, and was full of ingenious formulations which together provided a closely interlocking system designed to take account of all the political relationships within Northern Ireland, between north and south and between Britain and Ireland. The accord addressed the republican preoccupation with self-determination but crucially it defined consent as requiring that the people of Northern Ireland would decide whether it stayed with Britain or joined a united Ireland. It provided for a rewriting of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution to remove what Unionists regarded as the objectionable claim to the territory of Northern Ireland. It provided for a new 108-member Belfast assembly, to which Westminster would devolve full power over areas such as education, health and agriculture, including the right to make new laws. London would retain responsibility for matters such as defence and law and order, though it promised to consider devolving security powers at a later stage.

The republican community did not take long to give its general endorsement, but the agreement produced deep divisions within the Ulster Unionist party and, unsurprisingly, outright hostility from Paisley. Trimble secured his party’s support, but some important party figures disapproved and did so vocally.

The stage was thus set for yet another chapter in the familiar running battle between Unionist moderates and hardliners. There was great continuity in this pattern. Edward Heath had years earlier said of Unionist opinion in the early 1970s that ‘they split evenly between moderate reformers and hardline incorrigibles’. The story was almost exactly the same in 1998, a quarter of a century later.