Turning Points in the Troubles, 1968–71

Abstract

This chapter begins the process of charting how historical decisions exacerbated inter-communal rivalries, political polarisation and entrenchment. It explores the argument that policy choices and historical interventions had a downstream impact — certain choices carried through to constrain and shape later options; and the act of making decisions ruled out once-plausible alternatives, which became evermore remote. Which choices actually carried through? Which events, if any, set in motion the process of escalating polarisation and inexorable division? This chapter’s central claim is that once-viable alternatives to maximalism and entrenchment were discarded in 1971 and that, from that date, Northern Ireland’s political parties pursued divergent policy paths, making rapprochement increasingly unlikely.