History of Northern Ireland - The Troubles

The Troubles

The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblóidí) was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast "Good Friday" Agreement of 1998. Violence nonetheless continues on a sporadic basis.

In the 1960s, moderate Unionist prime minister Terence O'Neill (later Lord O'Neill of the Maine) tried to reform the system, but encountered strong opposition from both fundamentalist Protestant leaders like Ian Paisley and within his own party. The increasing pressures from Nationalists for reform and opposition by Loyalists to compromise led to the appearance of the civil rights movement, under figures such as Austin Currie and joint-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, John Hume. It had some moderate Protestant support and membership, and a considerable dose of student radicalism after Northern Ireland was swept up in the worldwide student revolts of 1968. Clashes between marchers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary led to increased communal strife, with elements both among the police and student radicals actively seeking to up the temperature, culminating in an attack by a unionist mob (which included police reservists) on a march, at Burntollet, outside Derry on 4 January 1969. Wholescale violence erupted after an Apprentice Boys march was forced through the nationalist Bogside area of Derry on 12 August 1969 by the RUC, which led to large scale disorder known as the Battle of the Bogside. Rioting continued until the 14 August, and in that time 1,091 canisters, each containing 12.5g of CS gas and 14 canisters containing 50g of CS gas, were released by the RUC. Even more severe rioting broke out in Belfast and elsewhere in response to events in Derry (see Northern Ireland riots of August 1969). The following thirty years of civil strife came to be known as "the Troubles".

At the request of the Unionist Government, the British army was deployed by the UK Home Secretary James Callaghan two days later on 14 August 1969. Two weeks later, control of security in Northern Ireland was passed from the Stormont government to Lieutenant-General Ian Freeland (GOC). At first the soldiers received a warm welcome from Nationalists, who hoped they would protect them from Loyalist attack (which the IRA, at that point a Marxist organisation, had for ideological reasons declined to do). However, tensions rose throughout the following years, with an important milestone in the worsening relationship between the army and nationalists being the Falls Curfew of 3 July 1970 when 3,000 British troops imposed a three day curfew on the Lower Falls area.

After the introduction of internment without trial for suspected IRA men on 9 August 1971, even the most moderate Nationalists reacted by completely withdrawing their co-operation with the state. The SDLP members of the Parliament of Northern Ireland withdrew from that body on 15 August and a widespread campaign of civil disobedience began. Tensions were ratcheted to a higher level after the killing of fourteen unarmed civilians in Derry by the Parachute Regiment on 30 January 1972, an event dubbed Bloody Sunday.

Throughout this period, the modern constellation of paramilitary organisations began to form. After Bloody Sunday, their full fury was unleashed, and 1972 was the most violent year of the conflict. The appearance in 1970 of the Provisional IRA, a breakaway from the increasingly Marxist Official IRA, and a campaign of violence by loyalist paramilitary groups like the Ulster Defence Association and others brought Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. On 30 March 1972, the British government, unwilling to grant the unionist Northern Ireland government more authoritarian special powers, and now convinced of its inability to restore order, pushed through emergency legislation that prorogued the Northern Ireland Parliament and introduced direct rule from London. In 1973 the British Government dissolved the Parliament of Northern Ireland and its government under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.

The British government held talks with various parties, including the Provisional IRA, during 1972 and 1973. (The Official IRA declared a ceasefire in 1972, and eventually ended violence altogether, although a breakaway group, the Irish National Liberation Army, continued with a campaign of violence. The Provisional IRA, however, remained the largest and most effective nationalist paramilitary group.)

On 9 December 1973, after talks in Sunningdale, Berkshire, the Ulster Unionist Party, SDLP and Alliance Party of Northern Ireland reached the Sunningdale Agreement on a cross-community government for Northern Ireland, which took office on 1 January 1974. The Provisional IRA was unimpressed, increasing the tempo of its violence, while many unionists were outraged at the participation of nationalists in the government of Northern Ireland and at the cross-border Council of Ireland. Although the pro-Sunningdale parties had a clear majority in the new Northern Ireland Assembly, the failure of the pro-Agreement parties to co-ordinate their efforts in the general election of 28 February, combined with an IRA-sponsored boycott by hardline republicans, allowed anti-Sunningdale Unionists to take 51.1% of the vote and 11 of Northern Ireland's 12 seats in the UK House of Commons.

Emboldened by this, a coalition of anti-Agreement Unionist politicians and paramilitaries encouraged a general strike on 15 May. The strikers brought Northern Ireland to a standstill by shutting down power stations, and after Prime Minister Harold Wilson refused to send in troops to take over from the strikers, the power-sharing executive collapsed on 28 May 1974.

Some British politicians, notably former British Labour minister Tony Benn, advocated British withdrawal from Ireland, but many opposed this policy, and called their prediction of the possible results of British withdrawal the Doomsday Scenario, anticipating widespread communal strife. The worst fear envisaged a civil war which would engulf not just Northern Ireland, but also the Republic of Ireland and Scotland, both of which had major links with either or both communities. Later, the feared possible impact of British withdrawal was the Balkanisation of Northern Ireland.

The level of violence declined from its early 1970s peak from 1972 onwards, stabilising at 50 to 100 deaths a year. The Provisional IRA, using weapons and explosives obtained from the United States and Libya, bombed England and various British army bases in Europe, as well as conducting ongoing attacks within Northern Ireland. These attacks were not only on "military" targets but also on Protestant-frequented businesses, unaffiliated civilian commercial properties, and various city centres. Arguably the signature attack would involve cars packed with high explosives being driven directly to key areas for maximum effect. At the same time, Loyalist paramilitaries largely (but not exclusively) focused their campaign within Northern Ireland, ignoring the uninvolved military of the Republic of Ireland, and instead claiming a (very) few Republican paramilitary casualties. They also targeted Catholics working in Protestant areas, and (in a parallel to the IRA tactic of car-bombing) attacked Catholic-frequented pubs using automatic fire weapons. Such attacks were euphemistically known as "spray jobs". Both groups would also carry out extensive "punishment" attacks against members of their own communities for a variety of perceived, alleged, or suspected "crimes", regardless of the reality of the situation.

Various fitful political talks took place from then until the early 1990s, backed by schemes such as rolling devolution, and 1975 saw a brief Provisional IRA ceasefire. The two events of real significance during this period, however, were the hunger strikes (1981) and the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985).

Despite the failure of the hunger strike, the republican movement gained its first taste of electoral politics with modest electoral success on both sides of the border, including the election of Bobby Sands to the House of Commons. This convinced republicans to adopt the armalite and ballot box strategy and gradually take a more political approach.

While the Anglo-Irish Agreement failed to bring an end to political violence in Northern Ireland, it did improve co-operation between the British and Irish governments, which was key to the creation of the Belfast Agreement a decade later.

At a strategic level the agreement demonstrated that the British recognised as legitimate the wishes of the Republic to have a direct interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland. It also demonstrated to paramilitaries their ultimate political impotence vis a vis sovereign states. Unlike the Sunningdale Agreement the Anglo-Irish Agreement withstood a much more concerted campaign of violence and intimidation, as well as political hostility, from the loyalists. Republicans were left in the position of rejecting the only significant all-Ireland structures created since partition.

By the 1990s, the perceived stalemate between the IRA and British security forces, along with the increasing political successes of Sinn Féin convinced a majority inside the republican movement that greater progress towards republican objectives might be achieved through negotiation rather than violence at this stage . This change from paramilitary to political means was part of a broader Northern Ireland peace process, which followed the appearance of new leaders in London (John Major) and Dublin (Albert Reynolds).