Although loyalist one-day strikes had been staged on a number of occasions in 1972 and 1973, the fact that they almost invariably degenerated into violence meant the tactic was generally looked on as discredited. The strike of May 1974 was different in that it had an obvious and vulnerable target to attack in the form of the Sunningdale Agreement and the executive, featuring as it did such Unionist hate-figures as Fitt and Currie.
