Commentary

This unit begins in the aftermath of Burntollet Bridge in 1969 and takes us through the end of 1971, a period that is aptly termed by McKittrick as the “Descent into Violence.” A cursory glance at the chronology for 1969 on pp. 246-253 in McKittrick validates this claim and makes it abundantly clear that, as the decade came to a close, Northern Ireland was becoming ungovernable.  The irony in this early phase (1969), as you can see from the chronology, was the Loyalists were the ones who carried out many of the attacks and bombings that made Northern Ireland ungovernable.  Their goal was to bring the O’Neill government down (something that they did accomplish) and thus put an end to the reforms (something they did not accomplish).  Loyalists and those opposed to the Civil Rights Movement did not figure on the British Government sticking to its commitment to the reform of the Northern Ireland political system. However, after fifty years of turning a blind eye, Britain, because of the Civil Rights movement and the violence that followed it, was forced to become involved in Northern Ireland, even as it, as we shall see, tried to disengage itself from Northern Ireland.  Labour’s goal was now to bring Northern Ireland into line with modern British standards of law and justice and, by doing so, it hoped to eliminate the causes of the conflict.  Other factors that those opposed to reform (violently and/or non-violently) did not count on was the rise of the Provisional IRA, who were prepared to fight a defensive war (the offensive war would come later) and a Catholic population that had no intention of lying down any longer. 

Before beginning the readings dealing with The Battle of the Bogside and the Communal Violence, keep in mind that what will be interesting for our study is to see how nearly everything the British Army and Government did backfired.  Instead of settling the situation and providing a “breathing space,” their policies and actions actually exacerbated the conflict. 

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Required Readings

 

1. Edwards and McGrattan - pp. 21-30

2. The Pogrom Myth by Malachi O'Doherty

3. Chapter 3 pp 53-65 in Making Sense of the Troubles

4. Chapter 5 in Loyalists—In this chapter pay close attention to the actions of Loyalists to make Northern Ireland ungovernable and bring down the O’Neill government.

5. Chapter 4 and pages 69-78 in Provos dealing with the split in the IRA.

6. Read personal stories from the Bombay Street Burnings in 1969

7. Go to courseweb.pitt.edu and look at videos under Unit 6 videos. Watch the ones on October 1968 entitled Descent into Violence

Additional Information

1. BBC History of the IRA and political deaths in Northern Ireland

2. Scarman Report on the Communal Violence of 1969

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Recommended:

 

View the following videos. They give you a very strong sense of what Belfast was like at the beginning of the Conflict. Audio does not begin until the 16 minute mark on the first video.

 

 

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Commentary (cont.)

To continue this Unit 7, you should come away understanding how actions taken by the Northern Ireland and the British Governments to enhance security (in their terms) actually backfired and turned even those who were opposed to violence against the governments and the security forces.  The warning of Lieutenant-General Sir Ian Freeland in 1969, after British Troops arrived in Northern Ireland, had been borne out. He had warned, in a statement to the press at the time, that the honeymoon period between troops and local people was likely to be short-lived. Within months that welcome had turned to violence. (BBC)  He, like others, at the time realized that simply putting the army in was not going to solve the problem.  Without a political solution, in a society where the police and State had lost all credibility with the minority population, the army had to take on the role of the police and so, in essence, they became, to many nationalists and all Republicans, the new security arm of the State and the tool to prop up the Northern Ireland State.

Required Readings

1. pp. 78-83 in Provos

2. pp 65-75 in McKittrick

3. Chapter 7 in Provos

4. pp. 114 -119  in Dixon

    

Commentary (cont.)

Earlier in Unit 7, we saw how the Nationalist population reacted to the communal violence and the attempts by the state to impose “order.” What we will now do is examine the way in which the Protestant community responded to the communal violence.  What should strike you here is the way in which ordinary Protestants responded to the violence and how they viewed the actions of the IRA.  What will become clear is how differently they viewed the actions of the state and security forces.  Where the Nationalist community viewed the actions of the state as illegitimate and draconian the Protestant community viewed these actions as justified.  They also, as you will see, believed the State had not gone far enough and that the governments, in particular the British government, had gone too far in trying to appease the Nationalists.  The belief began to take hold, in the wake of the IRA bombings and IRA attacks on Protestant targets, that the Protestant community had to defend itself.  As a result many young Protestants joined local “Defence Associations” with many going on to join paramilitary groups such as the UVF or the UDA and in some cases the UDA’s armed wing, the UFF. (Some argue that the UFF was simply the cover name for the UDA when it carried out attacks.  Others argue that the UFF was a separate entity within the UDA into which those committed to the armed struggle and participation in Active Service Units moved.)

Required Readings

1. Chapters 6 and 7 in Loyalists

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Study Questions

1. Why did the Loyalist groups try to bring down the O’Neill government?

2. Why did the IRA split into the “Provisional” and “Official” wings?  Be able to identify the goals of both wings.

3. What role did the communal violence play in this split?

4. What did Britain hope to accomplish with the reforms in Northern Ireland?  Why did this fail?

5. How could the British Army, who were welcomed by the Nationalist population in 1969, become the “enemy” of the Nationalists in less than a year’s time?

6. What role did The Falls Curfew and Internment play in the alienation of the Nationalist community and serve as recruiting tools for the IRA?

7. Why did the Protestant community view the disbandment of the “B” Specials as an attack on their community while the Catholic community viewed it as a victory for its own community?

8. Why and how did the Protestant community view the IRA’s war and its attacks as “sectarian” when the IRA viewed their war as a “war of liberation” and “unification”?  (See the killings of the three Scottish Soldiers and the bombings on the Shankill.)

9. What is meant by “tit-for-tat” in Northern Ireland?

10. According to Dixon why was the Army really put into Northern Ireland? Was it a long-term or a short-term policy?

11. Explain why James Callaghan eventually said:  “only the people of Northern Ireland, not Britain, could not solve the problems of Northern Ireland.”