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

by Tim Pat Coogan

in places like East Tyrone, where, as in South Armagh and elsewhere, opposition to the ceasefire amongst Republicans was known to be strong, the security forces harrassed young men, as though peace had never come. Also, as if to stoke up the fires, members of the RIR (formally UDR) were quietly told to resume carrying their personal weapons in the anticipation of what Unionist spokesmen began referring to as a ‘rolling return’ to violence: in other words a planned, gradual return to full-scale hostilities throughout the Six Counties. On what intelligence those reports are based one can only speculate, because the consensus in Republican circles concerning a possible resumption of violence (and this is manifestly not desired by the overwhelming majority of the leadership) is that if the ceasefire does break down, the war would be resumed not in Ireland, but in Britain. However around Portadown, some of the Loyalist paramilitary leaders who had been most prominent in the Catholic assassination campaign, but who had kept a low profile since the ceasefires, became highly visible once again. Contacts of mine spoke of feeling in the Loyalist paramilitary world running ‘at 1974 levels’. Whether this meant that there was a sense that Loyalism should be mobilised, lest there be a ‘sell-out’ to Republicanism, or that some hidden intelligence hand was at work, I cannot say. But whatever orchestration was taking place, it was obviously no rehearsal of a hymn to peace. This fact was di...