In Ireland, history weighs heavily on the minds of the people. Although admittedly something of a cliché, it is undeniable that there is a tendency for the Irish to remember the far-distant past as strongly as more recent events. And like all monochrome remembrances of the past, there has been a tendency towards the deeply selective. When viewed through the prism of perceived oppression, sacrifice and injustice, these deep-rooted interpretations of the past have led to embittered feelings towards ‘the other side’. The myths, memories and symbols of Irish nationalism and Ulster Unionism are self-perpetuating narratives that have served to reinforce the divisions between these two main communities in Northern Ireland. And it is the polarizing effect that this has had that has made the Troubles so enduring.
Conventional wisdom would have us believe that the conflict in Ireland can be distilled into a virulent antagonism between the Irish and the English, but this only masks a deeper-rooted truth that Irish people are – first and foremost – divided among themselves. In the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) politician John Hume, ‘[t]wo major political traditions share the island of Ireland. We are destined by history to live side by side.’ The two principal political traditions inhabit ‘two lands on one soil’, but the longevity of the most recent violent phase of the Northern Ireland conflict indicates how strongly they disagree with one another over the design of the constitutional architecture to be built there.
A towering nationalist figure, however, Hume realized that there was more to it than the crude Republican mantra of ‘eight centuries of English subjugation of Ireland’. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Hume embarked on a dialogue to persuade Gerry Adams and other militant Republicans to rethink their dogmatic views on the role of the British government and the position of the Unionist community in Ireland. Ironically, Sinn Féin would eventually overtake Hume’s SDLP at the polls in the wake of the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998 to become the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland.
Advances in historical scholarship over the years have ensured a more sober analysis of the role of the British government in Ireland, hinting at its steady process of disengagement since before World War I. This has not always been welcome, with Unionists resisting any attempts to force Home Rule upon them, while nationalists have attempted to hasten Britain’s total disengagement. In ‘Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant’ of 1912, 237,368 men and 234,046 women pledged themselves
… in solemn Covenant, throughout this our time of threatened calamity to stand by one another in defending for ourselves and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland.
The resolve of Unionists to oppose unpopular British policy in Ireland by signing up to a Solemn League and Covenant marked them out as ‘Queen’s rebels’. Contrary to doctrinaire Republicanism’s claim that Unionists are ‘misguided Irishmen’, they have proved resilient in maintaining the link with Great Britain for a myriad of political, social and economic reasons.
Table 1. Prime ministers of Northern Ireland, 1921–72
Prime Minister |
Entered office |
Left office |
James Craig |
7 June 1921 |
24 November 1940 |
John Miller Andrews |
27 November 1940 |
1 May 1943 |
Basil Brooke |
1 May 1943 |
25 March 1963 |
Terence O’Neill |
25 March 1963 |
1 May 1969 |
James Chichester-Clark |
1 May 1969 |
23 March 1971 |
Brian Faulkner |
23 March 1971 |
30 March 1972 |
Nevertheless, four years into the Third Home Rule Crisis (1910–14), Unionists were on the back foot. Home Rule looked inevitable. Unionists responded by drilling, first with dummy rifles, and then with thousands of Mannlicher M1904 and Mauser Gew 88 rifles from Germany, and an assortment of handguns landed illegally at the ports of Larne and Donaghadee. They established a paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) commanded by seasoned members of the British officer corps along with a cadre of Army NCOs. An explosive situation built up. Feeling themselves to be under threat too, nationalists formed their own militias, thus preparing the path towards civil war. Unionists accused the British government of betrayal, a mood captured eloquently by Rudyard Kipling in his poem Ulster 1912:
The blood our fathers spilt,
Our love, our toils, our pains
Are counted us for guilt
And only bind our chains –
Before an Empire’s eyes
The traitor claims his price.
What need of further lies?
We are the sacrifice.
Meanwhile, events beyond Ireland’s shores intervened. The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Young Bosnia member Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo triggered a series of events that would draw Britain into World War I. Irishmen promptly answered the call, serving in their hundreds of thousands, mainly along the Western Front. Local disputes were suspended in favour of what nationalist leader John Redmond called the ‘two-fold duty’ of all Irishmen – to soldier ‘wherever the firing line extends in defence of the right of freedom and religion in this war’.
With the onset of the Anglo-Irish War of Independence of 1919–21, London acted as a constitutional midwife, helping to deliver self-government for North and South by passing the Government of Ireland Act in 1920. It was this legislation that formally partitioned the six north-eastern counties of the ancient nine-county province of Ulster from the 26 south-western counties of Ireland’s other three provinces of Leinster, Munster and Connaught. Although Ireland had fallen under English influence from the 12th century onwards, it had only officially been part of the United Kingdom since the Act of Union came into effect in 1801. The Government of Ireland Act established two separate parliaments in Belfast and Dublin, but London held a firm grip on reserved matters like foreign policy, currency, taxation and access to ports in both jurisdictions. It was envisaged that Ireland would eventually be reunited within the framework of the United Kingdom.
The reunification of Ireland proved impossible for a variety of reasons, not least because of the entrenched position adopted by Ulster Unionists, who were reluctant to countenance any further secession from the UK. Instead, following the ceasefire between the British Army and the IRA in 1921, the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty established the southern 26 counties as the Irish Free State (Eire), with Dominion status. Northern Ireland rejected rule from Dublin. The Ulster Unionists were also worried about the incursion of IRA ‘flying columns’ north of the border; the threat of a hostile neighbouring state sponsoring guerrilla forces loomed large in Unionist minds. This existential fear led to the establishment of an internal security apparatus, incorporating the Ulster Special Constabulary in 1920 and the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1922. The process of state formation, however, was an uphill struggle that took place against the backdrop of violence on the streets. Between 1920 and 1922 approximately 462 people lost their lives; a similar number would die 50 years later in 1972, the single worst year of the more recent Troubles.
The new political entity of Northern Ireland was born out of conflict, as the project of Home Rule for Ireland floundered amid the staunch opposition of Ulster Unionists. Matters were not helped much by the southern state, which under President Eamon de Valera’s watchful eye sought to integrate Church and State more closely together into a single nationalist regime in Dublin. De Valera’s own staunch Roman Catholic faith left him determined to govern according to exclusively Gaelic traditions. These were absolutely alien to Protestant Unionists, who looked towards the more secular and progressive basis of their union with Great Britain.
Such was the determination to resist incorporation into the southern state that the Unionist administration began to equate its own dominance over local politics, society and culture with the survival of Northern Ireland itself. Orangeism was employed as the adhesive to bind together an uneasy class alliance, and it became the cushion upon which Unionist control and authority rested. When de Valera declared Eire to be ‘a Catholic state for Catholic people’, Sir James Craig (later Lord Craigavon), Northern Ireland’s first prime minister, responded with the (often misquoted) adage about Northern Ireland having ‘a Protestant people and a Protestant parliament’. An air of suspicion descended over both parts of the island, marginalizing any popular desire in both jurisdictions for reunification.
A mural depicting a charge by members of 36th (Ulster) Division on 1 July 1916. Many of those who answered the call for King and Country had previously been members of the UVF, a paramilitary organization formed in 1912 to oppose Home Rule for Ireland. (Aaron Edwards)
In 1948 Irish Taoiseach John A. Costello declared his intent to lead the Free State out of the Commonwealth and towards becoming an independent republic. This in turn provoked extensive lobbying by Northern Ireland Prime Minister Sir Basil Brooke, later Viscount Brookeborough, on behalf of his government. Brooke was the nephew of Viscount Alanbrooke, the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and had served in several posts under both Craig and Craig’s successor as prime minister of Northern Ireland, John Miller Andrews. Brooke’s unflinching commitment to the Union, not to mention his obvious diplomatic skills and charm, ensured that he won the support of British Prime Minister Clement Attlee. Britain’s Labour government passed the Ireland Act in 1949, which saw Northern Ireland remain an integral component of the UK.
However, challenges still remained. The IRA had been a constant threat to the Unionist regime throughout its 50 years of existence. Between 1956 and 1962 it prosecuted a violent campaign – Operation Harvest – against the Northern Ireland state, attacking infrastructure targets, such as bridges and the sole BBC transmitter in the province, in a half-hearted bid to end partition. Yet it failed for a number of reasons, not least in that it generated minimal support from the Catholic minority, invited repressive crossborder measures such as internment, and was countered by the political will of the Brookeborough administration.
Table 2. Presidents and Taoisigh of the Republic of Ireland
President of the Executive |
Entered office |
Left office |
William T. Cosgrave |
6 December 1922 |
9 March 1932 |
Eamon de Valera |
9 March 1932 |
29 December 1937 |
Taoiseach |
Entered office |
Left office |
Eamon de Valera |
29 December 1937 |
18 February 1948 |
John A. Costello |
18 February 1948 |
13 June 1951 |
Eamon de Valera |
13 June 1951 |
2 June 1954 |
John A. Costello |
2 June 1954 |
20 March 1957 |
Eamon de Valera |
20 March 1957 |
23 June 1959 |
Sean Lemass |
23 June 1959 |
10 November 1966 |
Jack Lynch |
10 November 1966 |
14 March 1973 |
Liam Cosgrove |
14 March 1973 |
5 July 1977 |
Jack Lynch |
5 July 1977 |
11 December 1979 |
Charles J. Haughey |
11 December 1979 |
30 June 1981 |
Garret Fitzgerald |
30 June 1981 |
9 March 1982 |
Charles J. Haughey |
9 March 1982 |
14 December 1982 |
Garret Fitzgerald |
14 December 1982 |
10 March 1987 |
Charles J. Haughey |
10 March 1987 |
11 February 1992 |
Albert Reynolds |
11 February 1992 |
15 December 1994 |
John Bruton |
15 December 1994 |
26 June 1997 |
Bertie Ahern |
26 June 1997 |
6 May 2008 |
Brian Cowen |
7 May 2008 |
9 March 2011 |
Enda Kenny |
9 March 2011 |
Incumbent |
Speaking in the Stormont Parliament on 18 December 1956, a week after the IRA declared ‘our people in the Six Counties have taken the fight to the enemy’, the Minister for Home Affairs W. B. Topping said:
Every bullet fired, every bomb thrown, every act of violence which takes place only hammers another nail in the coffin of Republican hopes. It is astonishing that those who are responsible for these acts of violence have not yet learned that bullets cannot shoot beliefs. We believe in Britain and in the British way of life. We are British and British we will remain. (Hon. Members: Hear, hear.)
Security assessments made available to the Stormont government at the time spoke in terms of the calmness displayed by both communities and sharply contrasted this round of violence with that experienced in the 1920s. Within a year the RUC was reporting how ‘the life of the community remains largely unaffected’. Several top-level police reports commended Brookeborough and his colleagues for consistently urging restraint among their supporters.
Fundamentalist Protestant preacher the Revd Ian Paisley led the counter-demonstrations that opposed NICRA marches. Militant Loyalists later blamed Paisley’s speeches for propelling them into paramilitarism. (IWM HU 42548)
In any case the IRA’s objectives were unrealistic given the detachment of many nationalists from the political process. Following the resounding failure of the Anti-Partition League earlier in the decade to achieve the abolition of the border in a peaceful manner, constitutional nationalism was quickly supplanted by a more militant Republicanism. An IRA statement released after the first wave of attacks stated:
Out of this national liberation struggle a new Ireland will emerge, upright and free. In that new Ireland we shall build a country fit for all our people to live in. That then is our aim: an independent, united, democratic Irish Republic. For this we shall fight until the invader is driven from our soil and victory is ours.
By launching pre-planned attacks on military and infrastructure targets dotted along the border of Northern Ireland from the ‘safe haven’ of the Irish Republic, the IRA sought to end partition by physical force. Most commentators writing about this period in Northern Ireland’s history tend to dismiss the IRA’s border campaign as insignificant, mainly because of the small number of fatalities involved. In total 18 people lost their lives, including 11 IRA men (five were killed in hostilities), and six policemen. Scores were wounded. In light of what was to emerge by the end of the 1960s this is certainly a superficially attractive observation. However, it somewhat misses the point that the Unionist Government was under immense pressure from its grassroots to act against the terrorists.
In a speech at Stormont on 4 July 1957, the same day that an RUC constable was murdered and his colleague seriously injured in an IRA ambush, Unionist MP for Antrim Nat Minford led calls for tougher security measures:
The laws that have been in operation in Cyprus should be enforced here. A man who carries a gun or in any way assists another to carry a gun is not out for the good of the public, and the only punishment should be death.1
Although the use of the death penalty was not seriously entertained, the Unionist authorities did turn to tougher measures, under the provisions of the Special Powers Act of 1922. Internment was introduced for the first time in Northern Ireland. The coercive nature of the Unionist response was dictated primarily by the need to prevent anger among grassroots Unionists from boiling over into reprisals. Not for the first time would the Unionist government act to counter angst and threats of vigilantism from among its supporters. The Brookeborough administration’s actions were soon complemented by de Valera, whose administration interned IRA suspects south of the border in a bid to offset pressure from London. Within a year 500 suspects had been interned on both sides of the border. Over the next few years the IRA’s campaign fizzled out and the organization dumped arms in February 1962.
Violence once again returned to Northern Ireland’s streets in 1964. This time it was caused by the presence of an Irish tricolour in the window of a shop being used as a headquarters for Westminster election candidate, Republican Liam McMillen. The Revd Ian Paisley, a fundamentalist Presbyterian preacher, led a mob into Divis Street, West Belfast, to remove the flag. Three nights of serious rioting gripped Belfast and the RUC deployed water cannon to quell the disturbances. Scores of Catholic youths later arrested remarked in court that they would not have taken to the streets had it not been for Paisley’s intervention.
The statue of Sir Winston Churchill peers down imposingly as former Prime Minister Harold Wilson strolls out of the House of Commons with his successor at 10 Downing Street, Conservative leader Edward Heath, on 2 July 1970. Following immediately behind Wilson is James Callaghan, who served as Home Secretary in the late 1960s when the Troubles exploded onto Northern Ireland’s streets, and would succeed Wilson as prime minister in the mid-1970s. The Labour Party was given regular updates about the political, socio-economic, and security situation in the province throughout the post-war period, despite claims by Wilson and others that they ‘knew nothing about Northern Ireland’ before the outbreak of violence. (© Bettmann/Corbis)
Anticipating an upsurge in IRA activity, some Unionists resurrected the UVF in 1965 as a means of marshalling vigilante spirit among sections of the Protestant working class. The UVF was a tiny but deadly organization, born out of political intrigue and incubated in the shadows of a Unionist establishment worried about the liberal-leaning policies of Terence O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s modernizing fourth prime minister. O’Neill had promised to ‘transform the face of Ulster’ but he fatally misunderstood the dynamics of sectarianism. Clandestine bomb attacks carried out by the UVF, and subsequently blamed on the IRA, were used as an instrument to force O’Neill’s hand towards more coercive anti-IRA measures. Such scare tactics left O’Neill jaded. Worse was to come, however, when the UVF murdered several people across Belfast; this inevitably stoked fear and alienation among the Catholic community.
The UVF recruited across working-class Protestant areas. In an interview conducted by the author with one of its founding members, who later became its second-in-command, he recalled how:
In the mid-1960s you had the perception that there could be an IRA insurrection and that perception was being fostered by senior Unionist politicians – and people like me ‘bit’. With the benefit of hindsight now I wouldn’t have.
The UVF was symptomatic of a strain of vigilantism that ran through certain sections of the Protestant community. It forced O’Neill from office in 1969.
Harold Wilson’s Labour government (1964–70) frequently claimed that they knew very little about Northern Ireland prior to the explosion of violence in August 1969, although for most of the post-war period the British Labour Party had been kept regularly informed of the situation by their smaller sister party, the Northern Ireland Labour Party. In his book A House Divided, James Callaghan recalled how when he took over as British Home Secretary in 1967 his despatch box
… contained books and papers on the future of the prison service, the fire service, problems on race relations, a number of questions about the police, children in care and their future, and the reform of the House of Lords – but not a word about Northern Ireland.
The British government’s ignorance of the Troubles brewing on the streets of Belfast and Derry/Londonderry was matched only by its ambivalence towards the difficulties facing the Stormont government. Unionists understood only too well the precarious foundations upon which their power rested and they were keen to avoid making concessions. Meanwhile, the Irish government became concerned for the minority community and sought ways to intervene actively on their behalf. Intervention ranged from accommodating northern ‘refugees’ in camps south of the border, to high-level diplomatic pressure, and the clandestine training and arming of individuals who later went on to form the nucleus of the IRA, carrying out attacks on civilian and military targets.
1 A major counter-insurgency campaign was fought by Britain’s Security Forces in Cyprus between 1955 and 1959. The Greek terrorist group EOKA, led by the ex-Greek army Colonel George Grivas, embarked on a campaign of subversion known as enosis, which aimed to reunite the island by force of arms.