Abstract
This chapter looks at the conflict in Northern Ireland, tracing the historical development of Ireland within the United Kingdom, interrogating the character of the UK state with reference to both the national-level institutions and the devolved administrations. It looks at the successes and failures of the approach of the UK state to deal with terrorism in Northern Ireland, principally focusing on the fight against the IRA, and the slow process of trial and error, and institutional learning that took place in that conflict.
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Notes
- 1.
R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600–1972, (London: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 3.
- 2.
R. English, Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland, (London: Pan Books, 2006), p. 40.
- 3.
R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600–1972, (London: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 3.
- 4.
P. Bew, Ireland: The Politics of Emnity 1789–2006 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 43.
- 5.
Former IRA volunteer Tommy McKearney affords the United Irishmen’s insurrection as a foundational moment for Irish republicanism. See. T. McKearney, The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament, (London: Pluto Press, 2011) p. 91, See Also, P. Bew, Ireland, p. 47.
- 6.
Ibid, p. 290.
- 7.
R. English, Irish Freedom, p. 128.
- 8.
See A.T.Q Stewart, The Ulster Crisis, (London: Faber & Faber, 1967), pp. 37, 58–9.
- 9.
See, for example, R. English, Irish Freedom, pp. 239–44 on the increasingly Catholic religious dichotomy associated with Irish nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- 10.
G. Walker, A History of the Ulster Unionist Party: Protest Pragmatism and Pessimism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), p. 31.
- 11.
D. Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland 1900–2000 (London: Profile, 2005), pp. 114–5.
- 12.
G. Walker, A History of the Ulster Unionist Party, p. 34
- 13.
Ibid, pp. 36–7.
- 14.
H. Strachan, The Politics of the British Army, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 112.
- 15.
Ibid, pp. 114–5.
- 16.
For detailed considerations of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the wider Irish Revolution, see, C. Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London: Penguin Books, 2006), F. McGarry, The Rising: Ireland: Easter 1916, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), C. Townshend, The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence (London: Allen Lane, 2013), J. Augusteijn, (ed.) The Irish Revolution, 1913–1923, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), F.J. Costello, The Irish Revolution and its Aftermath, 1916–1923: Years of Revolt (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2003), D. Fitzpatrick, The Two Irelands: 1912–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), and M. Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2002).
- 17.
F. McGarry, The Rising, p. 117. See also, J.J. Lee, Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 24.
- 18.
C. Townshend, Easter 1916, p. 269.
- 19.
Ibid, pp. 280–2.
- 20.
R. English, Irish Freedom, p. 281.
- 21.
J.B. Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA, (Dublin: Poolbeg, 1998), p. 18.
- 22.
On the Irish Civil War and its effects, see: M. Hopkinson, Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War, (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1988), D. Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913–1923 (London: Profile, 2015).
- 23.
R. English, Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA, (London: Pan, 2012), p. 75, B. Hanley & S. Millar, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party (Dublin: Penguin, pp. 20–1.
- 24.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 66.
- 25.
F. Wright, Northern Ireland: A Comparative Analysis (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1987), p. 112.
- 26.
B. Purdie, Politics in the Streets: The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1990), p. 102.
- 27.
Sunday Times Insight Team, Ulster, (Harmonsworth: Penguin Special, 1975), p. 35, cited in C. Hewitt, ‘Catholic Grievances, Catholic Nationalism and Violence in Northern Ireland during the Civil Rights Period’, The British Journal of Sociology, 32/3, (1981), p. 363.
- 28.
B. Purdie, Politics in the Streets, p. 121.
- 29.
G. Walker, A History of the Ulster Unionist Party, p. 151, and P. Bew, P. Gibbon, and H. Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921/2001: Political Forces and Social Classes (London: Serif, 2002) p. 131.
- 30.
See also, N. Ó Dochartaigh, From Civil Rights to Armalites: Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), pp. 30–5, on sectarian tensions in Derry that the Civil Rights movement there fed into.
- 31.
H. Patterson, The Politics of Illusion, (London: Serif, 1997), p. 112.
- 32.
S. Prince, Northern Ireland’s ’68: Civil Rights, Global Revolt and the Origins of the Troubles, (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007), pp. 2–4.
- 33.
Ibid, p. 655.
- 34.
P. Rose, ‘Sending in the Troops’, in P. Catterall and S. McDougall. (eds.), The Northern Ireland Question in British Politics, (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 91.
- 35.
J. Bardon, A History of Ulster, (Belfast: Blackstaff, 2007), p. 660.
- 36.
‘The B-Specials’ were part time reserve police officers of the Ulster Special Constabulary, a paramilitary style police force established in 1920. From the foundation of the USC, the B-Specials had been almost entirely Protestant, with many of the initial recruits coming from loyalist paramilitaries such as the UVF. The Ulster Special Constabulary quickly gained a reputation for sectarianism and violence towards Catholic civilians. See M. Elliott, The Catholics of Ulster: A History (New York; NY: Basic Books, 2001), p. 380, C. Ryder, The Fateful Split: Catholics and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (London: Metheun, 2004), pp. 29, 38–42.
- 37.
P. Rose, ‘Sending in the Troops’, p. 98
- 38.
T. Geraghty, The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict between the IRA and British Intelligence, (London: John Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 26.
- 39.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 102.
- 40.
J.B. Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA, (New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2003), pp. 364–365. See also, H. Patterson, The Politics of Illusion: A Political History of the IRA (London: Serif, 1997), particularly Chapter 4.
- 41.
See J.F. Morrison, The Origins and Rise of Dissident Irish Republicanism: The Role and Impact of Organizational Splits (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) for detailed discussion of the nature of the split.
- 42.
T. Geraghty, The Irish War, p. 10.
- 43.
J.B. Bell, The Secret Army, p. 367.
- 44.
C. Ryder, The Ulster Defence Regiment: An Instrument of Peace?, (London: Methuen, 1991), p. 27.
- 45.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 135.
- 46.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 136.
- 47.
J. Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency from Palestine to Northern Ireland (Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 164–5.
- 48.
While Richard Clutterbuck suggests that internment without trail had been used selectively and sparingly in Malaya, for example, David French asserts that generally its implementation was haphazard, with mass arrests based on poor intelligence that resulted in few convictions. See R. Clutterbuck, The Long War, The Emergency in Malaya 1948–1960 (London: Cassell, 1967), cited in C. Kennedy-Pipe, The Origins of the Present Troubles in Northern Ireland (London: Longman, 1997), p. 54, and also D. French, The British Way in Counter-insurgency, 1945–1967 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 110–11.
- 49.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 139.
- 50.
M. Dewar, The British Army in Northern Ireland, (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1985), pp. 55–6.
- 51.
L. Newbery, ‘Intelligence and Controversial British Interrogation Techniques: the Northern Ireland Case, 1971–2’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 20, (2009), p. 104. See also J.T. Parry, ‘Escalation and Necessity: Defining Torture at Home and Abroad’, in S. Levinson, (ed.)Torture: A Collection, (rev edn.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), on the definitional debate and struggle over the term torture.
- 52.
H. Bennett, ‘“ Smoke Without Fire”? Allegations Against the British Army in Northern Ireland, 1972–5, Twentieth Century British History, 24/2, (2013), p. 280.
- 53.
M. Dewar, The British Army in Northern Ireland, p. 63. See also R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 154.
- 54.
The Saville Inquiry was commissioned by then British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2008. It published its full report, running to several thousand pages in June 2010, at a cost of over £200 million. The inquiry received the oral and written testimony of dozens of eye witnesses from many backgrounds, civilian, IRA, and British army.
- 55.
E. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, (2nd edn.) (London: Penguin Books, 2007), p. 548.
- 56.
Given the expansive remit of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the individuals filling those roles from 1972 to 2000 wielded considerable power and ultimately greatly influenced the trajectory of the conflict. For a fuller account of the role of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Junior Ministers for Northern Ireland, see D. Birrell, Direct Rule and the Governance of Northern Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), pp. 21–39.
- 57.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland 1969–2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), p. 10.
- 58.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, pp. 161, 164, n.22.
- 59.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 156.
- 60.
G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp: Policing Northern Ireland (London: Pluto Press, 2000) p. 70.
- 61.
G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, p. 75.
- 62.
F. Kitson, Low Intensity Operations, (London: Faber and Faber, 1971).
- 63.
G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, p. 75.
- 64.
Ibid, p. 77.
- 65.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, p. 20.
- 66.
L.K. Donohue, Counter-Terrorist Law and Emergency Powers in the United Kingdom, (Dublin; Portland OR, Irish Academic Press, 2001), p. 133.
- 67.
Subsequently known as ‘Diplock Courts’ after the recommendations of the Commission established by the UK government and headed by a senior British judge which suggested a range of measures to help legislatively combat terrorism in Northern Ireland. See L.K. Donohue, Counter-Terrorist Law and Emergency Powers in the United Kingdom, pp. 122, 128–30.
- 68.
F. Ní Aolain, ‘The Fortification of an Emergency Regime’, Albany Law Review, 59, (1995–1996), p. 1355.
- 69.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, p. 20
- 70.
W. Whitelaw, The Whitelaw Memoirs, (London: Aurium Press, 1989), pp. 89–90.
- 71.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, p. 16.
- 72.
G. Walker, A History of the Ulster Unionist Party, p. 220.
- 73.
R. Fisk, The Point of No Return: The Strike Which Broke the British in Ulster (London: Times Books, 1975), pp. 203–4.
- 74.
D. McKittrick, S. Kelters, B. Feeney, C. Thornton and D. McVea, Lost Lives (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2007), p. 1552.
- 75.
R. Weitzer, Policing Under Fire, p. 74.
- 76.
P. R. Neumann, Britain’s Long War: British Government Strategy in Northern Ireland 1969–1998 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 110.
- 77.
See for example, A. Mulcahy Policing Northern Ireland, p. 33.
- 78.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, p. 63.
- 79.
A. Sanders, and I.S. Wood, Times of Troubles, p. 141.
- 80.
G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, p. 109. See also S. Greer, Supergrasses: A Study in Anti-terrorist Law Enforcement in Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 46–9, for more detail on the changing nature of security cooperation in the aftermath of the Warrenpoint attack and the particular responsibilities and composition of ‘The Department’.
- 81.
L. McKeown, Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners Long Kesh 1972–2000 (Belfast: Beyond the Pale, 2001), p. 51.
- 82.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 189.
- 83.
L. McKeown, Out of Time, p. 56.
- 84.
E. Moloney, Voices from the Grave, Two Men’s War in Ireland (London: Faber and Faber, 2010), p. 215.
- 85.
Margaret Thatcher, quoted in T. Shanahan, The Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Morality of Terrorism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), p. 172.
- 86.
National H-Block Committee statement, quoted in P. O’Malley, Biting at the Grave, (Boston: Blackstaff Press, 1990), p. 30.
- 87.
D. Beresford, Ten Men Dead (London: HarperCollins, 1994), p. 49.
- 88.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 193.
- 89.
See, for example, M. Thatcher, Downing Street Years, (London: Harper Collins, 1995), p. 389. Also. C. Moore, Margaret Thatcher, p. 598, and T. Hennessey, Hunger Strike: Margaret Thatcher’s Battle with the IRA 1980–1981 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2014).
- 90.
This is an issue which remains mired in controversy. For discussion of secret negotiations and accounts of how the strike came to an end, see: R. English, Armed Struggle, pp. 194–195, R. O’Rawe, Blanket Men, pp. 108–11, M. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, pp. 390–1, and D. Beresford, Ten Men Dead, pp. 9–15.
- 91.
M. Elliott, The Catholics of Ulster, p. 449.
- 92.
See G. Sweeney, ‘Irish Hunger Strikes and the Cult of Self-Sacrifice’, Journal of Contemporary History, 28/3, (1993), pp. 421–37, for an exploration of previous hunger strikes in Ireland.
- 93.
J. Prior, A Balance of Power (London: Hamilton, 1986), p. 197, cited in P. Bew, P. Gibbon and H. Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921–2001: Political Forces and Social Classes, p. 201.
- 94.
P. Bew, P. Gibbon and H. Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921–2001: Political Forces and Social Classes, p. 202.
- 95.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, p. 47.
- 96.
M. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, pp. 396–8.
- 97.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, p. 48.
- 98.
G. Ellison and J. Smith, The Crowned Harp, p. 90.
- 99.
M. Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, (London: Faber and Faber, 1992), p. 108.
- 100.
It was still the PIRA and other republican paramilitary organisations that was the focus of the RUC at this point. Ellison and Smyth note that Chief Constable Newman, despite his experiences in dealing with loyalists during the UWC strike, felt that loyalists were essentially reactive and that the key to ensuring an effective security regime was to focus on republicanism. See G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, p. 89. However, it is clear that in the mid to late 1970s, substantial progress was made in disrupting the activities of the Ulster Volunteer Force. See, P. Taylor, Provos, p. 210.
- 101.
See, for example, P. Taylor, Beating the Terrorists: Interrogation in Gough, Omagh, and Castlereagh (London: Penguin, 1980) pp. 435–7, and R. English, Armed Struggle, pp. 212–4.
- 102.
M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, p. 58.
- 103.
L.K. Donoghue, Counter-Terrorist Law and Emergency Powers in the UK, p. 179.
- 104.
See C. de Baróid, Ballymurphy and the Irish War (London: Pluto Press, 1989), p. 108, R. Murray, The SAS in Ireland, p. 42, B.W.C. Bamford, ‘The role and effectiveness of intelligence in Northern Ireland’, p. 587, H. Bennett, ‘From Direct Rule to Motorman: Adjusting British Military Strategy for Northern Ireland’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 33/6 (2010), p. 528, n.49, respectively. Huw Bennett states that official documentation refers to the ‘Military Reaction Force’, but given the variance in usage, I will refer only to the acronym MRF henceforth.
- 105.
See, for example, C. de Baróid, Ballymurphy and the Irish War, pp. 107–10, R. Murray, The SAS in Ireland, pp. 44–60, and B.W.C Bamford, Intelligence in Northern Ireland, p. 588.
- 106.
R. Murray, The SAS in Ireland, (Cork: Mercier Press, 1990), pp. 44–5.
- 107.
G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, pp. 117–8.
- 108.
See G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, pp. 118–29, for a fuller account of the incidents involving HMSU in November and December 1982. See also D. McKittrick et al, Lost Lives, p. 920.
- 109.
G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, p. 121.
- 110.
A. Cadwallader, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland (Cork: Mercier Press, 2013), p. 35, see also R. Weitzer, Policing Under Fire, p. 180.
- 111.
A. Cadwallader, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, p. 35.
- 112.
Ibid.
- 113.
G. Ellison and J. Smyth, The Crowned Harp, p. 134.
- 114.
A, Mulcahy, Policing Northern Ireland, pp. 73–4.
- 115.
Ibid, p. 359.
- 116.
R. English, ‘Terrorist Innovation and International Politics: Lessons from an IRA case study?’, International Politics, 50/4, (2013), p. 502
- 117.
M. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, p. 383.
- 118.
J. Tonge, The New Northern Irish Politics? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 26.
- 119.
P. Dixon, Northern Ireland: The Politics of War and Peace (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), p. 190
- 120.
Ibid, pp. 190–1.
- 121.
G. Murray and J. Tonge, Sinn Féin and the SDLP: From Alienation to Participation (London: Hurst, 2005), p. 175.
- 122.
B. O’Leary and J. McGarry, The Politics of Antagonism (London; Atlantic Highlands, N.J: The Athlone Press, 1993), p. 270.
- 123.
D. McKittrick et al, Lost Lives, p. 1554.
- 124.
G. Murray and J. Tonge, Sinn Féin and the SDLP, pp. 166–7.
- 125.
J. Major, The Autobiography, (2nd Edn.), (London: HarperCollins, 2000), p. 434.
- 126.
Peter Brooke, quoted in, C. McGrattan, The Politics of Entrenchment, p. 134.
- 127.
P. Bew, P. Gibbon, and H. Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921–2001: Political Forces and Social Classes, p. 212.
- 128.
B. O’Leary, ‘The Conservative Stewardship of Northern Ireland 1979–1997: Sound-bottomed Contradictions or Slow Learning?’, Political Studies, 45/4, (1997), p. 671.
- 129.
H. Patterson, The Politics of Illusion, p. 244.
- 130.
R. English, Armed Struggle, p. 295.
- 131.
See J. Murphy, Policing for Peace in Northern Ireland: Change, Conflict and Community Confidence (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 20.
- 132.
See M. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland: 1968–2000, pp. 135–6.
- 133.
A. Sanders, Inside the IRA: Dissident Republicans and the War for Legitimacy, (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press; 2011), pp. 226–230.
- 134.
Police Service of Northern Ireland, Police Recorded Security Situation Statistics: Annual Report Covering the Period 1st April 2013–31st March 2014. (PSNI, 2014), p. 9. http://www.psni.police.uk/annual_security_situation_statistics_report_2013-14.pdf (accessed 25/5/14).
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McConaghy, K. (2017). The United Kingdom and the Northern Ireland Conflict. In: Terrorism and the State. Rethinking Political Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57267-7_4
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