Despite Britain’s record in the country, the ordinary British soldier was not normally a hate object in Ireland. Loathing was generally reserved for corps raised expressly to provoke that emotion, for example, the Black and Tans. During the Black and Tan war the Tommies were never regarded in the same hostile light as the Tans. That attitude would not have changed in the Catholic ghettos of Belfast in 1970 just because the Provisionals were trying to goad the troops into first reaction and then overreaction. The mere fact of having troops on the streets in such a highly charged atmosphere
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