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August 12 - October 22, 2022
The IRA demonstrated that neither Gibraltar nor Loughall had crippled the organisation, by killing six soldiers in a bomb blast in Lisburn on 15 June as they were being taken in a bus on what was described as a ‘fun run’.
Apart from the inevitable fall-out from such incidents in Dublin–London relations, there was more friction between the Republic and the UK throughout 1988 over another continuing bone of contention – extradition.
This chiefly centred on the Father Ryan case. The Irish refused to extradite Ryan, who had been flown back to his native country from Belgium, where he had been held in custody.
The controversy created an increase in Haughey’s popularity so that an opinion poll recorded a 62 per cent majority of public support for his handling of the affair, which Thatcher, on the 14th, had described as an ‘insult to the British people’.
The year ended with a message from the Provisionals on 30 December warning British politicians and members of the Royal Family that they were now legitimate targets.
However, the new Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Brooke, who had succeeded Tom King on 24 July (King moved to Defence), stated publicly on 3 November that the Provisional IRA could not be defeated militarily and said that for his part he would not rule out talks with Sinn Fein if the violence were to end.
Significantly, in the middle of the month (16 November), Provisional Sinn Fein launched a document entitled ‘Scenario for Peace’ which stated that as the Nationalists were the ones who sought unity there was an onus on the established parties to launch an international campaign to bring about this end. The word ‘peace’ was beginning to pop up with greater regularity amidst the horrors.
Speaking to his constituency party in Britain he said that the UK had ‘no selfish, economic or strategic interest in Northern Ireland and was prepared to accept unification by consent’.
On 27 November, John Major replaced Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party. Major consistently took a more flexible approach to things Irish than had his predecessor, although the new approach can hardly have been encouraged by an old approach on the part of the Provisional IRA.
In one, Tom Hartley of Sinn Fein announced publicly that Provisional Sinn Fein would no longer comment on the activities of the IRA. – not a disowning of violence, but a disassociation.
And by coincidence, on the same day Rhonda Paisley, Ian Paisley’s daughter, called for a ban on the UDA.
The principle behind the talks was that they would be three-stranded: one strand London and Dublin; one internally in the Six County area; and the third between north and south. There then ensued a delay while a chairman was sought for the north–south strand.
There was considerable dismay when on 3 July they yielded precisely nothing. Brooke announced that the talks had ended because the Unionists were not willing to continue discussions beyond 9 July, and in those circumstances the SDLP refused to make specific proposals.
The worst atrocity of the month, indeed of the year, occurred on 17 January, when the IRA blew up a bus containing Protestant workmen at Teebane Crossroads, near Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, killing eight workers who had been engaged in construction work for the security forces.
This was the year which saw the most far-reaching commitment ever given by an American politician to Irish-Americans
Presidential candidate Bill Clinton committed himself if elected to reversing the ban on Gerry Adams, appointing a peace envoy and greatly stepping up the level of American involvement in the Northern Ireland situation. However, this commitment achieved relatively little publicity at the time.
The Conservatives won the general election and Gerry Adams became a casualty of tactical voting in West Belfast, where Loyalists deliberately voted against the Unionist candidate and for Joe Hendron of the SDLP in order to defeat the Sinn Fein president.
On 21 August twenty-one-year-old Hugh McKibben achieved the melancholy distinction of becoming the 3, 000th victim of the Troubles, a casualty of the internal feuding in the INLA (see Chapter 10). In addition, 113 people were killed in Britain, 110 in the Republic and ten in Europe.
The Protestant paramilitaries stepped up their campaign also, threatening the ‘entire Republican’ community in a statement on 6 November. By this they apparently meant not only Sinn Fein personnel, but members of the SDLP, of the Republic’s political parties and of Nationalist sporting organisations such as the Gaelic Athletic Association.
Nevertheless, the ‘peace process era’ was well under way, and despite many denials and accusations, the British Government was changing its stance.
On 16 December, Sir Patrick Mayhew made a significant speech at Coleraine. In the course of it he said that troops could be taken off the streets, and Sinn Fein included in talks, if the violence ended.
THE STORY OF the IRA from the collapse of the Whitelaw talks is one of evolution from a rather hobbledehoy movement, fuelled by a schoolboy enthusiasm as much as anything else, and unlimited recruitment, into one of the most tightly focused, disciplined and ruthless guerrilla movements the world has seen.
…It was more like a youth hostel than a terrorist headquarters.
There was laughter and chat in the headquarters as though those who came and went were going on mountaineering excursions instead of setting out to kill someone or blow up something.
the IRA continued to be the motor force of the Northern Ireland situation.
The Provisionals were able to maintain this strength of continuity for two principal reasons: one, the IRA’s own reorganisation; the other, the manner in which policies directed against the movement created not a weakening effect, but a tremendous accession of strength.
We are not establishing or attempting to establish a regular force on the lines of… standing armies. If we undertake any such thing we shall fall.
It is unlikely that the originators of the scheme unearthed by Twomey’s capture studied Collins closely. They were northerners, and at that stage writing about him still tended to promote the view promulgated by those who supported de Valera, that he had sold out the north by agreeing to partition.
General James Glover, who as we shall see shortly knows more than most of his countrymen about the IRA, said that the cells were ‘based on the communist system’.
In fact the cell system pre-dates the devotees of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. It was in reality a reversion to the methods favoured by Continental secret societies in the 1840s.
In the Republican University of Long Kesh, he and his comrades demonstrated that, whatever their formal education, they fully understood the significance of the fact that the word education stems from the Latin educare, meaning to draw out.
Put simply, a cell, or active service unit (ASU), generally, but not inevitably, consisted of four people, of whom only one, the leader, was in contact with higher authority.
that no volunteer should be charged unless caught redhanded… we must gear ourselves towards Long-term Armed Struggle based on putting unknown men and new recruits into a new structure.
It stated: ‘Women and girls have greater roles to play as military activists and as leaders in sections of civil administration, in propaganda and publicity.’ Later, when the movement developed a political wing, women were given an enhanced status.
it was noticeable that the negotiating teams always included one or more woman.
Sinn Fein should be radicalised (under Army direction) and should agitate around social and economic issues which attack the welfare of the people. Sinn Fein should be directed to infiltrate other organisations to win support for and sympathy to the Movement. Sinn Fein should be re-educated and have a big role to play in publicity and propaganda departments.
The Green Book set out to give the recruit a firm ideological grounding.
and that the Army is the direct representative of the 1918 Dail Eireann Parliament, and that as such they are the legal and lawful government of the Irish Republic,
they as the Army are the legal and lawful Army of the Irish Republic which has been forced underground by overwhelming force.
It enters into every aspect of your life. It invades the privacy of your home life, it fragments your family and friends. In other words claims your total allegiance.
Again he should examine his political motives bearing in mind that the Army are intent on creating a socialist republic.
Volunteers are expected to wage a military war of liberation against a numerically superior force.
and volunteers are trained to kill people.
convictions which are strong enough to give him [the volunteer] the confidence to kill someone without hesitation and without regret.
The volunteers were warned that from the moment of arrest, their natural feelings of anxiety and failure at having allowed themselves to be caught would be exploited
we do not advocate a United Ireland without being able to justify our right to such a state as opposed to partition; we do not employ revolutionary violence as our means without being able to illustrate that we have no recourse to any other means…
Taking the last first: the IRA on occasion have enlarged their list of ‘legitimate targets’ at will and sometimes with disastrous effects.
The fact that the movement has survived these actions of its own, rather than the onslaughts of its enemy, probably says more for the strength of its support than any claim that has ever appeared in An Phoblacht.
‘Even if the present system of government is maintained the current muted support for the forces of law and order will remain delicately balanced and susceptible to any controversial government decision or security force action.’
‘The Provisionals’ campaign of violence is likely to continue while the British remain in Northern Ireland… We see little prospect of political development of a kind which would seriously undermine the Provisionals’ position.’
