§ 5. Political Crisis of 1968-the 1970s
1. What were the reasons for riots?
By 1968 Northern Ireland has become the poorest part of the UK, but this poverty was not equally shared. Catholics were significantly disadvantaged. In autumn 1968 the Catholics, supported by many Protestants, demonstrated on the streets, demanding fair participation in political and economic life. Ulster Loyalists confronted them and the Ulster police force, which was almost entirely Protestant, was unable to keep order.
It is significant that the violence which broke out in Northern Ireland in 1969 began on July 12th. This is the day on which, every year, Protestants celebrate with marches and the beating of drums the defeat of the Catholic army which besieged them in Londonderry 300 years ago. Ulster Protestants celebrate other victories, particularly the Battle of the Boyne.
Until 1969 the Ulster Police was the only police force in the United Kingdom to carry guns. During the riots of 1969, some policemen used their guns and several Catholics were killed. At the request of the British government the Ulster Police force were disarmed and British troops were sent out to Ulster to keep the peace. They were welcomed by the Catholics.
Moderate Catholics at this time were not demanding revolutionary changes in Stormont. They were demanding only their civil rights (i.e. equality with the Protestants in all branches of society). The leaders of the Civil Rights movement were non-violent, and they had the support of many moderate Protestants. They believed that they could persuade Stormont by peaceful demonstrations. They organised their marches before the serious riots began, and they were stoned and beaten up by Protestant extremists. It was these attacks on peaceful demonstrators that started the violent battles between Protestant and Catholic extremists. In one battle Protestants used guns and killed six people. British troops now took a tougher line but the Catholics soon accused them of taking sides with the Protestants.
2. What is the IRA? What are their purposes?
Many people claim that the tougher attitude of the army was made unavoidable by the behaviour of the most extreme of all anti-Unionist organisations, the IRA (Irish Republican Army). The IRA's object has always been the unification of Ireland - not a union under the present Catholic government of Eire, but a union planned and ran by the political organisation of the IRA itself. The IRA has a long record of violence. It has fought not only against the British, but also against the ‘free’ Irish of the south. In the 1920s it was declared unlawful by the Irish government. In 1939 it carried out bomb attacks in Britain, killing a number of people. During the Second World War it formed an alliance with the Nazis, and it is now said to be largely Marxist. Until 1969 it had little support in Ulster.
It was the riots of 1969 which gave the IRA their chance. The bitter people of the Catholic ghettos of Belfast and Londonderry welcomed the IRA, and the IRA bombers and gunmen knew that they could hide in these ghettos without fear of being given away. When the terrorism began on a large scale in 1970 the IRA was split into two rival groups, the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. However, the object of both groups was the breakdown of society, the removal of the British army, the starting of a civil war between Protestants and Catholics and the destruction of Stormont.
3. What was interment? How did it influence the political situation?
The methods of the Provisional IRA were brutal. They planted bombs in crowded shopping centres. They claimed that they always gave warning of their bomb attacks, but every week people were killed and hundreds horribly injured. The IRA also killed soldiers and policemen, called at houses with guns hidden under their coats and shot the men down in front of their wives and children.
The Civil Rights leaders and the IRA were bitterly opposed to one another. But when in August 1971, the Stormont Prime Minister, Brian Faulkner, supported by the British government, introduced internment, all Catholics and ‘freedom fighters’ were united. ‘After internment’, one Civil Rights leader said, ‘there can be no more moderates’. ‘Internment’ means, quite simply, arresting people suspected of being enemies of the state, and keeping them locked up without trial for as long as the government thinks fit. The men arrested were all suspected of belonging to, or helping, the IRA. Internment was an attempt by Stormont to control terrorism. It had the opposite effect. The bomb attacks became much more frequent and much more violent. Many Catholics, who until internment had been opposed to violence, now believed that violence was the only way. Civil Rights leaders declared that the only solution was for Stormont to go.
Internment brought out the Civil Rights marchers again, and they marched in defiance of an order forbidding marches. On January 30th, 1972, now called Bloody Sunday, paratroopers sent to stop a Civil Rights march, fired on demonstrators in the Catholic district of Londonderry. They killed thirteen people, none of whom was a known terrorist. Although the soldiers claimed that they had been fired on first, not one of them was either killed or wounded. After Bloody Sunday the Catholic Irish lost all confidence in the British government, and there was a hardening of attitudes everywhere. A week later the IRA avenged Bloody Sunday by blowing up a building in the paratroops' headquarters in Aldershot, England. They killed six people but not a single soldier was seriously hurt.
4. What measures did the British government take?
In an attempt to put an end to all the violence and misery, the British government took over full control of Northern Ireland, Stormont was suspended, at first for one year, and the Prime Minister and the cabinet resigned.
In 1973 representatives of the British and Irish (Eire) governments and the more moderate Protestant and Catholic leaders met at Sunningdale in England. They agreed to set up a power-sharing government of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. But the extremists on both sides refused to accept power-sharing.
In 1974 the Loyalist Workers Council called a general strike. This forced the British government to reintroduce direct rule from Westminster. Now militant Protestant groups showed that they could be as violent as the IRA.
In the same year IRA terrorists came to Britain, planting bombs in pubs, hotels, tube stations, anywhere where there were crowds of people. No warning was given and many people were killed or wounded, but by the end of 1975 the police had caught most of the bombers.
The gradual release of suspected terrorists from internment camps did not bring peace. Nor did the declaration of a cease-fire by the IRA late in 1974. The bitter opposition of the Loyalists to the idea of power-sharing with the Catholic minority made peace impossible. In 1976 the Government passed a law giving police the power to arrest and hold anyone suspected of being a terrorist. But the killings went on.
5. What political forces influenced the political situation?
During the 1970s it slowly became clear that no solution was in sight. The IRA would accept nothing short of Ulster becoming part of the Irish Republic, and the Loyalists refused any measure that allowed the Catholics to share power, or which implied recognition of Dublin's interest in the fate of Ulster.
The position of the government in Dublin has not been easy either. Although it has always claimed Ulster as part of Ireland, it does not want to inherit the sectarian conflict. The minority on both sides of the divide in Ulster have been willing to use violence, but the vast majority of people have preferred a democratic and constitutional solution. On the Loyalist side the Official Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party have both sought to keep Ulster within the United Kingdom. Most Catholics have supported the Social and Democratic Labour Party, which wants Ulster eventually to become part of the Irish Republic by democratic and lawful means.
Questions:
1. When and why were British troops deployed? Did it bring peace?
2. What were the IRA's methods of struggle?
3. How did Bloody Sunday change attitudes towards the British Government?
4. Why wasn't Sunningdale agreement a success?
5. What political parties of Northern Ireland do you know? What are their aims and means?
Additional Reading Exploring Belfast
he central area of Belfast consists of very marshy ground and this has necessitated the piling of most large buildings, including the City Hall. The handsome Telephone House, for example, has as its foundation a concrete raft supported on 400 concrete piles sunk to an average depth of 42 feet. The Albert Memorial clock is one of those buildings which despite piling have shown signs of subsidence. Built nearly a hundred years ago, this Belfast landmark shows visible evidence of a desire to emulate the leaning tower of Pisa. The hands, by the way, move only each half-minute. The ‘Albert's’ great night is New Year's Eve, when celebrating crowds gather around it and many a bottle is splintered against its massive walls.
The Museum and Art Gallery houses an art gallery which is particularly rich in modern Irish painting, a fine collection of Irish silverware, and exhibits which give a vivid picture of Ulster history, geology, and animal life. There is a specialist library which includes early Belfast-printed books, a fascinating collection of photographs which record Ulster life half a century ago.
The Transport Museum houses one of the finest collections of transport vehicles in Europe. Flanking the Ulster Museum is one of Belfast's oldest and most pleasant parks, the Botanic Gardens, with its conservatory, the tropical greenhouses, and the rosewalks.
Behind the conservatory are grouped the main buildings of the Queen's University of Belfast, so called because it was originally one of three colleges founded by Queen Victoria under an 1845 Act of Parliament. The beautiful main buildings were designed by Sir Charles Lanyon and were opened in 1849. Since that time, many other fine buildings have been added and the pace of expansion is still rapid.