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

by Tim Pat Coogan

when the contents of the agreement were revealed2 they had an enormous psychological effect on the Unionists. As one prominent Loyalist paramilitary said to me afterwards: ‘I don’t have to read the agreement, I know what is in it.’ The Irish Foreign Minister and the Taoiseach were in Hillsborough Castle as of right. The Irish flag, the tricolour, which a few years earlier had been banned as an illegal emblem, now flew as of right over Hillsborough Castle. Irish accents, Irish civil servants could be heard at the Anglo-Irish secretariat at Maryfield, as of right. To make matters worse, it was a Conservative government, led by Margaret Thatcher and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Tom King, that had signed this infamous document. Who now could Unionists trust in England? The Unionists erupted in rage, withdrawing from the assembly and staging every form of riot and demonstration known to political protest in a vain attempt to wreck the agreement.