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

by David McKittrick

Three Scottish soldiers who had been drinking off-duty in a Belfast bar were lured to a lonely road on the outskirts of the city and shot dead by the IRA. The huge impact of their killings is still remembered by many as one of the key points in Northern Ireland’s descent into full-scale violence.

Four thousand shipyard workers marched in Belfast demanding internment.

Chichester-Clark returned to Belfast and resigned, stepping down from office with an almost visible sense of relief.

He was credited with putting down the IRA’s 1950s campaign, principally through the use of internment, and in the 1960s had been conspicuously successful in attracting new industry from abroad.

To balance his political concessions, Faulkner had successfully pressed London for a tougher army approach,

‘Any soldier seeing any person with a weapon or acting suspiciously may, depending on the circumstances, fire to warn or with effect without waiting for orders.’

The incident disrupted the political talks as the SDLP warned it would withdraw from Stormont unless an independent inquiry was established to investigate the deaths. When no inquiry was set up, the SDLP walked out of Stormont never to return, and Faulkner’s committee offer became academic.

simply this: what other measures could be taken?’ He added, ‘I think if we hadn’t introduced internment there was the danger of the Protestant backlash. What we were always worried about was if people did not think the British government were doing all they could to deal with violence, they might take the law into their own hands.’

internment failed ‘very fundamental questions could arise’.

9 August 1971

Operation Dem...

quickly emerged that the RUC Special Branch had not kept pace with the rapidly expanding Provisional IRA and that its files were out of date and inaccurate.

radicalised

It later emerged that more than a dozen suspects had been given special experimental interrogation treatment. They were subjected to sensory deprivation techniques which included the denial of sleep and food and being forced to stand spreadeagled against a wall for long periods. Taped electronic ‘white noise’ sounds were continuously

played to complete the disorientation. Years later the European Court of Human Rights characterised this episode as ‘...

The fact that this was clearly a highly inefficient operation was demonstrated both by the number of early releases and, most of all, by an eruption of violence on the streets.

Far from halting the violence, internment increased it tremendously.

since they regarded Faulkner’s primary motive not as a concern to reduce violence but as the partisan purpose of propping up his government and preserving Stormont.

Faulkner personally signing each individual internment order.

Faulkner was heavily criticised for the fact that not a single loyalist had been detained, leading to charges of blatant partiality.

‘Lift some Protestants if you can’,

‘Internment attacked the Catholic community as a whole. What was worse, it was directed solely against the Catholics, although there were many Protestants who provided just as strong grounds for internment.’

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.

Another source of grievance was the considerable number of Catholics who died at the hands of troops. This is a largely disregarded phenomenon but it was especially evident in the second half of 1971.

but in most it was not.

I choose to believe this, but what is the source here?

non-involvement of many of those killed became evident later, at inquests or when the authorities quietly paid out substantial compensation to relatives of the dead.

All of this meant that many non-republicans and their families became radicalised and often became republicans.

The party gave its support to a rent and rates strike which was so widely supported that

the authorities estimated that 20 per cent of the entire population had joined it.

Many Catholics withdrew from public life, while most nationalist representatives ceased to attend local councils. Some 200 Catholic members left the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), th...

for every man put behind the wire a hundred would volunteer’.

policy of passive resistance now being pursued by the non-Unionist population’.

I sometimes felt that a pair of powerful hearing aids would come in handy.’

they both moved away from the idea that a solution lay in the model of a Unionist government delivering a stream of concessions to nationalists.

They would never wholly identify with the state, the theory ran, if they remained in perpetual opposition, and so had to become part of the fabric of administration.

‘PAG’

‘permanent, active and guaranteed role

‘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.’

VERY interesting

Harold Wilson, as leader of the opposition, was attempting to put a united Ireland on the British political agenda.

convoluted scheme which envisaged Irish unity in fifteen years, with the south rejoining the Commonwealth.

What the hell?

Nationalists criticised Newe for swimming against the abstentionist nationalist tide, denouncing the appointment as gimmickry.

McGurk’s, was blown up with the loss of fifteen lives.

UVF involvement was confirmed years later when a member of the organisation confessed and was jailed for life.

who had of course argued that no loyalists were dangerous enough to be interned. Much more loyalist violence lay ahead.

Fucking clowns

Bloody Sunday.

No soldiers were either killed or injured by gunfire or nailbombs, and no weapons were recovered by the army.

Father Daly said later:

British embassy in Dublin was set alight and destroyed.

Lord Widgery. His conclusion that the firing of some paratroopers had ‘bordered on the reckless’

released in the spring of 2000, mention the possibility of Irish unity.