On my way home I returned to South Armagh for a few days. As I got out of the bus in ‘Cross’, two hours after leaving Belfast, I felt rather as one does when getting out of a plane in Karachi or Delhi; I had moved too fast from one world to another. Cycling is by far the best way to travel around the North where regions only twenty miles apart can be so very unalike. On Roz I would have been aware of having travelled a long distance to Crossmaglen.

It was a relief that the soldier’s death had not wrecked relations between the locals and the army. The Highlanders’ CO had appeared on television a few hours after the shooting to promise that his men would not take it out on the South Armagh people and everybody I met confirmed that the regiment was keeping its word. But the troops, though no less polite than previously, looked very much more tense.

Near the bus stop I passed a foot-patrol as the strong gusty wind blew my sou’wester off my head and across the road. An adolescent soldier retrieved it and as he handed it back I said, ‘I’m sorry you lost a man.’ He looked at me blankly for a moment. Then suddenly his face puckered, just like a little child’s. ‘He was my pal,’ he said. And he stood there, while his comrades waited for him, with tears streaking the black on his face.

Ever since the army was sent into Northern Ireland in August 1969, to defend the Catholics from the Protestants, there have been indignant comments on how unfair it is to expect a soldier to do a policeman’s job and fight terrorism with his hands politically tied. Against this, many believe that the military authorities are quite pleased to have Northern Ireland as a training ground for new types of warfare. According to this view the army is contentedly planning to spend another eight years or so in the North ‘perfecting anti-terrorist techniques’, by the end of which time they reckon they will have ‘just about cleaned the place up’. This attitude on the part of professional soldiers would be understandable. What alarms me much more is the tendency of British officers to see the IRA – and therefore the Catholic community – as their only enemy. (An exception was one officer of remarkable perception and humanity who had an unusual military role to play; he was among the few Englishmen I have ever met who appreciated every nuance of the Northern situation.) One senior officer told me cheerfully that he knew his men sometimes looked away when they saw Loyalist paramilitaries going about their business. Clearly it had never occurred to him that this bias, which is known to both Green and Orange paramilitaries, seriously diminishes the army’s value as a ‘Peace-Keeping Force’. Moreover, when the Irish Army and police hear of instances of discrimination by the Brits they naturally feel less enthusiastic about helping them. The habit of ‘looking away’ can be catching.

It is often said that soldiers are not meant to think – only to act – and that they would be useless as soldiers if they ever paused for reflection. This of course is true and it sufficiently explains why some people feel that the army should be removed from the Northern scene. If ever a situation called for reflection, imagination, compassion and compromise this is it. I am not suggesting that the average soldier, as an individual, is devoid of these qualities; but the military life does not encourage him to cultivate them. To appreciate the extra degree of violence the troops inject into the atmosphere – just by being there, apart from particular actions – one needs to ‘take the temperature’ amongst those sections of the Catholic community most exposed to military influence. Then one realises that the interaction of troops and Catholic ghetto dwellers brings out the worst on both sides.

Many a teenage soldier must arrive in the North for the first time knowing nothing whatever about the conflict, having no bias for or against either side and feeling quite prepared, in the innocence of his heart, to befriend the entire population. But as soon as he is sent out on patrol he will become aware of his inheritance of hate. He will see it on the faces of many Catholics – and perhaps eventually suffer from it, if he is unlucky. Then his mates will tell him about the sandwiches filled with powdered glass that were offered to one regiment and about innumerable other demonstrations of vengeful loathing. Thus he, too, will learn to hate.

One cause of bad relations between the army and the Catholic community is never mentioned though to me it seems of considerable significance. Over the years, countless opportunities to improve relations have been lost because of the deep cultural/social chasm that separates the officer (often an ex-public schoolboy) from the Catholic community leader (often an ex-ghetto lad or a small-farmer’s son). Though the latter may have been to university and attained eminence in his own profession, his self-confidence often crumbles pathetically when he has to deal with a member of England’s hereditary ruling caste. This is so even when the Englishman in question is aware of needing guidance and perfectly prepared to learn from the Irishman. On several occasions I heard prominent Catholics covering up their uncertainty about how to deal with this unfamiliar sort of human being by mimicking an officer’s ‘posh’ accent, or making snide remarks about clueless and bloodless Old Etonians, or boasting of how they had scored off that half-wit who came along talking crap about ‘cooperation’. Undoubtedly many officers are half-wits, in the Northern Irish context, but the Catholic leaders, if not so hamstrung by their social chip, could do a lot to help them to become less foolish. As it is, sheer class animosity too often makes it impossible for even the best-intentioned officers to receive guidance from Catholics. In a clumsy effort to overcome this difficulty the army sometimes publicises the fact that particular officers are themselves Catholics. But such gestures miss the point; the army authorities probably do not realise that for generations there has been considerable mutual dislike between Irish peasant Catholics and English upper-class Catholics. Four Catholic community leaders admitted to me that they find it easier to deal with Protestant officers who have risen from the ranks than with Catholic officers of the old school(s). Which of course is obliquely cheering; in the North one rejoices to find any situation in which religion is not the most important factor.

In every Catholic area, urban or rural, grim stories are told to illustrate the corruption and savagery of the Brits. It is easy to produce a long list of despicable crimes committed over the past eight years by the licentious soldiery; theft, assault, robbery, manslaughter, planting of ammunition or incriminating documents on innocent civilians, looting, murder, rape – you name it, they’ve done it. But there have been huge numbers of soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland during that period – often living under appalling conditions – and though their behaviour while on duty is frequently deplorable their actual crime record is rather better than one would expect. When I commented on this to Ardoyne friends the remark was not well received and I can quite see why. It is easy for the outsider to be detached and fair-minded; my home is not repeatedly ransacked in the small hours and my child is in no danger of being killed in an ‘incident’ with the army.

The consequences of two teenage deaths, in the Turf Lodge area of West Belfast, show how effectively the Brits recruit for the Provos. In August 1975 Leo Norney, a seventeen-year-old post-office messenger who lived with his family, was shot dead when walking near his home by members of the Black Watch Regiment. (That same month five members of the same regiment were accused of planting bullets on young men from Turf Lodge and were subsequently gaoled for the offence.) At the time the army alleged that Norney was one of two men who fired on a foot-patrol. A year later an open verdict was returned at his inquest. Then, in April 1977, his parents were awarded £3,000 in the Northern Ireland High Court and the Ministry of Defence accepted that ‘Leo Norney was a totally innocent party.’

Meanwhile, in September 1976, a thirteen-year-old boy, Brian Stewart, died in hospital having had his skull smashed by a plastic bullet. He had just left his home and was alone, innocently idling around a street corner where a few hours earlier a gang of older boys had stoned a foot-patrol, when he was deliberately fired on at close range by a soldier of the King’s Own Borderers.

The Turf Lodge housing estate, built in the fifties, had for years been one of the least troubled districts of West Belfast. It was Stickie territory and the Provos ‘C’ Company, 1st Battalion, which includes Turf Lodge in its area, got very little support. But after September 1976 came a swift change of mood. Apart from Brian Stewart’s death there were many other instances of military brutality during the autumn and by November numerous Stickie and Irps supporters had gone over to the Provos. On 24 November a member of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers was shot in the neck as his patrol tried to escape from a furious mob; he was the first soldier to have been killed in Turf Lodge for six years. And at midnight on 31 December the Provos welcomed 1977 by attacking Fort Monagh barracks in Turf Lodge. A few days later they seriously wounded two members of a foot-patrol on the edge of the estate and further gun-battles and mortar attacks followed.

Considering the Norney and Stewart cases, one realises that in whichever direction the authorities jump, after tragedies of this sort, they must inevitably land in the soup. By failing to have the killer detected and tried they play the IRA’s propaganda game; by charging him they undermine army morale – which is none too good at any time in Northern Ireland. What should be done? If the soldier involved is a thug who enjoys Paddy-bashing then in my opinion he should be charged with murder. If, however, he is some wretched dim-witted youngster who made a mistake because he was nervous, I personally would allow discretion to be the better part of justice and quietly send him home to Mum. But, looking at it from the Green point of view, why should any soldier be allowed to escape the consequences of killing an innocent citizen?

The army’s ambiguous status in the North repeatedly produces this sort of mess. It describes itself as a ‘Peace-Keeping Force’, dedicated to restoring law and order, and is not officially at war with anyone. Yet its opponents describe themselves as the Irish Republican Army and do claim to be officially at war. So – is there a war on or isn’t there? If there is, who, from the British point of view, is the enemy? Anyone carrying a gun? Anyone known to sympathise with those who carry guns? Or just anyone who happens to live in an area where guns are frequently found? Theoretically, armed men in the firing posture are the only legitimate targets. But there must be many occasions when a patrol recognises a paramilitary in another posture and feels strongly tempted to take action. The fact that the troops usually resist these temptations is a considerable tribute to British military discipline.

Soon after my return home from Crossmaglen my own feelings about the security forces were precisely expressed in a newspaper article by the Most Reverend Dr Cahal Daly, Catholic Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, who is himself from Co. Antrim and was for many years a professor at Queen’s University, Belfast. Dr Daly wrote:

‘A battle for minds’ is the key phrase in that quotation and the first round has to be fought against the politicians of Belfast, London and Dublin. Until these men have seen the futility of merely exchanging blows with the paramilitaries – or have been replaced by others able to see it – there is no hope of a constructive reassessment of security methods.

After the London bombings of January 1977 Roy Mason, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, told foreign journalists in London that the Provos were attempting to stage ‘spectaculars’ to prove they were still in business but that the security forces ‘would take more slices off the terrorist hide’. Strangely, these words shocked me, when I read them in my Irish Times, no less than the murder of the Englishman, Jeffrey Agate, which was reported on the same page. Yet perhaps not strangely, since the two reports were simply different aspects of a single horror – the brutalising effect of war.

In Dublin, during the same period, Mr Mason had his counterpart in the then Minister for Justice, Patrick Cooney, who lost his seat in the general election of June 1977. On 14 January Mr Cooney said, ‘The people of this island can solve the problem of violence in one way only – by turning against the paramilitaries and handing them over to the police … Every citizen must feel duty bound to report to the gardai any knowledge he or she has of actual or intended crimes. To do so is a basic civic duty. The subversives and those associated with supporting them must be made to feel the cold breath of the people’s scorn for their aims and abhorrence for their methods. Thus, with the help of the security forces, the law-abiding people of Ireland will finally remove the baneful influence of the men of violence from our presence … Do we want to share the fate of the German people whereby a whole race and innocent generations have to bear the obloquy of the actions of a small number? For seven years now small groups of evil men have been committing unspeakable atrocities in our name. If mere exhortation could have ended that situation, it should have ended long ago, because for the past seven years violence has been condemned from platform and pulpit, but apparently without any result whatever. It is quite clear that mere condemnation is not enough.’

To me all this seems grossly misleading – and therefore dangerous. For centuries the Northern Irish problem has been fertilised by over-simplifications. ‘All Protestants are bigots, all Catholics are traitors, all Orangemen/Nationalists have guns, all RUC men are thugs, all Catholic priests are subversives, all Unionists are bullies, all Taigs are dishonest – and so on and on and on, seemingly for ever. It cannot help to add to this dismal catalogue by saying, ‘Do we want to share the fate of the German people whereby a whole race and innocent generations have to bear the obloquy of the actions of a small number? For seven years now small groups of evil men have been committing unspeakable atrocities in our name …’ This particular over-simplification has become very popular in the Republic where we seem to use it as a sort of tranquilliser. It is less disturbing to think of ‘small groups of evil men’ than to accept the existence of a million and a half fellow-Irishmen who have been pitchforked, by historical events for which no one now living can be blamed, into a situation of such profound mutual distrust and antipathy that some of them have gone right round the bend. I am not suggesting that the majority in either community is behind the extremists. But I am suggesting that the extremists are just that – extreme representatives of their respective communities. They are not another sort of human being – ‘evil men’ existing in isolation from the ‘law-abiding people of Ireland’ and radiating a ‘baneful influence’ throughout their neighbourhoods. Most Northerners do indeed deplore their ‘unspeakable atrocities’, yet the mere existence of those two communities, each laden with prejudice against and ignorance of the other, powerfully reinforces the extremists even while they are being reproached or rejected by their political or religious leaders.

The majority of Northern Irish abhor paramilitary methods but do not scorn paramilitary aims. How could Mr Cooney expect all Northern Protestants to scorn the aims of men who want to defend them from the wiles of the Romish Republic? And how could he expect all Northern Catholics to scorn the aims of men who want the Brits out? For half a century the Dublin government encouraged the Northern minority to dream of a united Ireland and on one celebrated occasion some of its ministers actually encouraged them to fight for it. Yet a few years later our Minister for Justice expected the same minority to wake up from its dream and meekly toe the new line that had been marked out for it by Dublin.

In fact many Northern Catholics awoke from their dream long before Dublin began to prod them but it does not help to condemn those who are still asleep. The Northern extremists and their supporters, whether Orange or Green, are never going to be guided on to the path of virtue by condemnation for the very good reason that they believe they are already on it. So their contempt and hatred for those who oppose them are merely strengthened by each fresh proof that their aims are scorned.

Mr Cooney thought it quite clear that ‘mere condemnation is not enough’ and I would argue that at this stage any condemnation – of people – is too much. Condemning the ‘men of violence’ is essentially a negative attitude which compounds the aggression in the Irish atmosphere. For every paramilitary picked up there may well be two recruits if we continue to look upon extremists as unworthy of our understanding. Lord Melchett was once severely criticised for opening a new UDA club in Belfast and settling down afterwards to have a few jars with Andy Tyrie and the lads. He was probably unaware of the club’s provenance when he agreed to open it (Andy Tyrie has a nice sense of humour) but in my opinion he was perfectly right to stand his ground when the penny did drop. It would be no bad thing if our cabinet ministers took it in turns publicly to go on the tiles around Dublin with members of the two Sinn Feins. And I am not joking. The more communication the better, however much it may scandalise conservative (or Conservative) citizens.

For millennia most civilisations have conditioned people to fight back and when our society seems threatened we instinctively assume that extremists can be dealt with only by matching their own ruthlessness. During the past few years I have heard many laments, in both Britain and the Republic, about ‘the mistake at the beginning’. This mistake, according to large numbers of otherwise balanced and kindly people, lay in not ‘sending the troops in to shoot – mopping them up when they started – imprisoning the lot and hanging the leaders from lamp-posts’. In this respect I, too, had a closed mind not very long ago. At times of despair and anger, when yet another ‘terrorist atrocity’ had been committed, I often felt that the security forces should be much tougher and that for certain offences the death-penalty should be brought back in Britain and used in Ireland. I am not by temperament squeamish about inflicting deserved punishments. I do not believe that criminals should be provided with interior spring mattresses, colour television, heated swimming-pools and first-class tuition to enable them to get university degrees. But neither do I now believe that it makes sense to treat the Northern Irish paramilitaries as common criminals.

The only way in which the battle for the extremists’ minds can be won is by overcoming one’s repugnance for their ideas and actions and communicating with them simply as other human beings. Instead of opposing violence to violence, tolerance must be opposed to intolerance and reflection to hysteria. But to achieve anything worthwhile this communication must be based on sincere efforts to understand. Condescending media interviews, with the Orange or Green extremist being kept emotionally at arm’s length, have for years been a common feature of the Northern scene. One has to struggle to remember that the extremists do have a point of view which to them is valid, however absurd or debased it may seem to us. It is hard to be convincing, in the abstract, about such matters. Yet when one is actually talking to ‘the men of violence’ it is surprisingly easy to understand the workings of their hearts, if not of their minds. And once some understanding has been gained, it becomes possible to differ from them without despising them. I have made valued friends among both Orange and Green paramilitaries; few are so extreme that they refuse to respond to the concern of a non-extremist.

We all need to change gear mentally, as it were, and to approach the Northern problem at a different pace. Instead of compulsively and impulsively abusing the paramilitaries as gangs of thugs labelled IRA, UVF – and so on – we must focus on the fact that each group is made up of individuals most of whom have been born into the spiritual and intellectual equivalent of a Calcutta slum. Many paramilitary deeds are revolting crimes but the paramilitaries themselves are not, usually, revolting criminals. I have made this point before but I am not apologising for repeating it. We must peel off the terrorist labels and look at the individuals underneath and try to understand why they are what they are – and ask ourselves what we would be had fate arranged for us to be born into an extremist family down a back street off the Falls or the Shankill.

Whatever Dr Daly or anyone else may think or write, Direct Rule, with 14,000 troops in Northern Ireland, can and probably will go on indefinitely. But meanwhile the Northern disease will be worsening. Mr Mason was of the opinion in January 1977 that ‘the security situation continues to improve’. Yet three months later, on 21 April, the British Attorney-General, Mr Sam Silkin, told the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg that ‘terrorist activities were increasing in intensity and seriousness despite the measures taken by the authorities to deal with them’. True, the RUC Chief Constable’s Report for 1976, published in June 1977, showed that that year the Northern Ireland detection rate had almost reached the level of other metropolitan areas in Britain. In 1976 1,278 people were brought before the courts on terrorist offences and 963 were convicted. Some of this success is due to the restructuring of the RUC and the establishment of Regional Crime Squads whose members have been specially trained in Britain. The RUC are also aided by a seven-day detention period during which all but the toughest men can be ‘persuaded’ to sign statements, and by the increasing willingness of the courts to regard such statements as admissible evidence. These figures perhaps prove to Mr Mason that violence is now at an ‘acceptable’ level and that the forces of law and order are being ‘effective’. But what is happening to people’s minds and souls as they learn to live (or die) with this ‘acceptable’ level of violence? And how ‘effective’, in the long term, are police methods which arouse widespread public contempt and hostility? What problems are now ripening in the prisons of Northern Ireland as men who have been forced to confess to crimes they never committed plot their revenge on society? By abandoning British standards of justice, under pressure from paramilitary groups of every sort, the Northern Ireland Office is conceding ultimate victory to those who wish to destroy Northern Ireland as a recognisable part of the United Kingdom.