Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland

by David McKittrick

community in revolt

This took place after a number of civil rights leaders called for diversionary activities outside Londonderry to ‘take the heat’ off the Bogsiders.

the Shankill

Ancient guns came out of their attic hiding places,

They had also made it clear that if troops did go in, the political balance between Belfast and London would change fundamentally, since they would not place the army under Stormont control.

The arrival of the soldiers was welcomed by Catholics

These ‘peacelines’ were to last into the twenty-first century.

In one incident an eight-year-old boy was killed in his Falls Road bedroom when a bullet from a heavy machine gun fired from an RUC armoured car ripped through walls and hit him in the head.

They were decent but bewildered men, out of their depth in the face of the magnitude of their problem.

Hunt, recommended a thorough-going reform of the RUC, including its disarming, together with the abolition of the B Specials.

Constable Victor Arbuckle, the first member of the force to die in the troubles, was shot by loyalists protesting in defence of the RUC.

Some of Lynch’s ministers are believed to have favoured despatching not only guns but also Irish soldiers to the north.

‘not stand idly by’ speech,

but first and foremost the aim was to protect the southern state against becoming physically embroiled in the northern conflagration.

Lynch made other moves. Some men from Londonderry were given arms training by Irish soldiers in Donegal, while at one point 500 rifles were moved up to the border. The government allocated £100,000 for ‘the relief of distress’, some of which would mysteriously vanish.

the south’s private position was very different from its public position that Irish unity was the only solution.

‘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.’

More than 80 per cent of the premises damaged were occupied by Catholics, and six of the eight people killed in mid-August were Catholics.

The bitter phrase ‘IRA – I ran away’ is famously said to have appeared on a wall in the

‘IRA – I ran away’

Falls Road area, reflecting the feelings of working-class nationalists in west and north Belfast ...

The first great hero of republicanism was Wolfe Tone, who was associated with the 1798 rebellion and the aspiration of bringing together Catholics and P...

so a new IRA came into being.

before long develop into an aggressive killing machine.

By 1969 the IRA was guided by left-wing theory and essentially led from the south of Ireland. It was so strongly wedded to the theory of forging working-class unity between Protestants and Catholics that even the August 1969 spasm of sectarian violence was not enough to shift its leadership from this quixotic notion. It was against this backg...

It was so strongly wedded to the theory of forging working-class unity between Protestants and Catholics that even the August 1969 spasm of sectarian violence was not enough to...

late in 1969, which brought into being the Official and Provision...

Provisionals were republican traditionalists, many of whom had been unhappy for some time...

Within months their approach was being described as ‘combined defence and retaliation’.

shot dead following a dispute with Catholic counterparts in Belfast; some weeks later a Londonderry Protestant was kicked to death by Catholics during a confrontation between rival groups.

Then a UVF member blew himself up while attempting to set off a bomb in the Republic.

the first IRA fatality of the troubles, killed in a car crash while on active service: with him in the car at the time was the future president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams.

Gerry Adams later noted: ‘In this instance the IRA were ready and waiting and in the ensuing gun battle three loyalists were killed.’

A senior Belfast IRA leader of the time, Billy McKee, who was seriously injured in the St Matthew’s church clashes, entered republican folklore by reputedly holding off Protestant gunmen almost single-handed and preventing a loyalist invasion of the Short Strand. His action did much to restore the ghetto credibility of the IRA as defenders of Catholic districts.

None of those killed had any IRA or other extreme connections.

witnessed voters and workers turn against us to join the Provisionals. Even some of our most dedicated workers and supporters turned against us.’

The army claim that he was a petrol-bomber was denied by local people.

‘an acceptable level of violence’,

‘What a bloody awful country. For God’s sake bring me a large Scotch.’

in August the first two RUC officers to be killed by the IRA died in south Armagh.

electoral successes showed, was becoming more hardline.

What do you do if you know that change is needed but the constitutients don't want it?

the demands were to ‘Stop the army fighting with one hand behind its back’, and to ‘Go in there after them’, meaning that the army should pursue the IRA into republican areas.

Internment without trial, sealing the border, and flooding republican areas with troops were among the popular Unionist solutions.

They could not grasp the fact that the army could not go in with enormous force.’

Would suggest that they seriously didn't see a problem with smashing them militarily

‘That we will be masters in our own house’, telling delegates that soon he would be in London seeking more money. He posed the question: ‘Am I to go to London and say, “We want all this support and oh, by the way, my party ask you to keep your noses out of our business”?’

With Gerry Fitt as leader and John Hume as its chief strategist, the party would remain the largest northern nationalist grouping throughout the troubles.

Following reports of an illegal attempt to import arms for the north, Taoiseach Jack Lynch had sacked two of his most senior ministers, Neil Blaney and the highly ambitious Charles Haughey.

Haughey went on trial, together with an Irish army intelligence officer, a senior republican from Belfast, and a Belgian businessman. All were acquitted by a Dublin jury following a trial in which Haughey and another cabinet minister flatly contradicted each other’s testimony.

Haughey, who was later to become Taoiseach.

on the same night in north Belfast, of the first soldier to be shot by the IRA, and the first IRA member to be shot by the army.