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- "The Troubles" is a term used to describe two periods of violence in Ireland during the twentieth century. This article describes the second of these; for the earlier Troubles, see Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War.
The Troubles is a generic and euphemistic term used to describe a period of sporadic communal violence involving paramilitary organisations, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the British Army and others in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s until the late 1990s ending with the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. The violence was often so extreme that it spilled out over Northern Ireland's borders into the mainlands of the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. It could also be described as a many-sided conflict, a guerrilla war, a low intensity conflict, or even a civil war, although the conflict does not qualify as a war in any legal sense. Paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland are usually distinguished in the British, Irish and international media and society as terrorist organisations, but the simple term "paramilitary groups" is common.
Overview
The Troubles were 30 years of sporadic violence between elements of Northern Ireland's Unionist community (primarily Protestant), and Nationalist community (chiefly Roman Catholic). The conflict was caused by the disputed status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, and the alleged domination of the minority nationalist community by the unionist majority. The violence was characterised by the armed campaigns of paramilitary groups. Most notable of these was the Provisional IRA campaign 1969–1997 which was aimed at the end of British rule in Northern Ireland and the creation of a new all-Ireland Irish Republic. In response to this campaign and the perceived erosion of the British character and unionist domination of Northern Ireland, loyalist paramilitaries such as the UVF and UDA launched their own campaigns against the nationalist population. The state security forces - the British Army and the police (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) - were also involved in the violence. The British government point of view is that its forces were neutral in the conflict and trying to uphold law and order in the North. Irish republicans, however, regarded the state forces as "combatants" in the conflict and point to evidence of collusion between the state forces and the loyalists as proof of this.
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, the corresponding withdrawal of most troops from the streets and the reform of the police, as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement (commonly known as the Good Friday Agreement). This reiterated the long-held position that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom until a majority votes otherwise. It also established a devolved power-sharing government within Northern Ireland (currently suspended), 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 organisations 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, for example in 1972, after the Bloody Sunday, or during the Hunger Strikes of 1981, when there was mass, hostile mobilisation of the two communities and it seemed possible that the Troubles would escalate into a genuine civil war. Many people today have had their political, social and communal attitudes and perspectives shaped by the Troubles.
Background
Historic communal divisions 1609–1801
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 English and Scottish Protestants. Conflict between the native Catholics and the "planters" led to two bloody ethno-religious conflicts between them in 1641-53 and 1689-91. The British Protestant 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 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 which formerly they had been banned from, Protestant Peep O'Day Boys attacks on that community increased.Frank Wright, Ulster: Two Lands, One Soil (1996), p 17. 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 at the establishment of an Irish republic, independent of Britain. However the United Irishmen's ideal was destroyed both by government repression during and after the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and by the continuing sectarian violence in rural Ulster between Catholics and Protestants. Moreover, the more hardline Protestants were actively mobilised against the radicals by the Government. the Orange Order (founded 1795) is the lasting manifestation of this movement. The effect was to separate Catholics and Protestants into rival, 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 the 1820s largely eliminated legal discrimination against Catholics, (around 75% of Ireland's population) and they played an increasingly important role in Irish politics as the century went on -largely supporting the restoration of Irish self government. Protestants, afraid of being a minority in a Catholic ruled Ireland, tended to support continuing rule from Britain. The conflict was now represented as one between those who supported the Act of Union and those who opposed it. 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. By this time, Ulster Unionism had also acquired an economic motive - it being 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 twentieth century, Home Rule, or limited Irish self government, was on the brink of being conceded due to the agitation of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Unionists, mostly Protestant and concentrated in Ulster, resisted both self-government and independence for Ireland, fearing for their future in a Catholic dominated country. 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. Nationalists in response formed the Irish Volunteers and civil war looked imminent. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 temporarily averted this crisis and delayed the resolution of the question of Irish independence, as Home Rule, though actually passed in the British Parliament, was suspended for the duration of the war.
However the issue was inflamed by the staging of the nationalist Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 by Irish Republican elements of the Irish Volunteers. Although the rebellion was put down, it greatly radicalised Irish nationalist politics. The independence question came to a head in 1919, when the separatist Sinn Féin party won a majority of seats in Ireland and seceded from the United Kingdom. At the same time, the Irish Volunteers, seeing themselves as the army of an Irish Republic began armed attacks on state forces.
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 those, predominantly in the north, who wished to remain part of the United Kingdom (unionists), and those predominant in the rest of the island (and an overall majority in the whole island), who preferred independence (Irish nationalists).
Northern Ireland remained in the United Kingdom, albeit under a separate system of government whereby it was given its own parliament and devolved government. (Ironically, 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. Nationalists, however, saw the partition of Ireland as an illegal and arbitrary division of the island of Ireland against the will of its people, and argued that the Northern Ireland state was neither legitimate nor democratic, but created with a deliberately-engineered unionist majority. The roots of the Troubles lie in the failure of Northern Ireland to integrate the Catholic/nationalist population within its borders into its state.
Nationalists within Northern Ireland (initially about 35% of its population) did not accept the legitimacy of the new state. Northern Ireland was born in an extremely violent manner - over 600 people being killed in political or sectarian violence from 1920–1922 during and after the Irish War of Independence. 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 allegedly the B-Specials 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 was responded to with 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 around 30% of the population in Belfast), both sides were clearly 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, this was interrupted by the Irish Civil War (1922–23) between Irish nationalist factions and 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 (1922–1969), 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.
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 in 1925. The Commission, however, instead recommended no major changes in the border - effectively making partition of Ireland permanent. At this point, the Irish Free State formally recognised and accepted the border.
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 for a Protestant people" in 1937, in response to his Southern counterpart Éamon de Valera's assertion that Ireland was a "Catholic nation". From a unionist perspective, Northern Ireland's Catholic/nationalist minority were an inherently disloyal group and this justified preferential treatment of unionists in housing, employment and other fields. Until the 1990s, they could also point to Northern Ireland's relative economic success compared with the Southern state as 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. A later Republic of Ireland Taoiseach (prime minister) Charles Haughey (whose family had fled the North during the 1920s troubles) described Northern Ireland as "a failed political entity".
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. An indication, perhaps, of an underlying instability, however, was the establishment by some extreme loyalists of an illegal paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (named after the 1912 anti-Home Rule militia) in 1966, in response to a perceived revival of the IRA at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rebellion. This group 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.
Beginning of the Troubles
The Troubles are often acknowledged to have begun in 1968, when widespread rioting and public disorder broke out at the marches of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. This group launched a peaceful civil rights campaign in 1967, which was largely modelled on the American Civil Rights Movement of Martin Luther King and others in the United States. The NICRA, was seeking a redress of Catholic and nationalist grievances with the Northern state. Specifically, they wanted an end to the gerrymandering of electoral constituencies that produced unrepresentative local councils by putting 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 perceived 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 agitation. However, he was opposed by many hardline unionists, including William Craig and Ian Paisley who accused him of being a "sell out". Violence broke at several Civil Rights marches, when Loyalists (often led by Rev. Paisley) attacked civil rights demonstrators with clubs while the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which was widely accused of supporting the loyalists, was accused of allowing the violence to occur. Much of the hostile loyalist popular 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 and was increasingly committed to non-violent politics. The first bombing campaign of the Troubles (largely directed against power stations and other infrastructure) was staged by the Loyalist UVF in 1969 to try and implicate the IRA.
Communal disturbances worsened throughout 1969 and this disorder culminated in the Battle of the Bogside (August 12 -14 1969) - a huge communal riot 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, and elsewhere, from the 14th of August 1969, that left many people dead and many homes burned out. 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 heavy Browning machine guns and killed two young children in the nationalist Falls Road area of Belfast. Loyalist crowds reacted to the violence by attacking Catholic areas, burning down much of Bombay Street.
Nationalists alleged that the RUC 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 appealed to the British government that the British Army should be deployed in Northern Ireland to restore order. Nationalists initially welcomed the Army as they did not trust the police to act in an unbiased manner.
The civil rights movement is seen by many unionists 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. One was the formation of the Provisional IRA - a break-away from the IRA (the remnants of the older organisation became known as the Official IRA) determined to wage "armed struggle" against British rule in Northern Ireland, and 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".
The "Provos", as they became known, formed in late 1969, soon established themselves as more aggressive and militant in their 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 killed more than 100 soldiers, wounded 500 more and carried out 1,300 explosions - mostly on commercial targets. The bombing campaign killed many civilians, notably on Bloody Friday in 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.
Unionists see 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 incidents was the Falls Road curfew in 1970, when 3000 troops imposed a curfew on the nationalist Lower Falls area of Belfast, firing more than 1500 rounds of ammunition in gun battles with the IRA and killing four people. Another was the introduction of internment without trial in 1971 - where out of over 350 initial detainees, only 2 were Protestants and only 1 was a loyalist. Moreover, very few were actually republican activists. 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 emotively of all, nationalists point to the fatal shootings of 13 unarmed nationalist demonstrators by the British Army in Derry in 1972 on what became known as Bloody Sunday.
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 killings them. The Provisional IRA responded by sectarian killings of Protestants in retaliation (See the Kingsmill massacre of 1976). Another feature of the political violence was the forced displacement of both Catholics and Protestants from rival residential areas.
The UK government in London, seeing 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, for example re-drawing electoral boundaries to make them more representative, giving all citizens the vote in local election and transferring the power to allocate public housing to an independent Northern Ireland Housing Executive. 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, 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 SDLP politician, has pointed to the marked similarities between the Sunningdale Agreement and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Famously, he characterised the latter as "Sunningdale for slow learners".
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. 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 rest of the 1970s saw the violence continue. 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
Successive British governments, having failed to achieve a political settlement, tried to "normalise" Northern Ireland. One Secretary of State for Northern Ireland described the policy as trying to contain the conflict to an "acceptable level of violence". Controversial aspects of this policy 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 defiance culminated in hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981 aimed at the restoration of political status.
In the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike, 10 republican prisoners (7 from the PIRA and 3 from the INLA) 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 hugely emotive events for the nationalist community - over 100,000 people attended Sands' funeral and big crowds also attended the subsequent funerals. From an Irish republican perspective, the significance of these events was twofold. Firstly, they demonstrated a high level of support among nationalists for the legitimacy of republican paramilitary actions. Secondly, they showed the potential for a 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.
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 violence continued on both sides until 1994. Fewer people were killed in the 1980s and '90s than in the 1970s, but the seemingly interminable nature of the political violence had a very negative psychological effect on Northern Irish society.
The PIRA's "Long War" was boosted by large donations of arms to them from Libya in 1986 (see Provisional IRA arms importation). Although they were now killing fewer soldiers, their capacity for assassinations and bombings appeared to be almost indefinite. Many of their operations were directed at local unionist targets such as off-duty policemen or part-time soldiers and at Protestant civilians such as the Remembrance Day massacre of 1987. The PIRA also targeted construction workers, cleaners, and other workers who were employed on 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 (a group initially supported by the Rev. Ian Paisley), imported arms and explosives from South Africa. The weapons obtained were divided between the UDA, the UVF, and Ulster Resistance and lead to an escalation in the assassination of Catholics. 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 - British Army and Loyalist paramilitaries.
Elements within the Army and police have been shown to have leaked intelligence to loyalists from the late 1980s to target republican activists as well as innocent Catholic civilians. In 1992, a British agent within the UDA, Brian Nelson, revealed Army complicity in his activities which included murder and importing arms. The British Army and RUC are known to have cooperated with Nelson and the UDA through the British Intelligence group called the Force Research Unit. Since the late 1990s, loyalists have confirmed to journalists such as Peter Taylor that they also received files and intelligence from security sources on republican targets.
Another problem highlighted by recently released (3 May 2006) British Government documents is that of 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 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.May 2, 2006 edition of the Irish News available here.
Despite knowing that the UDR was a partisan force. 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.
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 killing of eight IRA men at Loughgall in 1987, that the paramilitaries who were killed were heavily armed. Although incidents such as the shooting of three unarmed IRA members in Gibraltar by the SAS ten months later only confirmed suspicions of a "shoot-to-kill" policy amongst republicans and in the British media."Murder on the Rock" by Maxine Williams. Article also includes a list of suspected shoot-to-kill victims between 1982–1986.
The paramilitary ceasefires and peace process
Main article Northern Ireland peace process
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). This was manifested in open talks with John Hume - the SDLP leader and secret talks with Government officials. 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 have often not been fully observed, they mark an effective end to large-scale political violence in the Troubles.
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 have been suspended since 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 still refused to accept 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 Democratic Unionist Party. Similarly, although political violence is greatly reduced, sectarian animosity has not disappeared and residential areas are still largely segregated between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists. 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.
The Parades issue
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 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 Catholic children who died when their house was petrol-bombed.
Disputes have also occurred in Belfast over parade routes along the Ormeau Road and the Crumlin Road. 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.
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.
| Responsibility for killing * | |
|---|---|
| Responsible party | No. |
| Republican Paramilitary Groups | 2055 |
| Loyalist Paramilitary Groups | 1020 |
| Security Forces | 368 |
| Persons unknown | 80 |
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.
| Deaths by status of victim * | |
|---|---|
| Status | No. |
| Civilian | 1857 |
| Members of Security Forces (and reserves) | 1121 |
| of whom: | |
| — British Army | 498 |
| — Royal Ulster Constabulary | 301 |
| — Ulster Defence Regiment | 197 |
| — Northern Ireland Prison Service | 24 |
| — Garda Síochána (Republic of Ireland police) | 9 |
| — Royal Irish Regiment | 7 |
| — Territorial Army | 6 |
| — English police forces | 6 |
| — Royal Air Force | 4 |
| — Royal Navy | 3 |
| — Irish Army | 1 |
| Members of Republican Paramilitary Groups | 394 |
| Members of Loyalist Paramilitary Groups | 151 |
Location
Most killings took place within Northern Ireland, especially Belfast, although surrounding counties and the rest of the British Isles were also affected.
| Geographic distribution of deaths in Northern Ireland conflict* | |
|---|---|
| Location | No. |
| County Antrim | 207 |
| County Armagh | 276 |
| East Belfast | 128 |
| North Belfast | 576 |
| West Belfast | 623 |
| County Down | 243 |
| England | 125 |
| Continental Europe | 18 |
| County Fermanagh | 112 |
| Londonderry / Derry | 227 |
| County Londonderry / County Derry | 123 |
| Republic of Ireland | 113 |
| County Tyrone | 339 |
Chronological listing
| Deaths related to Northern Ireland conflict (1969–2006). | Number of deaths listed as "conflict-related (uncertain if conflict-related)" (*).|
|---|---|
| Year | No. |
| 2006 | 1 (2) |
| 2005 | 5 (7) |
| 2004 | 2 (3) |
| 2003 | 10 (3) |
| 2002 | 11 (5) |
| 2001 | 16 |
| 2000 | 19 |
| 1999 | 8 |
| 1998 | 55 |
| 1997 | 21 |
| 1996 | 18 |
| 1995 | 9 |
| 1994 | 64 |
| 1993 | 88 |
| 1992 | 89 |
| 1991 | 96 |
| 1990 | 81 |
| 1989 | 75 |
| 1988 | 104 |
| 1987 | 98 |
| 1986 | 61 |
| 1985 | 57 |
| 1984 | 69 |
| 1983 | 85 |
| 1982 | 110 |
| 1981 | 113 |
| 1980 | 80 |
| 1979 | 121 |
| 1978 | 81 |
| 1977 | 111 |
| 1976 | 295 |
| 1975 | 260 |
| 1974 | 294 |
| 1973 | 253 |
| 1972 | 479 |
| 1971 | 171 |
| 1970 | 26 |
| 1969 | 16 |
Additional statistics
| Additional estimated statistics on the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Incident | No. |
| Injuries | 47,000 |
| Shooting incidents | 37,000 |
| Armed robberies | 22,500 |
| Persons imprisoned for paramilitary offences | 19,600 |
| Bombings and attempted bombings | 16,200 |
| Arson incidents | 2,200 |
Analytical perspectives
Religion, class and region
Religion and class are the two major determinants of political allegiance in Northern Ireland. Most though not all Protestants are unionists, while most though not all Catholics are nationalists. Working-class Catholics and Protestants are more likely to support paramilitary groups and radical political parties on either side. Moreover, the paramilitaries have their strongholds in urban working-class areas and it is this social class which is the most segregated along sectarian lines.
The radical political parties associated with paramilitaries have sometimes offered far more radical political analyses than the more middle-class and conservative parties. Sinn Fein, from the late 1970s, adopted a radical anti-imperialist perspective of the political situation, comparing it to "liberation struggles" elsewhere such as in Palestine and South Africa. Their analysis also defined the conflict partly in terms of "class struggle", although unlike the Marxist Official IRA, they did not take this to mean that the loyalist working class were potential allies. Loyalists in the 1970s even advocated majoritarian forms of an "independent Ulster". There is little support for this idea today. In the 1980s, some loyalists, notably John McMichael of the UDA, advocated a power-sharing, egalitarian solution to the conflict, which they released in a pamphlet titled, "Common Sense".
It has been suggested by many Loyalists that mainstream Unionists resisted reform and used the IRA scare tactic in part to maintain their political and economic power at the expense of both Nationalists as well as the impoverished Unionist/Loyalist communities. Unionists are by and large the wealthy uppercrust of the Protestant community, and parties such as the UUP Unionist Party maintained their dominance in part by using the "union" and IRA issues as a means to maintain voting unity from the working-class Unionists who, politically, gained little from the UUP's policies. It is argued, for example by the Progressive Unionist Party that one reason Loyalist paramilitary groups formed in such great numbers is the true disenfranchisement of the poor Protestant segment of Northern Irish society.
Religious commitment is sometimes, but not normally, an indicator of extreme political views. For example, Ian Paisley and his supporters combine strict Presbyterianism with hardline unionist politics. However, Catholic piety is generally not combined with militant republican politics and loyalist paramilitaries are rarely overtly religious. All the major churches in Northern Ireland have strongly condemned violence throughout the Troubles and religion and theology do not figure in the political ideologies of the contending parties.
Region also plays role in determining the politics of people in Northern Ireland. Some areas, notably south Armagh, are noted for their hardline Irish republican politics. Other Catholic-dominated areas such as Londonderry city have a relatively moderate political tradition with a high level of support for the non-violent SDLP. Similarly, certain regions, notably the Portadown area and north county Antrim area, are known for their intransigent unionist or loyalist politics.
Policing
Since the existence of Northern Ireland has been disputed by some since its inception, its means of coercion, its police force, has necessarily also been an area of dispute. Specifically, the issues surrounding policing in Northern Ireland concern the composition of the police force - i.e. whether it is representative of the population, its political orientation - whether it favours unionists over nationalists, and its role - whether it is primarily a service to uphold the rule of law, or it is a force with the goal of defending the Northern Ireland state.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the police force in Northern Ireland, was since its inception, largely, though not totally, Protestant for a number of reasons. Catholics did not join in the numbers expected by the British when the force was first created. Some of those who did reported an unwelcoming working environment. Those Catholics who did join were also often targeted as traitors by the various republican groups, yet many Catholic police officers did play a part in the constabulary. One served as Chief Constable, while the current leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Mark Durkan, is the son of a Catholic RUC officer.
The result was that critics of the unionist and loyalist communities saw the police force as a "unionist police force". Sinn Fein produced posters in the 1990s which said of the RUC, "90% Protestant, 100% unionist" and depicted an officer wearing an Orange sash.
Even more than the regular police force, this perception was widely held by nationalists about the B-Specials, a part time police force mobilised in times of emergency. The B-Specials were disbanded in 1970, but were replaced by the Ulster Defence Regiment - a locally recruited part-time unit of the British Army - intended for security duties in Northern Ireland. While the UDR killed only 8 people during the Troubles and often carried out security duties professionally and well, many of its members were also involved with loyalists paramilitary groups and were implicated in a number of killings of Catholics and nationalists. For this reason, the UDR were also viewed by nationalists as a partisan force. The UDR were disbanded in 1992 and incorporated into the regular Royal Irish Regiment.
One of the major social problems created by the Troubles was the takeover of law enforcement in certain areas by either republican or loyalists paramilitaries, who punished local criminals with beatings, kneecappings and even murder. One of the principle aims of the peace process, therefore, has been to re-establish the police as the sole enforcers of law and order.
Sinn Fein, entered the negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement in 1998 with the demand that the RUC be disbanded. A policing review, part of the Good Friday Agreement, has led to some reforms of policing, including more rigorous accountability, measures to increase the number of Catholic officers, and the renaming of the RUC to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. While most of the reforms have been introduced, Sinn Féin continues to withhold its support from the new Police Service of Northern Ireland until they are "implemented in full". Unionists and some moderate nationalists have voiced the fear that Sinn Fein intends to place republican paramilitaries, or former paramilitaries into the new Police Service.
Timeline
Main article: Chronology of the Northern Ireland Troubles
Directory
Main Article: Directory of the Northern Ireland Troubles
See also
FootNotes
Further reading
- David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton (1999), Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, Mainstream Publishing Company. ISBN 1 84018 227 X.
- Greg Harkin and Martin Ingram (2004), Stakeknife: Britain's secret agents in Ireland, O'Brien Press
- Richard English (2003), "Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA'', Oxford University Press,
External links
- NI Elections Archive
- NI Conflict Archive on the Internet
- Guardian Special Report on Northern Ireland
- BBC Northern Ireland News
- Ireland Story (source of images above)
- Belfast Exposed Image Archive.
- MSN Encarta video of 1970's riot.
History of Northern Ireland | Wars of Ireland | Internments | Politics of Belfast | Politics of Northern Ireland | British-Irish relations
The Troubles | Nordirlandkonflikt | Conflicto de Irlanda del Norte | Conflit nord-irlandais | הצרות | Konflikten i Nord-Irland 1968–1997 | The Troubles | Konflikten i Nordirland
"The Troubles"