‘the Troubles’

The Troubles (Irish: Na Trioblóidí) is a term used to describe the latest instalment of periodic communal violence involving Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organisations, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the British Army and others in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s until the Belfast Agreement of 10 April 1998. The Troubles have been variously described as terrorism^[1], ethnic conflict^[2], a many-sided conflict, a guerrilla war ^[3], a low intensity conflict, and even a civil war.^{[citation needed]}

Overview

The Troubles consisted of about 30 years of repeated acts of intense violence between elements of Northern Ireland's nationalist community (principally Roman Catholic) and unionist community (principally Protestant). The conflict was caused by the disputed status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom and the domination of the minority nationalist community, and huge discrimination against them, by the unionist majority. The violence was characterised by the armed campaigns of paramilitary groups including the Provisional IRA campaign of 1969–1997 which was aimed at the end of British rule in Northern Ireland and the creation of a new, "all-Ireland", Irish Republic and the Ulster Volunteer Force, formed in May 1966 in response to the perceived erosion of both the British character and unionist domination of Northern Ireland. The state security forces — the British Army and the police (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) — were also involved in the violence. The British government's point of view is that its forces were neutral in the conflict and trying to uphold law and order in Northern Ireland and the right of the people of Northern Ireland to democratic self-determination. Irish republicans, however, regarded the state forces as "combatants" in the conflict, using collusion between the state forces and the loyalist paramilitaries as proof of this. The "Ballast" investigation by the Police Ombudsman has confirmed that British forces, and in particular the RUC, did collude with loyalist paramilitaries, were involved in murder, and did obstruct the course of justice when such claims had previously been investigated,^[4] although the extent to which such collusion occurred is still hotly disputed, with Unionists claiming that reports of collusion are either false or highly exaggerated and that there were also instances of collusion between the authorities in the Republic of Ireland and Republican paramilitaries. See also the section below on Collusion - Security Forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

Alongside the violence, there was a political deadlock between the major political parties in Northern Ireland, including those who condemned violence, over the future status of Northern Ireland and the form of government there should be within Northern Ireland.

The Troubles were brought to an uneasy end by a peace process which included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations and the complete decommissioning of their weapons and the reform of the police and the corresponding withdrawal of Army troops from the streets and from sensitive border areas such as South Armagh and Fermanagh as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement (commonly known as the "Good Friday Agreement"). This reiterated the long-held British position, which had never before been fully acknowledged by successive Irish governments, that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom until a majority votes otherwise. On the other hand, the British Government recognised for the first time, as part of the prospective, the so-called "Irish dimension": the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent.^[5] The latter statement was key to winning support for the agreement from nationalists and republicans. It also established a devolved power-sharing government within Northern Ireland (which had been suspended from 14 October 2002 until 8 May 2007), where the government must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties.

Though the number of active participants in the Troubles was relatively small, and the paramilitary organizations that claimed to represent the communities were sometimes unrepresentative of the general population, the Troubles touched the lives of most people in Northern Ireland on a daily basis, while occasionally spreading to Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. In addition, at several times between 1969 and 1998 it seemed possible that the Troubles would escalate into a full-scale civil war — for example in 1972 after the Bloody Sunday, or during the Hunger Strikes of 1980-1981, when there was mass, hostile mobilisation of the two communities. Many people today have had their political, social, and communal attitudes and perspectives shaped by the Troubles.

Background

Sir James Craig, later Viscount Craigavon
1st Prime Minister of Northern Ireland who famously said, "All I boast is that we are a Protestant Parliament and Protestant State" (in response to his Southern counterpart Éamon de Valera's assertion that Ireland was a "Catholic nation"). HMSO image

Historic communal divisions 1609–1886

The origins of conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the north of Ireland lie in the British settler-colonial Plantation of Ulster in 1609, which confiscated native owned land and settled Ulster with (mainly Protestant) English and Scottish "planters". Conflict between the native Catholics and the "planters" led to two bloody ethno-religious conflicts between them in 1641–1653 and 1689–1691. The British Protestant political dominance in Ireland was ensured by victory in these wars and by the Penal Laws, which curtailed the religious, legal and political rights of anyone (including both Catholics and Dissenters, such as Presbyterians) who did not conform to the state church—the Anglican Church of Ireland.

The breakdown of the Penal Laws, in the latter part of the eighteenth century heralded a renewed period of communal strife. In particular, the removal, in the 1780s, of restrictions on the ability of the Catholic Irish to rent land resulted in greater competition for it. With the Catholics now allowed to buy land and enter trades from which formerly they had been banned, Protestant "Peep O'Day Boys" attacks on that community increased.^[6] In the 1790s Catholics in south Ulster organised as "The Defenders" and counter-attacked. This created polarisation between the communities and a dramatic reduction in reformers within the Protestant community, which had been increasingly receptive to ideas of democratic reform.

Many Presbyterians, Catholics and liberal Protestants were involved in the Society of the United Irishmen, a nationalist movement inspired by the French Revolution, aimed at ending sectarian division in Ireland, and to the establishment of an Irish Republic, non-sectarian and independent of Britain. However, the United Irishmen's ideal was destroyed both by the failure of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the accompanying repression, and by continuing sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants. Moreover, the more hardline Protestants were actively mobilised against the radicals by the Government. The Orange Order (founded in 1795) is a lasting manifestation of this movement. The effect was to separate Catholics and Protestants into permanently antagonistic camps.

The abolition of the Irish Parliament and incorporation of Ireland into the United Kingdom in 1801 provided a new political framework within which this dichotomy between both communities continued. Moreover, Presbyterians largely abandoned their previous attachment to radical republican politics and adopted a common identity with Anglicans as part of a "loyal" Protestant community. Catholic Emancipation in 1829, through political agitation by Daniel O'Connell, largely eliminated legal discrimination against Catholics (around 75% of Ireland's population), Jews and other dissenters. However O'Connell's long-term goal (for which the Emancipation was essential) was the Repeal of the 1801 Union. He even declared confidently, but incorrectly, on January 1 1843 that Repeal would come about that year. O'Connell's pacifist, majoritarian nationalism played an increasingly important role in Irish politics as the century went on by pressing for the restoration of the Irish Parliament (self-government known as "Home Rule"). Most Protestants, afraid of being a minority in a Catholic-dominated Ireland, tended to support continuing rule from Britain.

The conflict was now represented as one between those who supported the Act of Union, the Unionists, and those who opposed it, the Nationalists, as it remains to the present day. By 1886 this transition to a modern representation of the conflict was completed when the two communities had organised into mutually opposing nationalist and unionist parties. Initially, many nationalists were prepared to accept maintaining some links with Britain, with the idea of complete independence only commanding the support of a radical minority; however, throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, support for such a compromise declined.

By this time, Ulster Unionism had also acquired an economic motive, since Ulster was the most industrialised part of Ireland and the one most dependent on free trade with Britain and its empire. The immediate roots of the present conflict are to be found in the early 20th century disputes over Home Rule and independence for Ireland.

The partition of Ireland 1912–1925

By the second decade of the 20th century, Home Rule, or limited Irish self-government, was on the brink of being conceded due to the agitation of the Irish Parliamentary Party who at times held the balance of power in the Westminster parliament. Unionists, mostly Protestant and concentrated in Ulster, resisted both self-government and independence for Ireland, fearing for their future in an overwhelmingly Catholic country dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1912, unionists led by Edward Carson signed the Ulster Covenant and pledged to resist Home Rule by force if necessary. To this end, they formed the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force and imported arms from Germany (the Easter Rising insurrectionists would do the same several years later). Nationalists formed the Irish Volunteers, whose ostensible goal was to ensure Home Rule after World War I in the event of British or Unionist recalcitrance. The Irish Volunteers, however, were gradually infiltrated by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), such as Patrick Pearse. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 temporarily averted this crisis and delayed the resolution of the question of Irish independence. Home Rule, though actually passed in the British Parliament, was suspended for the duration of the war.

But the issue was inflamed by the staging of the nationalist Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 by Irish Republican Brotherhood elements of the Irish Volunteers. Although the rebellion was put down, the executions of 15 of the Rising's leaders greatly radicalised Irish nationalists. The independence question came to a head in December 1918, when the separatist Sinn Féin party won a majority of seats in Ireland and set up the Dáil (Irish Parliament) in Dublin, essentially seceding from the United Kingdom, although at the time this was not recognised by the UK or any other country except the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. At the same time, IRB volunteers, seeing themselves as the army of the Irish Republic, began armed attacks on state forces the following month (January 1919), killing two Catholic policemen who were transporting gelignite in Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary.

In 1920, during a guerrilla war in Ireland which pitted the Volunteers or Irish Republican Army (IRA) against British state forces, the Government of Ireland Act partitioned the island of Ireland into two separate jurisdictions, "Southern Ireland" and "Northern Ireland". The partition of Ireland was confirmed in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which ended the guerrilla war in the south and created the Irish Free State, an all-but-independent Irish state (it became a Republic and fully independent in 1949). This settlement was an acknowledgement that the Irish people were deeply divided between Protestants, primarily concentrated in the ancient province of Ulster, who intended to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the overwhelmingly Catholic overall majority who now demanded independence from Britain.

Northern Ireland remained in the United Kingdom, albeit under a separate system of government whereby it was given its own parliament and devolved government. This system was not requested by unionists, but was included in the settlement by a government keen to rid the Westminster parliament of "the Irish question" that had dominated it for many years. Nonetheless, unionists immediately embraced the new regime and saw Northern Ireland as a state governed in accordance with democratic principles, the rule of law, and in accordance with the will of a majority within its borders to remain part of the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists, however, saw the partition of Ireland as an illegal and arbitrary division of the island against the will of the vast majority of its people, and argued that the Northern Ireland state was neither legitimate nor democratic, but created with a deliberately gerrymandered Unionist majority.

Nationalists within Northern Ireland, initially about 35% of its population,^{[citation needed]} did not accept the legitimacy of the new state. The roots of the Troubles lie in the failure of the Unionist state to integrate the Catholic/nationalist population in Northern Ireland, most of whom favoured a united Ireland, and the refusal of the same nationalists to eschew political irredentism.

Northern Ireland came into being in a violent manner — a total of 557 people being killed in political or sectarian violence from 1920–1922, during and after the Irish War of Independence. Of these, 303 were Catholics (including IRA members), 172 were Protestants and 82 were Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) or British Army personnel. Belfast saw the majority of the violence, 452 people being killed there, of whom 267 were Catholics and 185 were Protestants.^[7] (See also; Irish War of Independence in the North East.) Whereas elsewhere on the island this conflict was largely a confrontation between Irish Republican guerrillas and the British Police and Army, in the north it was marked by communal strife between Catholics and Protestants. The pattern of violence in the north was that loyalist groups (including the B-Specials auxiliary Police force) responded to IRA attacks on the security forces with killings of Catholics. Nationalists characterise this violence, especially that in Belfast, as a "pogrom" against their community.

In 1920, for example, the IRA assassination of RIC district Inspector Swanzy in Lisburn outside a Protestant church following Sunday services resulted in the burning of large section of the Catholic quarter in the town. However, although a disproportionate number of the victims were Catholics (58% of victims from a community making up around 30% of the population in Belfast), both sides were guilty of atrocities, with almost half the victims being Protestants. Nationalists in the rest of Ireland organised a boycott of northern goods in response to the attacks on Catholics, while some (including Michael Collins in the new Irish Free State) had plans for a military assault on Northern Ireland.^[8] This was interrupted by the Irish Civil War (1922–23) between Irish nationalist factions, and during this time the Northern state instead managed to consolidate its existence. Another legacy of the Irish Civil War, later to have a major impact on Northern Ireland, was the creation of a marginalised remnant of the Irish Republican Army, illegal in both Irish states and ideologically committed to overthrowing both of them by force of arms and re-establishing the Irish Republic of 1919–21.

In 1925 many nationalists expected partition to be abolished, or least to have large parts of Northern Ireland ceded to the Free State, by a Boundary Commission. The Commission instead recommended only minor changes in the border, effectively making partition of Ireland permanent. At this point, the Irish Free State formally recognised and accepted (albeit reluctantly) the border. In 1937, Eamon de Valera laid claim to the whole island of Ireland as territory of the Free State in Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland. However, the articles stipulated that "pending the re-integration of the national territory" the southern state's borders were the same as those established in 1922.^[9]

Northern Ireland - A "Protestant State" 1925–1968

Each side established its own narratives to describe its perspective. Ulster Unionist Party Prime Minister of Northern Ireland James Craig talked of a "Protestant parliament and a Protestant State" in 1937, in response to his Southern counterpart Éamon de Valera's assertion in 1935 that Ireland was a "Catholic nation". ^[10]

From a Unionist perspective, Northern Ireland's nationalists were inherently disloyal and were determined to force them (Protestants and unionists) into a united Ireland. In the 1970s, during the period when the British government was unsuccessfully attempting to implement the Sunningdale Agreement, then-SDLP councillor, Hugh Logue, described the agreement as the means by which the unionists "will be trundled into a united Ireland". ^[11] This threat was seen as justifying preferential treatment of unionists in housing, employment and other fields. The prevalence of large families and a more rapid population growth among the Catholics was also seen as a threat.

Former First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble admitted that Northern Ireland had been "a cold house for Catholics" during this period. Nonetheless, until the 1990s, unionist politicians were able to point to Northern Ireland's relative economic success compared with the Southern state (and the excessive influence of the Roman Catholic hierarchy over Government policy there) as a vindication of Northern Ireland's existence. From a nationalist perspective, continued discrimination against Catholics only proved that Northern Ireland was an inherently corrupt, British-imposed state. The controversial Republic of Ireland Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Charles Haughey, whose family had fled County Londonderry during the 1920s Troubles, described Northern Ireland as "a failed political entity". The unionist government ignored Edward Carson's warning in 1921 that alienating Catholics would make Northern Ireland inherently unstable.

After the initial Troubles of the early 1920s, there were occasional incidents of sectarian unrest in Northern Ireland, a brief and ineffective IRA campaign in the 1940s, and another abortive IRA campaign in the 1950s, but by the early 1960s Northern Ireland was fairly stable.

However, the fragility of this peace was demonstrated in 1966 by the emergence of the Ulster Volunteer Force, an illegal loyalist paramilitary organization, in response to a perceived revival of the IRA at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rebellion. The UVF, named after the 1912 anti-Home Rule militia, carried out three sectarian murders before the perpetrators were apprehended by the police and sentenced in the courts. The group remained in existence and would emerge again during the Troubles. One of these loyalists, Gusty Spence, after serving a lengthy sentence, would later apologize for his actions and become part of the mainstream of Northern Irish politics.

Beginning of the Troubles

A mural depicting the Battle of the Bogside in 1969, by the 'Bogside Artists'.

The question of when The Troubles began remains a matter of some dispute, linked to some extent to the issue of blame.

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was formed in May 1966 as a loyalist paramilitary group and named after the Ulster Volunteers of 1912. The UVF claimed what many acknowledge as the first victim of the Troubles, when they shot dead 28-year-old store man, John Patrick Scullion in west Belfast. Barman Peter Ward, an 18-year-old from west Belfast, became the second victim of a UVF gun attack. Victor Arbuckle (aged 29) was shot dead by Loyalists during street disturbances on the Shankill Road in Belfast in October 1969, the first RUC officer to die in the troubles. The UVF was also responsible for a series of attacks on power stations and reservoirs in Northern Ireland during 1969. It was hoped that this campaign would be blamed on the IRA forcing moderate unionists to increase their opposition to the tentative reforms of Terence O'Neill's government.

Others prefer to date the start of The Troubles to 1968, when widespread rioting and public disorder broke out at the marches of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). This group launched a peaceful civil rights campaign in 1967, which borrowed the language and symbolism of the Civil Rights Movement of Dr. Martin Luther King in the United States. NICRA was seeking a redress of Catholic and nationalist grievances within Northern Ireland. Specifically, they wanted an end to the gerrymandering of electoral constituencies that produced unrepresentative local councils (particularly in Derry City) by putting virtually all Catholics in a limited number of electoral wards; the abolition of the rate-payer franchise in local government elections, which gave Protestants (who tended to be richer) disproportionate voting power; an end to unfair allocation of jobs and housing; and an end to the Special Powers Act (which allowed for internment and other repressive measures) that was seen as being aimed at the nationalist community.

Initially, Terence O'Neill, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, reacted favourably to this moderate-seeming campaign and promised reforms of Northern Ireland. However, he was opposed by many hardline unionists, including William Craig and Ian Paisley who accused him of being a "sell out". Some Unionists immediately mistrusted the NICRA as an IRA “Trojan Horse”. Many resented the concept of Catholic equality in this "Protestant state". Violence broke out at several Civil Rights marches when Protestant loyalists attacked civil rights demonstrators with clubs. The Royal Ulster Constabulary, almost entirely Protestant, was widely accused of supporting the loyalists and of allowing the violence to occur.

Much of the hostile loyalist reaction to the Civil Rights Movement was linked to the ability of leaders to provoke fear within the Unionist populace that the IRA was not only behind the NICRA, but was also planning a renewed armed campaign. In fact, the IRA was moribund, had few weapons, fewer members, negligible support, and was increasingly committed (out of necessity) to non-violent politics. The first bombing campaign of the Troubles (largely directed against power stations and other infrastructure) was staged by the Loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force in 1969 to try and implicate the IRA.

Communal disturbances worsened throughout 1969, escalating in January after a march by the People's Democracy from Belfast to Derry was attacked by loyalists in Burntollet, County Londonderry. The RUC were accused of failing to protect the marchers. Barricades were erected in nationalist areas of Derry and Belfast in the following months. This disorder culminated in the Battle of the Bogside (August 12 1969–August 14 1969), a huge communal uprising in Derry between police and nationalists. The riot started in a confrontation between Catholic residents of the Bogside, police, and members of the Apprentice Boys of Derry who were due to march past the Bogside along the city walls.

Rioting between police and loyalists on one side and Bogside residents on the other continued for two days before British troops were sent in to restore order. The "Battle" sparked vicious sectarian rioting in Belfast, Newry, Strabane and elsewhere, starting on August 14 1969, which left many people dead and many homes burned. The riots began with nationalist demonstrations in support of the Bogside residents and escalated when a grenade was thrown at a police station. The RUC in response deployed armoured cars with Browning heavy machine guns and killed a nine year old boy in the nationalist Falls Road area of Belfast. Loyalist crowds attacked Catholic areas, burning down much of Bombay Street, Madrid Street and other Catholic streets (see Northern Ireland riots of August 1969).

Nationalists alleged that the Royal Ulster Constabulary had aided, or at least not acted against, loyalists in these riots. The IRA had been widely criticized by its supporters for failing to defend the Catholic community during the Belfast troubles of August 1969, when seven people had been killed, about 750 injured and 1,505 Catholic families had been forced out of their homes — almost five times the number of dispossessed Protestant households. One Catholic priest reported that his parishioners were contemptuously calling the IRA "I Ran Away".

The government of Northern Ireland requested that the British Government deploy the British Army in Northern Ireland to restore order, possibly in response to somewhat exaggerated media reports that the Irish government were considering military intervention to protect Catholic areas in Derry. Nationalists initially welcomed the Army, often giving the soldiers tea and sandwiches, as they did not trust the police to act in an unbiased manner. But relations soured due to heavy-handedness by the Army, who were soon considered to be biased in favour of the Unionists.

Many unionists see the civil rights movement as the cause of the Troubles. They argue that it led to a destabilisation of government and created a void filled later by paramilitary groups. Others, mainly (though not exclusively) nationalist, argue that the civil rights campaign and the opposition to it by Ian Paisley and other loyalists was merely a symptom of a sectarian system of government that was itself inherently corrupt and prone to collapse.

The peak of violence and the collapse of Stormont

The years 1970–72 saw an explosion of political violence in Northern Ireland, peaking in the year 1972, when nearly 500 people lost their lives. There are several reasons why violence escalated in these years.

Unionists claim the main reason was the formation of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), a break-away from the older IRA. While the older IRA (the remnants of which became known as the Official IRA) had embraced non-violent civil agitation, the new Provisional IRA was determined to wage "armed struggle" against British rule in Northern Ireland. The new IRA was willing to take on a sectarian character as "defenders of the Catholic community", rather than seeking working-class unity across both communities which had become the aim of the "Officials". Unionists perceive this ongoing campaign as the main cause and sustaining element of the Troubles.

Nationalists argued that the upsurge in violence was caused by the disappointment of the hopes engendered by the civil rights movement and the repression subsequently directed at their community. They point to a number of events in these years to support this opinion. One such incident was the Falls Curfew in July 1970, when 3,000 troops imposed a curfew on the nationalist Lower Falls area of Belfast, firing more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition in gun battles with the IRA and killing four people. Another was the 1971 introduction of internment without trial — out of over 350 initial detainees, only 2 were Protestants and only 1 was a loyalist.^{[citation needed]} Moreover, due to poor intelligence, very few of those interned were actually republican activists, but some went on to become republicans as a result of their unfortunate experiences. Between 1971 and 1975, 1,981 people were detained; 1,874 were Catholic/republican, while 107 were Protestant/loyalist. There were widespread allegations from the nationalist community of abuse and even torture of detainees. Most emotionally of all, nationalists also point to the fatal shootings of 14 unarmed nationalist civil rights demonstrators by the British Army in Derry in January 1972 on what became known as Bloody Sunday.

The Provisional IRA (or "Provos", as they became known), formed in late 1969, soon established itself as more aggressive and militant in its response to attacks on the nationalist community by loyalists and the police, gaining much support in the nationalist ghettos in the early 1970s as "defenders" of those communities. Despite the increasingly reformist and Marxist politics of the Official IRA, they nonetheless began their own armed campaign in reaction to the ongoing violence and the deteriorating relationship between the Catholic community and the British military. From 1970 onwards, both the PIRA and OIRA engaged in armed confrontations with the British Army.

By 1972, the Provisionals' campaign was of such intensity that they had already killed more than 100 soldiers, wounded 500 more and carried out 1,300 bombings, mostly against commercial targets that they considered “the artificial economy”. The bombing campaign killed many civilians, notably on Bloody Friday in July 1972, when 22 bombs were set off in the centre of Belfast. The Official IRA, who had never been fully committed to armed action, called off their campaign in June 1972. The Provisionals however, despite a temporary ceasefire in 1972 and talks with British officials, were determined to continue their campaign until the achievement of a united Ireland.

The loyalist paramilitaries, including the Ulster Volunteer Force and the newly-founded Ulster Defence Association responded to the mushrooming violence with a campaign of sectarian assassination of nationalists, whom they identified simply as Catholics. Some of these murders were particularly gruesome, as in the case of the Shankill Butchers, who beat and tortured their victims before killing them. The PIRA were also guilty of sectarian murder. For example, in January 1976, they responded to the killings of six Catholic civilians by loyalists with the Kingsmill massacre of 1976, in which ten Protestant civilians were machine-gunned to death. Another feature of the political violence was the involuntary or forced displacement of both Catholics and Protestants from formerly mixed residential areas. For example, in Belfast, Protestants were forced out of Lenadoon, and Catholics were driven out of the Rathcoole estate and the Westvale neighbourhood. In Derry City almost all the Protestants fled to the predominantly loyalist Fountain Estate and Waterside areas.

The UK government in London, perceiving that the Northern Ireland administration was incapable of containing the security situation, suspended the unionist-controlled Stormont Home Rule government in 1972 and introduced "Direct Rule", from London. Their government addressed many of the concerns of the civil rights movement: re-drawing electoral boundaries to make them more representative, giving all citizens the vote in local elections, and transferring the power to allocate public housing to an independent Northern Ireland Housing Executive, for example. Direct Rule was initially intended as a short-term measure, the medium-term strategy being to restore self-government to Northern Ireland on a basis that was acceptable to both unionists and nationalists. Agreement proved elusive, however, and the Troubles continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s within a context of political deadlock.

The Sunningdale Agreement

In 1973, following the publication of a British White Paper, a new parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly was established. Elections were held on 28 June 1973. In October of that year mainstream nationalist and unionist parties, along with the British and (Southern) Irish governments, negotiated the Sunningdale Agreement, which was intended to produce a political settlement within Northern Ireland, but with a so-called "Irish dimension" involving the Republic of Ireland. The agreement provided for "power-sharing" between nationalists and unionists and a "Council of Ireland" designed to encourage cross-border co-operation. Seamus Mallon, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) politician, has pointed to the marked similarities between the Sunningdale Agreement and the Belfast Agreement of 1998. Famously, he characterised the latter as "Sunningdale for slow learners".^[12]

Unionism, however, was split over Sunningdale, which was also opposed by the IRA, whose goal remained nothing short of an end to Northern Ireland's existence as part of the United Kingdom. Many unionists opposed the concept of power-sharing, arguing that it was not feasible to share power with those (nationalists) who sought the destruction of the state. Perhaps more significant, however, was the unionist opposition to the "Irish dimension" and the Council of Ireland, which was perceived as being an all-Ireland parliament-in-waiting. The remarks by SDLP councillor Hugh Logue to an audience at Trinity College Dublin that Sunningdale was the tool "by which the Unionists will be trundled off to a united Ireland" ensured its defeat.

In January 1974, Brian Faulkner was narrowly deposed as Unionist Party leader by his own party and replaced by Harry West. A UK general election in February 1974 gave the anti-Sunningdale unionists the opportunity to test unionist opinion with the slogan "Dublin is only a Sunningdale away", and the result galvanised their opposition: they won 11 of the 12 seats, winning 58% of the vote with most of the rest going to nationalists and pro-Sunningdale unionists.

Ultimately, however, the Sunningdale Agreement was brought down by mass action on the part of loyalists (primarily the Ulster Defence Association at that time over 20,000 strong) and Protestant workers, who formed the Ulster Workers' Council. They organised a general strike - the Ulster Workers' Council Strike. This stopped all business in Northern Ireland and cut off essential services such as water and electricity. Nationalists argue that the UK government did not do enough to break this strike and uphold the Sunningdale initiative. In the event, however, faced with such determined opposition, the pro-Sunningdale unionists resigned from the power-sharing government and the new regime collapsed.

The failure of Sunningdale led on to the examination in London of the option of a rapid British withdrawal by the new government of Harold Wilson. This was also considered in Dublin by Garret FitzGerald in a memorandum of June 1975, on which he commented in 2006.^[13] This concluded that the Irish government could do little on such a withdrawal with its army of 12,500 men, with the likely result of a greater loss of life.

The violence continued through the rest of the 1970s. The Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire in 1975 but returned to violence in 1976. By this time they had lost the hope that they had had in the early 1970s that they could force a rapid British withdrawal from Northern Ireland and instead developed a strategy known as the "Long War", which involved a less intense but more sustained campaign of violence that could continue indefinitely. The Official IRA ceasefire of 1972, however, became permanent, and the "Official" movement eventually evolved into the Workers Party, which rejected violence completely. A splinter from the "Officials" in 1974 - the Irish National Liberation Army, however, continued with a campaign of violence.

By the late 1970s, war weariness was visible in both communities. One manifestation of this was the formation of group known as "Peace People", which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. The Peace People organised large demonstrations calling for an end to paramilitary violence. However, their campaign lost momentum after they appealed to the nationalist community to provide information on the IRA to security forces. The Army and police were so unpopular in many nationalist areas that this was not seen as an objective stance.

The Hunger Strikes and the emergence of Sinn Féin

An IRA mural in Belfast depicting the hunger strikes of 1981.

Successive British Governments, having failed to achieve a political settlement, tried to "normalise" Northern Ireland. Aspects included the removal of internment without trial and the removal of political status for paramilitary prisoners. From 1976 onwards, paramilitaries were tried in juryless Diplock courts to avoid intimidation of jurors. On conviction, they were to be treated as ordinary criminals. Resistance to this policy among republican prisoners led to over 500 of them in the Maze prison going on the blanket protest and the dirty protest. Their protest culminated in hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981 aimed at the restoration of political status.

In the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike, ten republican prisoners (seven from the Provisional IRA and three from the Irish National Liberation Army) starved themselves to death. The first hunger striker to die, Bobby Sands was elected to Parliament on an Anti-H-Block ticket, as was his election agent Owen Carron, following Sands' death. The hunger strikes proved emotive events for the nationalist community - over 100,000 people attended Sands' funeral mass at St. Luke's, Twinbrook, West Belfast, and crowds also attended the subsequent funerals.

From an Irish republican perspective, the significance of these events was to demonstrate a potential for political and electoral strategy. In the wake of the hunger strikes, Sinn Féin, the Provisional IRA's political wing, began to contest elections for the first time in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. In 1986, Sinn Féin recognised the legitimacy of the Irish Dáil, which caused a small group of hardline republicans to break away and form Republican Sinn Féin.

From a unionist perspective, the hunger strikes appeared to show that the nationalist community supported terrorism and this perception deepened sectarian antagonism.

The "Long War"

Paramilitary campaigns continued on both sides until the respective republican and loyalists ceasefires of 1994 ("non-authorised" killings such as vendettas or drugs-related killings still continue today^{[citation needed]}). Fewer people were killed in the 1980s and 1990s than in the 1970s, but the duration and seemingly interminable nature of the political violence has left behind a very negative sociological legacy.

The PIRA's "Long War" was boosted by large donations of arms to them from Libya in 1986 (see Provisional IRA arms importation) due to Moammar Qaddafi's fury at Thatcher's government for assisting the Reagan government's bombing of Tripoli, which killed one of Qaddafi's children. Although they were now killing fewer soldiers, the PIRA's capacity for assassinations and bombings appeared boundless. Many of their operations were directed at local unionist targets such as off-duty policemen, part-time soldiers and Protestant civilians, such as those killed during the Remembrance Day massacre of 1987. The PIRA also targeted construction workers, cleaners, and other workers, both Catholics and Protestants, who were employed at jobs at police stations and Army bases.

In the mid to late 1980s loyalist paramilitaries including the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Resistance, imported arms and explosives from South Africa. The weapons obtained were divided between the UDA, the UVF, and Ulster Resistance and led to an escalation in the assassination of Catholics, although some of the weaponry (such as rocket propelled grenades) were hardly used due to loyalist incompetence. These killings were in response to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement which gave the Irish government a "consultative role" in the internal government of Northern Ireland.

Collusion - security forces and loyalist paramilitaries

An emotive and highly controversial aspect of the conflict has been the confirmed collusion between the state security forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

The UDR and loyalists

One problem highlighted by recently released documents (3 May 2006) by the pro-nationalist Irish News site, "Nuzhound" is that British Government documents from the early 1970s allegedly show overlapping membership between British Army units like the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and loyalist paramilitary groups. The documents include a report titled "Subversion in the UDR" which details the problem. In 1973,

• an estimated 5-15% of UDR soldiers were directly linked to loyalist paramilitary groups.
• it was believed that the "best single source of weapons, and the only significant source of modern weapons, for Protestant extremist groups was the UDR."
• it was feared that UDR troops were loyal to "Ulster" alone rather than to "Her Majesty's Government".
• the British Government knew that UDR weapons were being used in the assassination and attempted assassination of Catholic civilians by loyalist paramilitaries.^[14]

Despite knowing that over 200 weapons had been passed from British Army hands to loyalist paramilitaries by 1973, the British Government went on to increase the role of the UDR in "maintaining order" in Northern Ireland. This was part of the wider "Normalisation, Ulsterisation, and Criminalisation" strategy to quell the violence of the PIRA.

Special Patrol Group and the Glenane allegations

In the mid-1970s, a Royal Ulster Constabulary anti-terrorist unit, the Special Patrol Group (RUC), was implicated in aiding and participating in a number of sectarian murders in the mid-Ulster area, including the Reavey and O'Dowd killings of 1976. Two SPG members, John Weir and Billy McCaughey, were convicted in 1980 of a 1977 murder, an attack on a pub in Keady, and the kidnap of a Catholic priest. They implicated their immediate colleagues in at least 11 other killings and alleged that they were part of a wider conspiracy involving the RUC Special Branch, British military intelligence, and the UVF.^[15] The Special Patrol Group was stood down after the men's conviction. The nationalist Pat Finucane Centre has claimed that the group of British Army, RUC, UDR, and UVF members that Wier and McCaughey referred to, which they called the "Glenane gang", was responsible for 87 killings in the 1970s, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974 and the Miami Showband killings of 1975.^[16]

Collusion in the 1980s and 1990s

Elements within the Army and police have been shown to have leaked intelligence to loyalists from the late 1980s to target republican activists. In 1992, a British agent within the UDA, Brian Nelson, revealed Army complicity in his activities which included murder and importing arms.^[17][18] Factions within the British Army and RUC are known to have cooperated with Nelson and the UDA through the British Army Intelligence group called the Force Research Unit. Since the late 1990s, some loyalists have confirmed to journalists such as Peter Taylor that they received files and intelligence from security sources on Republican targets.^[19][20]

In a report released on the 22 January 2007, the Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan stated that UVF informers committed serious crimes, including murder, with the full knowledge of their handlers.^[21] The report alleged that certain Special Branch officers created false statements, blocked evidence searches and "baby-sat" suspects during interviews. Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillor and former Police Federation chairman Jimmy Spratt said if the report "had had one shred of credible evidence then we could have expected charges against former Police Officers. There are no charges, so the public should draw their own conclusion, the report is clearly based on little fact".^[22] However, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain said that he was "convinced that at least one prosecution will arise out of today's report".^[23]. Peter Hain also said, "There are all sorts of opportunities for prosecutions to follow. The fact that some retired police officers obstructed the investigation and refused to co-operate with the Police Ombudsman is very serious in itself. There will be consequences for those involved and it is a matter for the relevant bodies to take up".^[24]

The chances of successful prosecutions would perhaps be very low, given the nature of the alleged crimes. Where evidence may have been destroyed, altered, or deliberately not gathered, it would be very hard to ground any kind of charge. Were this the case, DUP councillor and former Police Federation chairman Jimmy Spratt's statement would be invalid, as the alleged crimes specifically set out to frustrate the course of justice; and were successful in doing so, at least according to the conclusions of the Ballast Report.

Shoot-to-kill allegations

In addition, republicans allege that the security forces operated a policy of "shoot-to-kill" - killing rather than arresting IRA suspects. The security forces denied this and point out that in incidents such as the killing of eight IRA men at Loughgall in 1987, the paramilitaries who were killed were heavily armed. Others argue that incidents such as the shooting of three unarmed IRA members in Gibraltar by the SAS ten months later confirmed suspicions among republicans, and in the British and Irish media, of a tacit British "shoot-to-kill" policy of suspected IRA members.^[25]

The paramilitary ceasefires and peace process

Main article Northern Ireland peace process

The paramilitaries' activities

Since the late 1980s, Sinn Féin, led since 1983 by Gerry Adams, sought a negotiated end to the conflict (though the IRA continued its armed campaign), although Adams knew that this would be a very long process. In the 1970s he himself predicted that the war would last another 20 years. This was manifested in open talks with John Hume - the Social Democratic and Labour Party leader and secret talks with Government officials. The loyalists were also engaged in behind the scenes talks to end the violence, liaising with the British and Irish governments through Protestant clergy, in particular, the Presbyterian Rev. Roy Magee and Anglican Archbishop Robin Eames. After a prolonged period of political manoeuvring in the background, both loyalist and republican paramilitaries declared ceasefires in 1994.

The year leading up to the ceasefires was a particularly tense one, marked by atrocities. The UDA and UVF stepped up their killings of Catholics (for the first time killing more civilians than Republicans in a year in 1993). The IRA responded with the Shankill Road bombing in October 1993 that aimed to wipe out the UDA leadership, but in fact killed nine Protestant civilians. The UDA in turn retaliated with the Greysteel massacre and the shootings at Castlerock, County Londonderry.

On June 16 1994, just before the ceasefires, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) killed two UVF members in a gun attack on the Shankill road. In revenge, three days later, the UVF killed six civilians in a shooting at a pub in Loughinisland, County Down. The IRA, in the remaining month before its ceasefire, killed four senior loyalists, three from the UDA and one from the UVF. There are various interpretations of the spike in violence before the ceasefires. One theory is that the loyalists feared the peace process represented an imminent "sellout" of the Union and ratcheted up their violence accordingly. Another explanation is that the republicans were "settling old scores" before the end of their campaigns and wanted to enter the political process from a position of military strength rather than weakness.

Eventually, in August 1994, the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire. The loyalist paramilitaries, temporarily united in the Combined Loyalist Military Command, reciprocated six weeks later. Although these ceasefires failed in the short run, they mark an effective end to large-scale political violence in the Troubles as it paved the way for the final ceasefire.

The second ceasefire

Less than two years after the signing of the Ceasefire the IRA revoked it on 9 February 1996. Later that day a half tonne bomb was exploded in the Canary Wharf area of London killing two people and doing £85 million in damage to the city's financial centre. Sinn Féin blamed the failure of the ceasefire on the UK government's refusal to begin all-party negotiations until the IRA decommissioned its weapons.^[26]

The destruction immediately following the attacks in South Quay

The attack was followed by several more, most notably the the Manchester Bombing which destroyed a large area of the centre of the city on 15 June 1996. It was the largest bomb attack in Great Britain since World War II, and while the attack avoided many fatalities due to the rapid response of the emergency services to an earlier telephone warning made to a local television station, over 200 people were still injured in the attack, many of them outside the established cordon.

The IRA reinstated their ceasefire in July 1997 as negotiations for the document that would become known as the Good Friday Agreement were starting without Sinn Féin. In September of the same year Sinn Féin signed The Mitchell Principles and was invited into the talks.

The UVF was the first paramilitary grouping to split as a result of their ceasefire, spawning the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) in 1996. In December 1997, the INLA assassinated LVF leader Billy Wright, leading to a series of revenge killings of Catholics by loyalist groups. In addition, two hardline splinter groups from the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, who rejected the Provisionals' ceasefire, continued a bombing campaign.

In August 1998, a RIRA bomb in Omagh killed 29 civilians (and two unborn children). This bombing, the single worst of the entire Troubles, largely discredited "dissident" Republicans and their campaigns in the eyes of most nationalists. They are now small and non-influential groups^{[citation needed]}. The INLA also declared a ceasefire after the Belfast Agreement was passed in 1998.

Since then, most paramilitary violence has been directed inwards, at their "own" communities and at other factions within their organisations. The UDA, for example has come to blows with their fellow loyalists, the UVF on two occasions since 2000 and has also been torn apart repeatedly by internal feuding between "Brigade commanders" over power within the organisation and the proceeds of organised crime^{[citation needed]}.

On the Republican side, the tendency for internecine violence has been less marked^{[citation needed]}, but the Provisional IRA has been accused of killing at least one double-agent (Denis Donaldson) and its members have also been accused of intimidating and expelling Catholics, assaulting men and women, and, in the most extreme cases, killings of young men such as Robert McCartney, Matthew Ignatius Burns and Andrew Kearney.

The Provisional IRA claimed to have decommissioned most of its weaponry as of August-September 2005, meaning that, if true, it would no longer have the capacity for large-scale armed actions in the immediate future.

The political process

After the ceasefires, talks began between the main political parties in Northern Ireland with the aim of establishing political agreement. These talks eventually produced the Belfast Agreement of 1998. This Agreement restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of "power-sharing", and an executive was formed in 1999 consisting of the four main parties, including Sinn Féin. Other reforms included reform of the police (which was renamed as the Police Service of Northern Ireland and required to recruit a minimum quota of Catholics).

However, the power-sharing Executive and Assembly was suspended in 2002, when unionists withdrew following the exposure of a Provisional IRA spy ring within the Sinn Féin office (which was later revealed to have been started by an undercover British agent Denis Donaldson). This was on top ongoing tensions between unionists and Sinn Féin about Provisional IRA failure to disarm fully and sufficiently quickly. PIRA decommissioning has since been completed (in September 2005) to the satisfaction of most, but the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) continued to be wary over republican claims that the "war was over".

A feature of Northern Irish politics since the Agreement has been the eclipse in electoral terms of the relatively moderate parties such as the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Ulster Unionist Party by more extreme parties - Sinn Féin and the DUP.

Similarly, although political violence is greatly reduced, sectarian animosity has not disappeared and residential areas are more segregated between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists than ever. Because of this, progress towards restoring the power-sharing institutions looks likely to be slow and tortuous. Though the "peace process" is slow-going, movements are forming to assist in this process and give those affected by The Troubles a voice in their communities. In particular, the Corrymeela Community in Ballycastle teaches the prejudice-reduction model that has been adopted by the Ulster Project International to improve relations between Protestant and Catholic families across the country.

Recently, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley have announced the formation of a power-sharing government, hopefully ending the 5 year stand-off.

The parades issue

Drumcree dispute map (enlarge to study)

Inter-communal tensions rise and violence often breaks out during the "marching season" when the Protestant Orange Order parades take place across Northern Ireland. The parades are held to commemorate William of Orange's victory in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, which secured the Protestant Ascendancy and British rule in Ireland. One particular flashpoint that has caused repeated strife is the Garvaghy Road area in Portadown, where an Orange parade from Drumcree Church passes by a predominantly nationalist estate off the Garvaghy Road. This parade has now been banned indefinitely, following nationalist riots against the parade, and also loyalist counter-riots against its banning. In 1995, 1996 and 1997, there were several weeks of prolonged rioting throughout the North over the impasse at Drumcree. A number of people died in this violence, including a Catholic taxi driver, killed by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, and three (of four) nominally Catholic brothers (from a mixed-religion family) died when their house in Ballymoney was petrol-bombed.

Disputes have also occurred in Belfast over parade routes along the heavily Catholic Ormeau and Crumlin Roads. Orangemen hold that to march their "traditional route" is their civil right. Nationalists argue that by parading through hostile areas, the Orange Order is being unnecessarily provocative. Symbolically, the ability to either parade or to block a parade is viewed as expressing ownership of "territory" and influence over the government of Northern Ireland.

Many commentators have expressed the view that the violence over the parades issue has provided an outlet for the violence of paramilitary groups who are otherwise on ceasefire.

Casualties: brief summary

Responsibility

Between 1969 and 2001, 3,523 people were killed as a result of the Troubles.

Approximately 60% of the victims were killed by republicans, 30% by loyalists and 10% by the British, Irish and Northern Irish security forces.

Status

Most of those killed were civilians or members of the security forces, with smaller groups of victims identified with republican and loyalist paramilitary groups. It is often disputed whether some civilians were members of paramilitary organisations due to their secretive nature. Several PIRA paramilitaries were claimed to be civilians by CAIN but are now claimed by the IRA as their members, Padraig O'Seanachain (Patrick Shanaghan) for example.^[27] At least three Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) members killed were also Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers.^[28] At least one civilian victim was an off-duty member of the TA.^[29]