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

by Tim Pat Coogan

They made appeals to ‘every able-bodied man in Ireland, who believes in freedom’ to come to Derry.

a high percentage of the practising revolutionaries and anarchists of Europe did descend on Derry

The result was an outburst of ferocious rioting across the Six Counties, in Coalisland, Armagh, Dungannon and Belfast. In Belfast, as we shall see shortly, the upheavals were far more serious than in Derry.

But it was Dublin that really put up the temperature. Mild-mannered Jack Lynch, the Republic’s prime minister, went on television and announced that the Irish Government was sending army field hospitals to the border to treat people who did not want to go to Northern Ireland hospitals.

It is evident that the Stormont Government is no longer in control of the situation. Indeed the present situation is the inevitable outcome of the policies pursued for decades by successive Stormont Governments. It is clear, also, that the Irish Government can ...

He went on to say that the deployment of British troops would be ‘unacceptable’, that the RUC was no longer accepted as an impartial force, that London was being asked to apply immediately for a UN force, and that he also intended to ask London to enter into negotiation on the North’s...

Left to himself the dovish Lynch would not have made such a speech, but he was under pressure from hawks within his cabinet like Neil Blaney, who represented a border constituency. Also, he had to do something to quell the rising passion which was manifesting itself in every town in the Republic as the rioting progressed.

Had Lynch not made the gestures he did, there could have been serious trouble in the Republic. But in real terms Lynch’s speech was for the optics.

‘Northern Irish troubles were an internal affair of the United Kingdom, of no concern to the Republic or the United Nations’.

Undoubtedly they would use guns. The possibility that there was going to be a massacre struck hundreds of people simultaneously.

The initial response of the people was one of delight – the appearance of the troops meant that the Bogsiders had beaten the RUC

The scale of the rioting and destruction was much greater there than in Derry. There was more use of guns, and the fighting was not largely confined to a battle between citizenry and police.

there were continuous bouts of warfare between Catholic and Protestant mobs in Belfast throughout August.

has estimated that 650 Catholic families were burned out in one night.32 In all, the three months of July, August and September 1969 are said to have caused 1, 505 Catholic families and 315 Protestant to flee their homes.

Eventually the dislocation would become so great that a Community Relations Commission report established that some 60, 000 people were forced to leave their homes between the summer of 1969 and February 1973.

In Belfast, Shorland armoured personnel carriers mounted with heavy Browning machine guns were deployed by the RUC. The sound of these weapons, magnified in built-up areas, spread panic. The bullets tore through walls as if they were cardboard.

The appeal, which bore the signature of the Inspector-General of the RUC, Anthony Peacocke, was couched in terms which made it appear that a large-scale IRA attack was imminent.

It is the intention to escalate the degree of control over inward bound traffic and to this end assistance in the form of patrols by armoured cars is also requested.

The British Cabinet, having acceded to the foregoing, was fully aware of the dangers of the situation but, remarkable as it appears now in retrospect, thought that the Government could derive benefit from Northern Ireland’s miseries.

Crossman sadly contrasted the situation in Northern Ireland with that of Czechoslovakia a year earlier:

It is so mucky, untidy; it really is street rioting, with boys and girls chucking beastly petrol bombs at each other and potting each other with old guns.

It has deflected attention from our own deficiencies and the mess of the pound. We have now got into something which we can hardly mismanage.

Instead of accepting that the Stormont experiment had failed, and opting for direct rule in the wake of sending in the troops, the Cabinet decided to prop up Chichester-Clark and work for reform through him.

‘It wasn’t so much deciding what policy to have as being able to excuse it.’

The Protestants are the majority and we can’t afford to alienate them as well as the Catholics and find ourselves ruling Northern Ireland directly as a colony. We have also to be on the side of the Catholic minority and try to help and protect them against their persecutors.40

Direct rule was only contemplated as an option in the event of Chichester-Clark objecting to the transfer of power from the RUC to the military.

Known as the Downing Street Declaration, it sought to calm Unionist fears and at the same time reassure Catholics, saying that:

that Northern Ireland should not cease to be a part of the United Kingdom without the consent of the people in Northern Ireland…

determination of the Northern Ireland Government that there shall be full equality of treatment for all citizens.

The promise that the affairs of Northern Ireland were an entirely domestic matter for the UK did little either to reassure Protestants about Dublin’s intentions, or to quell resentment that the whole civil rights movement was a bogus IRA–communist front.

‘There is absolutely no suggestion the USC will be disbanded. Let me make that crystal clear.’

Where some sections of Catholic opinion were concerned, the Northern Ireland Government had given such clear proofs of being unreconstructed supremacists that nothing but the abolition of Stormont and a green field restart would have convinced them that there was any sincere movement towards reform.

In the wake of the burnings, evacuations, and riotings, with their consequential injuries and deaths, an ancient formula began to have an application once more: fear + distrust = IRA.

these experiences could provide a seedbed for the emergence of the most ruthlessly efficient guerrilla force to appear in western Europe since the ending of World War II.

‘Welcome to the loyalist heartland of Ulster. Shankill Rd. No Surrender.’

For ‘little India’ is also one of the Belfast IRA’s heartlands. There can be few families in the district who have not had one or more relatives involved. A casual check in a pub, or with a family, will generally turn up someone who has been jailed, beaten up, interned, or shot for Republican activity.

The road to freedom is paved with suffering, hardship and torture, carry on my gallant and brave comrades until that certain day.

The Redemptorists are part of the warp and woof of Irish Catholicism. The order reflects the independence, hospitality and alms-giving tradition of the monasteries and the all-pervasive influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

During World War II both Protestants and Catholics had huddled together in the monastery cellars to avoid German bombs (Belfast suffered far more, for example, than Coventry from German attacks). Many a food parcel found its way from the monastery discreetly to needy Protestant families, even though the young braves of both Catholicism and Protestantism were prone to periodic outbursts of fisticuffs.

Northern Irish Catholicism was more deferential to clergy and nuns than had become the norm in the south, where, in the absence of such a pronounced ‘them and us’ syndrome, time had moved on somewhat.

The official attitude of the Church towards Protestantism was still of th...

But it would be true to say that the great majority of those who attended Mass at Clonard would have received their education in Catholic schools, learned Irish history, considered themselves Irish and would not have had a great deal to do with Protestant children at the school-going stage.

Their Protestant counterparts would have acquired their education at Protestant schools, learned English history, and considered themselves British.

No priest was more respected in the area than Fr P. J. Egan, the superior of the monastery, and spiritual director of the Men’s Arch-Confraternity.

I think it would be a little bit unrealistic to speak of anything else except the great tragedy that has befallen our city within the last couple of weeks.

We remember, my dearest men, I don’t suppose we forget it easily, the night of Thursday, the 14th of August. We remember this night when the Falls Road area was devastated by gunfire and by petrol bombs.

Is it possible that only three or four days ago we were assured by Stormont spokesmen that the forces of law and order had everything completely under control?

I did not see any evidence of violence. While I was there was no force and there was no violence. I did not see any violence.

I don’t believe that there was the slightest danger of my being shot but when I thought about that remark I felt that it was typical of the lack of confidence so many of our people have in the forces of law and order.

large mob, there is no other word to describe them, a large mob, advanced from the Cupar Street area. I do not say for a moment that they were residents of Cupar Street. I do say that they came from that area, armed with stones, sticks and petrol bombs. At that time I didn’t see any other instrument, but they advanced on the Catholic area.