Unit -4: “The O’Neill Years” - Failure of Reform

Against this backdrop of agitation, resistance, violence and threats of violence Terence O’Neill attempted to move Northern Ireland, however slowly, forward; not to any grand liberal democracy, but to a place where he believed that nationalists could belong to and have a stake in the Northern Ireland State. However, he found himself trying to manage an impossible balancing act.  On the one hand, as we have seen, he was faced with a growing backlash and fear among Unionists that the Union was not secure, while on the other he was faced by rising demands from a confident and strong Civil Rights Movement, while, at the same time he faced demands from the Labour government to go further and faster in the reforms.  All the while he attempted to balance these pressures; he also tried to hold on to power within his party while trying to make his party understand the urgency of reform.  O’Neill appealed to those in his party and government to realize that they had to reform and that there were legitimate grievances among the minority population.  He put it somewhat bluntly when he asked them “can any of us truthfully say in the confines of this room that the minority has no grievances calling for remedy?” (p. 43 McKittrick) At the same time he displayed a “supercilious and patronizing attitude” saying “It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house they will live like Protestants, because they will see neighbours with cars and television sets.  They will refuse to have eighteen children, but if a Roman Catholic is jobless and lives in the most ghastly hovel, he will rear eighteen children on National Assistance.” (p. 51 McKittrick)

 

But, for even the little that he tried to move forward with reform, as you will read in both McKittrick and Dixon, O’Neill faced incredible pressure from all sides, including a Labour government, which, not only favored the Civil Rights Movement, also, in the long term, favored Irish Unity, and found he could not meet the demands of all or any of them let alone bring his own party along.  

 

The following readings illustrate the pressure O’Neill faced.  These readings will also provide you with a stronger and deeper understanding into the origins of the Civil Rights Movement.  When you are done with these readings you should be able to explain when the Civil Rights began when it did, why it gathered momentum and why Unionism resisted it so fiercely. (See O’Neill’s quote from above.)

 

Read:

  1. Chapter 2 McKittrick and McVea:  Making Sense of the Troubles and pp. 47-53

    1. A key point about why the reforms of the O’Neill years failed comes from McKittrick.  Make sure you understand this quote from Ken Bloomfield:  “pressure for reform constantly increasing, agonizing debate about further concession, and the announcement too late of compromises no longer acceptable to anyone. In a rising market, Unionism constantly tried, unsuccessfully, to buy reform at last year’s prices.”  (p. 46 McKittrick)   

  2. Edwards and McGrattan - pp. 15-21

  3. Official Speech from Liam McMillan of the Official IRA in 1972. This speech calls into question the accepted wisdom we have of the NICRA.  This is important for the next Unit.

    1. Background on the speech by Brian Hanley

Additional questions to consider:

  1. Why did the Unionists react so negatively to the demand for “one man-one vote?”
  2. Why did Unionists fear the civil rights movement?
  3. What constraints operated on O’Neill’s ability to reform Northern Ireland?
  4. What were material conditions like for ordinary working class Protestants?
  5. Why did Billy Mitchell (Loyalists) think ordinary Protestants, such as himself, could become soldiers in this war?