The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

what was created was a fundamentally undemocratic state specifically designed to prevent power changing hands, or to allow reform to take place from within by the normal democratic processes of education, organisation, and the ballot box. In many ways the hard-working, God-fearing fundamentalists of the Six Counties resembled the Boers of South Africa. They developed the same laager mentality and a system of administration very similar to apartheid, albeit based on religion rather than colour. But, unlike the South Africans, no British prime minister warned the Unionists that they must heed the winds of change. London took exactly the opposite approach, hands off, not hands on. The cheques were written, but no effort was made to ensure that the money was spent on maintaining a state that conformed even remotely to British standards. A gathering storm of Catholic grievance burst during the 1960s and a new generation of British decision-takers found that it must return to the old question of Ireland.