Northern Ireland: The Time And Place For Urban Terror CSC 1985 SUBJECT AREA Topical Issues WAR SINCE 1945 SEMINAR NORTHERN IRELAND: THE TIME AND PLACE FOR URBAN TERROR Major Michael V. Maloney, USMC 1 April 1985 Marine Corps Command and Staff College Marine Corps Development and Education Command Quantico, Virginia 22134 Contents Page List of Tables ii List of Figures iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Plantation to Partition - An 9 Historical Overview 2. The Rise of an Embarrassed Splinter 40 Group 3. From Guardians to Invaders - An 79 Untimely Change of Mission 4. Legitimacy Spurned - The Madmen Emerge 100 Epilogue 126 Endnotes 131 Bibliography 142 Appendix A. The Origins of Hate 149 TABLES Table Page 1. The Death Toll, 1970-1972 2. IRA Discipline, 1971-1975 FIGURES Figures Page 1. IRA Staff Structure and Functions INTRODUCTION Have you ever watched three children playing together? Unless it is within a well-defined activity or game, play usually just does not seem to work in threes. Invariably there is a pairing, a combination designed to exclude the odd child out from participating; other times it is a conspiracy to include the third party as the object of teasing or ridicule. Often, as perhaps only the pure cruelty of youth can fully devise, they can do both. Occasionally the isolated child strikes back in confusion or pain. How does one achieve harmony or maintain equality? How does one small child keep from becoming the embattled minority? Once the pairing occurs, what does one do? How do you restore equilibrium? Can you? Should you? What does one say to assuage the pain of the victim, lonely, uncertain, pained and tearful? And how do you control his childish revenge? Then, to confuse the issue, what does one do five minutes later when the pairing shifts, subjecting a different third person to a similarly cruel but usually transitory fate? The war in Northern Ireland is not child's play, but it is clearly three-sided. In fact, it seems that Anglo- Irish history has rarely enjoyed the simplicity of bipartisan relationships but rather from the first, it appears as an intermittent, erratic series of triangular problems or conflicts. Strongbow brought the first English army to Ireland at the behest of one tribal chieftan who was at odds with another. After 1534 and the Act of Supremacy, Catholic Ireland adjacent to newly-converted Protestant England loomed as a potential ally to England's continental rivals and formed a likely strategic stepping-stone to England's western flank. As many of the numerous Irish risings attest, England's strategic concern was partly legitimate. Third parties such as France and Spain on more than one occasion were only too happy to support such causes against their religious, commercial and political enemy. But for the Irish the foremost purpose of their risings was to drive the alien English out. The risings, particularly after plantation, were three-sided: Catholic native, Protestant settler, and English soldier. This shifting but recurring triangular pattern exists today on the international plane by lines connecting London, Dublin, and Belfast. On the urban level within Belfast and Londonderry primarily, it is seen in the principal urban combatants: the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Protestant terrorists, and the British Army. Even the social, economic, and political factors form a triangle. Religion and discrimination lead to fear, and the historical interplay between these factors has created a centuries old, ulcerous hatred which is at the heart of the war today. The fighting forms the most vicious triangle. Whether it matches IRA versus British, IRA versus the Ulster Defense Association, or in some instances, UDA versus British, one must remember that urban guerrilla warfare by its very nature encompasses the unfortunate inhabitants of the battlefield as its innocent third parties. England and later the United Kingdom have played an inescapable, central role in Irish history and continue to share center stage in Belfast and Londonderry today. Going back to the introductory analogy of children playing, Britain acts in a variety of roles which work more to her detriment than to her benefit. Her role as one of the players is clearcut. But what about her parental role? In an historic sense she is both progenitor and guardian of all three children, helpless to impartially intervene. Small wonder that many who share England's desire for a solution to her "Irish Question" question strongly her ability to act as an honest broker. This is a study of urban guerrilla warfare in Northern Ireland and principally the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Inherent in such a study are several major obstacles. First, guerrillas involved in guerrilla warfare, and particularly a war that is still occurring by obvious necessity do not write much; thus, primary source material from that side is difficult to come by. Of some assistance in this report was Sean MacStiofain's autobiographical work, Revolutionary in Ireland. Naturally, his biases must be taken into account, but propaganda aside, MacStiofain provided insight into the formative years of the Provisional IRA, the organizational mindset, strategy, and tactics. Finally, his perspective formed an interesting contrast to the more abundant pro-British, anti-terrorist literature. As Richard Clutterbuck, a well-known author of several works on terrorism to include Northern Ireland, observes in Guerrillas and Terrorists, "All those who write (on Northern Ireland) are, with varying degrees of passion, partisans of one side or the other."1 In the midst of Clutterbuck's substantial contributions to the literature and his numerous revealing insights, this concise observation is perhaps his most profound. In one brief sentence he describes the emotions, the biases, the polarity and distorted objectivity which confront the uninitiated researcher and leave him dazed and wandering like the legendary Irish traveller wading through a pasture of Ireland's mythical "sleepy grass." Considering the reality of the effective propaganda campaigns on both sides, the already mentioned literary biases, the practical and logistical impossibility of walking the ground and smelling the air, of talking to the combatants and the non-combatants, of reviewing official primary source documents such as combat operations orders, standard operating procedures and the numerous investigative reports resident in Great Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland, the analysis which follows is a best guess based primarily on abundant secondary source material, some United States Marine Corps' Command and Staff College lectures in the 1984-1985 Academic Year and some limited personal interviews with some who have travelled in Northern Ireland during "the troubles." There is one basic assumption - that the complete account of what is going on in the northeast corner of Ireland is an unfinished volume lacking the substantive truths which lie as yet undiscovered and undocumented in that narrow strand of unbiased, impenetrable no-man's land that separates "the partisans of one side or the other." Grasping the awesome historical context is a cumbersome test. As Colonel Pat Collins, a lifelong student of Irish history through family ties and academic interests and an authority on terrorism and counterinsurgency, cautioned at the outset, "To understand what's going on in Northern Ireland today, you have to understand Irish history." Clutterbuck writes, "History is the biggest bugbear in Northern Ireland. Every child is brought up to remember it."2 The understanding that Colonel Collins so emphat- ically prescribes for the novice student of Irish history is lacking as well among the people of Northern Ireland. Clutterbuck alludes to the biased oral history or of what people believe is their history in his earlier statement. As parents and schools pass on their distorted versions to their children, they transfer also the centuries old hatred, mistrust and narrowmindedness to yet another generation. History in Northern Ireland then is something more to be remembered than understood. Research on this account is no problem. The predicament becomes one of balance, depth, and perspective in relation to the focus of the study. Three and a half centuries of history lead to the ten or so years' life of the Provisional IRA. A full historical account would totally obscure the present. A skimpy, abbreviated version, or one drawn from a later starting point would not convey the necessary sense of the past so vitally relevant to understanding the present situation. The compromise which follows certainly would satisfy neither English nor Irish historian, but historical past and present tell us that neither English nor Irish are generally satisfied with much the other has to offer anyway. Quid pro quo. This study focuses on three areas: the historical origins of the Irish Republican Army; the events of the late nineteen sixties which led to the formation of the Provisional IRA; and the rise and partial fall of the IRA in its campaign against the security forces, the Protestant majority, and Great Britain. The central issue is urban terrorism as waged by the Provisional IRA in all its forms. Though the Provisional IRA continues a war of attrition today, the years 1969 to 1973, and in particular 1972, graphically depict the full spectrum of urban guerrilla warfare. The war certainly did not end in 1973, but the tactics from that point to the present, though more sophis- ticated, have remained essentially the same. Certain subsequent developments are germane: the peculiar twist of sectarian murders, the leftward progression of the Provisional IRA and its reorganization in 1977 each has had a bearing on the war as it continues today. Others such as the "Hunger Strikes" and the "Dirty Protest" though interesting from a politico-social aspect do not figure prominently in the conduct of the war. Chapter 1 PLANTATION TO PARTITION - AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW So much has been written about Northern Ireland, like South East Asia, that the essentials have become obscured. This has been made worse by the fact that almost all those who write are, with varying degrees of passion, partisans of one side or the other. Richard Clutterbuck, Guerrillas and Terrorists, 1977 The Irish have a gift for gentle understatement par- ticularly when unpleasantness is involved. Trouble or troubles, for example, has a far more expansive meaning than it does in most other corners of the English-speaking world. At a funeral a sympathetic friend may offer condolences to the bereaved by expressing his sorrow for their "troubles". In the larger and more enduring historical context, the Irish have referred to the British-Irish dilemma over Northern Ireland with its painful heritage of hatred, violence and death through the years simply as "the Troubles." Not to be outdone, however, the British, with equal conciseness but a more typically analytical bent, refer to the whole matter as "The Irish Question." Some like George Dangerfield, in a phrase which reflects better both the persistency and insolvability of the problem and its accompanying frustration, perhaps more aptly call it "the Damnable Question," the title of his book in the subject.1 Regardless of position, few would disagree with Clutterbuck that the issues are indeed obscured. From the 16th Century England grew into a world power and came into conflict with the traditional European powers, notably Spain, the Netherlands and France. As part of this process English monarchs viewed Ireland to the west both with imperial design and in the sense of strategic defense. Much like the military leader studying his area of operations, England identified Ireland as "key terrain" which if controlled denied any potential enemy's access to her flank. In her strategic analysis, England employed faulty tactics in choosing her familiar imperial methods to displace the natives and occupy the land. Whether unable or unwilling to see the distinction, for many years to come she continued to blindly ahhere to her plan, confident in her mistaken impression that she could "Anglicize" Ireland. Ultimately England in her efforts toward achieving unity set the stage for the disunity of Ireland today. From the earliest times life in Ulster, the northernmost of Ireland's four historical provinces, differed due in part to geography and a tradition of strong tribal chieftans. These differences assisted in creating an even greater distinction as the 16th century ended; Ulster, unlike her three sister provinces, had succeeded in maintaining her Gaelic culture and, to a large degree, her independence. After the O'Neill rising in Ulster in 1598 reemphasized that distinction, Elizabeth I decided to initiate a deliberate plan to crush the Gaelic culture in Ireland. As part of this, starting in the early 17th century Scottish settlers, who were predominantly Protestant, came to Ulster and displaced the Irish natives in a system of colonization called plantation. The Irish natives responded with periodic uprisings, almost at the rate of one per generation. Initially these risings stemmed directly from social and economic factors such as those inherent in plantation. As plantation took root, however, a religious line of demarcation was inevit- able which, once drawn, would divide Ulster to this day. The rising of 1648 was the first to mix religion with warfare in an ugly exchange of brutal massacres. The Irish initiated the action and their leaders, who had tenuous control at best, were unable to prevent the butchery that ensued. In 1649 Oliver Cromwell landed with an army of ten thousand veteran soldiers and quickly crushed the Irish rebels with military victories followed by massacres at Drogleda and Wexford. He then proceeded to offer the natives of Ulster a choice between two unpalatable alternatives: "Hell or Connaught." Connaught, the province southwest of Ulster, had poor soil and offered any prospective inhabitant a meager, spartan existence at best. Cromwell's other option needs no explanation. Since Cromwell's day religion and Irish history are tragically and bitterly interwoven. Since his time too, for the Irish to wish someone ill was to wish "the curse of Cromwell" on them. Forty years after Cromwell the Irish supported James II, the Catholic King of England, in his efforts to regain the throne. This rising left Irish history with its orange Protestant legacies which Ulstermen celebrate annually with huge marches and commemorative speeches: the heroic actions of the Apprentice Boys at the seige of Londonderry on August 12, 1689 and William of Orange's victory at the Battle of Boyne in 1690. The 18th century brought the infamous Penal Laws, a series of repressive restrictions whose purpose and intent were clear to all. Not only did they subjugate their primary target, the Irish Catholic population, but they also limited to some extent the rights of non-Anglican dissenters as well. Under these laws, for example, an Irishman could be shot if found with a horse worth more than five pounds as Arthur O'Leary, a colonel in the Austrian Army, fatally learned while home on leave in 1773. Nevertheless, despite the Penal Laws the 18th century was one of relative peace and almost passed without an Irish rising. Two years before the turn of the century, however, the Irish rose again stirred by the example of the French Revolution and led by an Ulster Presbyterian, Theobald Wolf Tone. This rising, like those past and those to come, failed but was significant for two reasons: it marked the true birth of Irish nationalism and in Wolf Tone, who committed suicide while imprisoned and awaiting trial, Ireland had a martyr of lasting national fame. At the start of the 19th century the British effec- tively bought out the Irish Parliament in orchestrating the Act of Union, a peculiar political maneuver in which the Irish Parliament actually voted itself out of existence. For the remainder of the century, Irish politicians like Daniel O'Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell would strive to regain "Home Rule." Basic survival overwhelmed politics in mid-century when Ireland's staple, the potato, fell victim to blight in three out of four years running. The "famine" decimated the population and scarred the national psyche with its combination of starvation, death and emigration. Those who left Ireland during this tragic era settled in many parts of the world. But neither they nor subsequent generations would forget their homeland nor her painful Anglo-Irish past From this point in history Ireland, north and south, saw the rise of secret and not so secret organizations, many of which had conflicting interests and contradictory national objectives. From this point too the politics and the politicians could not keep pace with the whirlpool of violent forces which were drawing them, Britain, and Ireland closer and closer to their vortex. Even the best intended statesmanship was destined to remain at least one step behind violence. The legitimate effort to right the previous wrongs would always seem to be too little, too late. Just as the two-hundred fifty years of English occupation from plantation to the end of the famine established the roots of hatred, the next seventy to seventy-five years would define the triangular issues, establish the corresponding three-cornered battlefield, and produce a confused operations overlay of dual-colored battle lines: orange and green, black and tan, red and blue. Henceforth, violence or the threat of violence would either precede, accompany, or follow major political issues. The most prominent puppeteers on the narrowing triangular stage were William Gladstone in London, Charles Parnell in Dublin and, later, Edward Carson, a Dubliner in Ulster. According to several accounts, William Gladstone, upon first hearing of his appointment as Prime Minister in 1868, said, "My mission is to pacify Ireland."2 That same year he successfully disestablished the (Anglican) Church of Ireland, a move which was generally accepted in England. Next he extended the "tenant right" or Ulster custom* to the rest of Ireland. Four years after his rise to power in 1872, Gladstone and the Liberals pushed the Ballot Act of 1872 through Parliament. This act with its requirement for secret voting "changed Irish political life...(and) with the general election of 1874 the Parliament of the United Kingdom saw a third party, the Irish."3 Gladstone, though not publically saying so, was heading towards home rule. * Tenant rights to this time in Ireland were virtually non-existent. Even a tenant who paid his rents was not guaranteed tenure except in Ulster. There, by custom not law, if a tenant kept up with the rent, he could not be evicted, i.e, Ulster custom. Not too far down the path, however, Ulster Unionists and English Conservatives reinforced by the Orange Society* waited in ambush determined to meet force with force, if necessary. Charles Parnell, whom many consider the first great Irish politician, lead the Irish home rule fight in Parliament. He took command of the Irish by his personal power and soon forged a new political weapon, obstruction. He used the Rules of Parliament to block business till the Irish got what they wanted. Every twist and turn of rules was utilized, if that would gain an end. 'Irish Nights' became a horror as Parnell's machine tightened its grip. Behind him, founded in 1879, was Michael Davitt's Land League, formed to force rents down, either by reform of the land laws or by intimidation. Between the Nationalist party and the Land League, by the early 1880's Parnell became 'the uncrowned king of Ireland.4 With this burgeoning power and such tactics Parnell, supported by the Liberals, was instrumental in the passage of the Land Act of 1881, an important measure which * The Orange Society, also the Orange Order, originated in Armagh circa 1795 and shortly became the first Ulster-wide Protestant paramilitary organization whose aim was simply: to maintain Protestant ascendancy and to keep the Ulster Catholics in their place. "guaranteed the three F's to Irish farmers."* Terrorism also was a vital influence during this period. Obviously no one was more aware of its power and used it to such a degree of success as Charles Parnell. Careful never to publically espouse tactics of fear, he allowed the latent potential of civil violence to subtlely intimidate his opponents. The political battle over the enactment of the Land Act of 1881 best illustrates Parnell's political savvy and his understanding of use of force. Concerned that the land reform might conciliate the tenant farmers to the extent that they might not support home rule or his party, Parnell fought a political delaying action. Some like William Forster, the chief secretary to Ireland, believed Parnell was deliberately and illegally obstructing progress. Believing that removing Parnell would solve the problem, the authorities incarcerated Parnell under the coercion act at Kilmainham. Rather than achieve the desired effect, greater acceptance of the land act, "Captain Moonlight" struck as Parnell had predicted. Agrarian disorder ensued, and both * Three F's, fixity of tenure, fair rent and the right to sell freely their holdings. Essentially the Land Act of 1881 extended the "Ulster Custom" to all of Ireland and made it law vice custom. the authorities and Parnell negotiated what is referred to as the "Kilmainham treaty."5 Beckett summarized the terms as follows. Parnell was to be released, coercion relaxed, the land act amended, and protection given to tenants in arrears; in return, Parnell was to use his influence to calm the country, and to secure general acceptance for the land act in its amended form.6 The Irish has learned how to mix terror with politics. With land reform accomplished, Parnell and Gladstone separately set their sights on the same objective - home rule for Ireland. In Ulster emotions were running high. The Protestants' greatest fear was that "Home Rule" if it ever passed would lead to "Rome Rule," a perception profoundly understandable, a likelihood highly improbable. The thought that the stroke of a pen could shatter their political dominance and convert their two thirds regional majority into a one third national minority would have been traumatic enough without the preceding centuries of hatred mixed with religious differences. On the practical side their opposition was understandable too. Their political and economic ties had always been to England and not the south. But religion or fear of religion was dominant. Some may have feared Catholic retribution. Others may have just been consumed by fear and hate. Most Protestants, however, probably shared the same religious concerns articulated by a fellow Ulsterman a century later: I suppose that at the very heart of Protestant fears is the historic Catholic claim to be the one, true, universal Church and the ultimate arbiter of religious truth. For by implication, at any rate if interpreted in extreme form, all other churches are to a degree heretical and in some sense incomplete and lacking in authority... A perhaps even more serious implication for Protestants is their feeling that a Church which claims to have such knowledge of absolute truth much inevitably be intolerant of lesser truths or what is even considered to be untruth.7 These words are insightful on two counts. First, it demonstrates that the fundamental religious issues remain unchanged by time or intervening events. And, if one accepts the supposition that "Time heals all wounds," it is painfully clear that time has stood still in Ulster. Neill describes the effect of the rising uncertainities which but for the dates could probably fit into any decade since 1880: The Orange Order (Orange Society) was seldom far removed from the Catholic-Protestant riots which continued to be regular features of the Belfast social calendar. The First Home Rule Bill was greeted in that city with the worst urban disturbances in its turbulent history. Over 30 people were killed and a hundred wounded in a series of riots which dragged on throughout the summer of 1886.8 Despite the growing military strength of the Orange Society the Protestants were still losing ground. Politically their position was similar to the Irish rebels' military predicament in Ulster in 1648. Home Rule like Cromwell's Army loomed large on the horizon. Unlike the earlier rebels, however, the Protestants had the vision and the means to avoid a similar outcome. In 1886 the Protestants formed the Unionist Party "intent on maintaining the political connection with Great Britain." Once organized they sought and obtained the support of the British Conservatives. The strength of that alliance and its unity of purpose were almost immediately demonstrated. On a visit to Belfast in the same year Lord Randolph Churchill stirred Protestant passions when he declared, "Ulster will fight! Ulster will be right." The predicted fight did not materialize immediately, however, as the new political alliance successfully dominated British politics. But the Orange Order's drums would begin to beat more stridently in 1906 when the Liberals returned to power. The next fourteen years form the heart of modern Irish history. So many events transpired so quickly; so many people played so many varying roles; so much violence was done and so much was left undone that any attempt to visualize this crucial period is at once as alternately clear and out of focus as the prints of the novice camera buff. As he focuses on what he believes is the main subject, another object previously unseen moves distorting all sense of proportion. As he methodically and carefully rotates his lens to achieve order, almost kaliedescopically more things change. The image in the eye as the shutter is released changes in the instant of flight from subject to camera imprinting a picture that the confused photographer will not later recognize. Worse yet many of the best shots pass too swiftly between frames. However, since this period is still before the advent of motion pictures in Ireland, still photographs and words, no matter how amatuer, provide the only sensual description of this sensitive, emotion-packed era. With the Liberals return to power in England, the home rule issue revived. Nevertheless, even in Gladstone's time many actions which passed handily in the House of Commons died many an untimely death at the hands of the conservative Lords. Democracy ... found a constitutional obstacle in the House of Lords. That body blocked, among others, the following measures: the abolition of purchase in the Army in 1870, the Ballot Act of 1872, the Irish land legislation of the 1880's, the Home Rule Bills of 1892 and 1911, and Welsh Disestablishment in 1911, as well as the Budget of 1908 ... More and more the House of Lords stood out as an adjunct of the Conservative Party. Increasingly the liberals demanded "to mend it or end it."9 Without digressing further into English political history, the end came after many political machinations on both sides with the Parliament Act of 1911. Basically this statute created an avenue for the House of Commons to pass legislation over the objections of the House of Lords. If the House of Commons passed the same bill in three consecutive years, it would become law despite the House of Lords' opposition.10 As many an Irish grandmother has often taught, "Patience and perseverance will get the snails to Jerusalem." Politically the Irish would patiently persevere. Home rule was written on the wall as plainly as IRA or UDA graffitti is in Derry or Belfast today. For once time and tide seemed to favor the Irish. And the "following wind" they have traditionally wished departing friends seemed at long last firmly at their own backs. Meanwhile in Ulster Edward Carson, the heretofore undiscussed member of the trio of politician puppeteers mentioned earlier and the leader of the Unionist Party, had seen the storm signals clearly, had anticipated the falling tides and knew that he, like the Catholic rebels of 1648, was running short of time. Unlike them, he knew what had to be done and had the leadership ability and courage to carry it through. Beckett emphasized Carson's total perspective: Carson realized from the first that his task was not merely to lead a parliamentary party, but to act as sponsor for a popular movement that might easily overstep the limits of the constitution, and he accepted the risk with open eyes.11 With such vision and his Dublin roots, Carson was sure to have seen the dual success of mass popular action and the effective use of implied force so well employed together by Parnell. He proceeded to use every constitutional avenue open to him at Westminster to fight the rising tide of "Home Rule." While at home he prepared his contingency plan which some have called "the Orange Card." The military force behind the card was the Orange Society which in 1912 matured into the Ulster Volunteer Force, in effect a private army. During the two years, 1912-1914, the UVF had a retired British officer in command, who trained and organized on the British model. With the addition of German arms it: was very quickly an army in being, with the necessary supporting services as signals, engineers and medical service, even a corps of women to carry out clerical and other such work. It lacked only artillery and a naval arm, nor was it equipped with the heavy weapons such as mortars and machine guns, of the age. But it was ... most certainly an army, ... small ... but formidable.12 From its conception it had but one too obvious purpose which was to remain forever unfulfilled. Many would die for another cause in France. Before World War I intervened, however the British were faced with an unprecedented, historic dilemma. The UVF was clearly a standing army and even more clearly a legitimate threat to the peaceful enactment of home rule. As the British government contemplated military action to support implementation of home rule in March 1914, some members of the British Army staged what is commonly called the Curragh mutiny in which fifty-eight officers of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment at Curragh, believing an order to action against the Ulster Unionists imminent, resigned rather than carry out their anticipated orders. But the order was never issued and World War I did intervene.13 Home rule was less than two months from official enactment when Britain fortuitously declared war on Germany. It was fortuitous in that it averted what surely would have been a civil war. In response to the growing militancy of the UVF and in part to signal equally their resolve to Britain, the Irish in the south had formed their own Irish Volunteers. But the war preempted all these warlike gestures. With little fanfare or record of opposition Parliament postponed implementation of home rule for the duration of the war. A civil war had been averted, maybe only delayed, by a world war. Many Irishman, more from the north than the south, left Ireland... fought and died alongside their British cousins in the bitter trench warfare of France. In fact the UVF, remaining essentially intact, went to war redesignated as the 36th Ulster Division.14 Many of the British troops too had left Ireland for the same purpose. Many shared similar fates. With Britain's attention naturally directed towards the continent and the reduced size of British forced in Ireland, the IRB seized the initiative. The same Fenian group that in 1867 had lain comatose until transfused with the lifeblood of new martyrs* stirred from their impatient rest and with their morbid sense of the past remembered. The signals were there. If the British had listened to the words of one of the leading figures in Dublin at this time and a known republican, Padraic Pearse, when he eulogized O'Donovan Rossa, another leading nationalist, they would have sensed that a "rising" was in the offing. Pearse openly warned: *In March 1867 the Irish Republican Brotherhood's attempted rising was such a dismal failure that the organization was virtually broken. In September of that year, however, IRB members in Britain ambushed a prison vehicle carrying IRB leaders in an escape attempt. The escape was accomplished, but one policeman was killed. In retribution three of the ambush party who were captured were sentenced to death and hung in November 1867. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have forseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools - they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.15 The rising when it came combined all, and probably more, of the historical flaws of earlier risings. Confident of German arms and expecting the Irish Volunteers to rise in force with them, the IRB military council planned an Easter Sunday rising. One key member, Eoin MacNeill, the leader of the Volunteers, was opposed for a tremendously important reason: he knew that they "lacked widespread popular support." Serious romantics more than revolutionaries, the leadership with the exception of MacNeill ignored such logical, revolutionary fundamentals and even went so far as to deceive MacNeill into lending support.16 They made many mistakes, but as Dangerfield explains it was almost by design: The explanation of these mistakes is not just that they were part of a romantic Fenian muddle - although there were elements of that in them too. The explanation lies in the very character of the Rising itself - namely that it had taken on a symbolic, not a military purpose; that it was not expected to succeed; that it was expected only to happen.17 Happen it did, naturally according to the confused plan, one day late on Easter Monday, 1916. And fail it did, as expected. Or, did it? The plan called for the rebels to occupy six strong- points in Dublin which: roughly speaking ... called for drawing a circle around the heart of the city ... formed by occupying two posts north of the river (Liffey) (the General Post Office and the Four Courts of Justice) and four posts to the south of it (the South Dublin Union, Jacob's Biscuit Factory, St. Stephens Green and Boland's Bakery). Two small groups were to occupy positions near Dublin Castle and in the Mendicity Institute, a building on the south bank of the Liffey almost opposite Four Courts.18 Dangerfield concludes that the plan "could have only gratified a romantic mind."19 The British knew through intelligence that a rebellion was imminent. They had traced Sir Roger Casement's movements and were fully aware of his dealings with the Germans. Armed with this intelligence they were able to strike logically preemptive twin blows on Good Friday 1916 with the capture of Casement and the intercept of a German arms shipment at sea. A military mind would have agreed, but the romantic Fenian mind did not. The decision to execute in its defiance of military logic did achieve tactical surprise; but, the plan, obviously flawed in design, was destroyed in execution. Due to garbled communications and the one day shift of D-Day, the expected numbers of Volunteers did not materialize. It started barely noticed at first on Monday. It ended with Pearse's surrender on Saturday, April 29, but some units did not put down their arms until later Sunday when they received the official word of surrender. Never- theless the rebellion had been convincingly defeated:20 On Monday 1 May, ... the Rising had apparently vanished into the past, a dismal failure. It had failed as an armed 'putsch'; and it had failed as a political gesture. It had conspic- uously not aroused the sympathies of the city of Dublin upon whom it had visited many discomforts, whose private and public buildings it had burned or been responsible for burning to the tune of an estimated 2,500,000 pounds.21 Pearse and the other members of the Military Council might well have died of disappointment at the total failure of their rising. Dangerfield described the initial response of their fellow countrymen and women as more inclined towards disdain. The British, however, whose national survival was at stake in France, saw the rebels as traitors whose misdeeds merited one rapid and final response. They would not let the rebels live with the misery of their defeat. Between May 3-12 fourteen of the rebels were tried by court-martial, sentenced to death and shot. The romantic's plan had succeeded. Pearse had obtained his desired "Blood Sacrifice." In death they had mobilized the Irish spirit they had so vainly sought to capture in life. By these executions Britain had shaken part of the Irish nation out of her lethargy. By executing these men ... the British govern- ment committed perhaps its biggest blunder in seven centuries of dealing with Ireland ... Prison terms would have denied them the martyr- dom they sought. Execution made them the heroes of the nation.22 The indifferent majority of the Easter just past was now infused with the spirit of nationalism. The key element for guerrilla war had been won. The others, including a brilliant military leader, Michael Collins, were already in place. Finally, the rebels had acquired a greater sense of military unity. Somewhere in the course of the week's fighting, the motley force of rebels from the Irish Citizen's Army, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood acquired a new title: the Irish Republican Army. Once again, but this time in a more fatalistic sense, it was just a matter of time. In the aftermath, independence rather than home rule became the issue, and the previously dominant Home Rule Party gradually lost power. Then in 1918 Sinn Fein, whose aim was complete separation from Britain, completely overwhelmed the Home Rule Party. Consistent with their platform and their non-recognition of English rule Sinn Fein initiated their active policy of refusing to take their seats at Westminster. Of course some, for their part in recent non-political activities, were still in jail and could not have taken their seats in any regard. Those who were not, however, twenty-seven in all, met in Dublin in January 1919, "where they drew up an Irish Declaration of Independence, and took the title of 'Dail Eireann,' claiming to be the real parliament of the country."23 They also selected a ministerial cabinet and appointed Eamon de Valera, who was still imprisoned, as President. In their minds the Irish Republic was established, but they also knew that such simple and blatant political defiance alone would not bring independence. They would have to rise again. During this time the IRA became identified as, and in fact were, the military arm of Sinn Fein, an alliance which continues today. The leaders who succeeded those martyred after the Easter Rebellion were unlike Fenians past in one vital aspect; they had military minds. And, the army as a whole was more cohesive and proficient than the paramilitary militia of 1916 had been. Taking advantage of their tremendous popular support and their knowledge of their own countryside, the IRA launched a widespread campaign of terror. Michael Collins, who had fought in the Easter Rising, was the mastermind. He appreciated the importance of intelligence and knew how easily infiltrated past republican movements had been. He quickly reversed that situation. It was he who did the infiltrating, he had friends everywhere - in the G Division of the DMP, the Castle, the post office, even among the officers of the British Army. He was so well protected that he could move freely from place to place, although officially a hunted man.24 The IRA under his skillful leadership continued an aggressive campaign which combined guerrilla hit and run tactics like ambushes and attacks on police stations, tax offices, and military barracks with acts of terrorism like assassinations. For example, on November 21, 1919, another Irish Bloody Sunday, an IRA squad raided a British intelligence unit's safe house killing fourteen undercover agents and two policemen (RIC) crippling the intelligence unit in the process.25 As in the past such brutal rebel success would meet a similar English response - more military force. This time it would bring the soon to be infamous "Black and Tans." The "Black and Tans" role in Ireland could be the subject of a separate study. They had been so hastily assembled and moved that they did not have complete uniforms. Instead they wore an improvised, mixed uniform of leather and khaki; hence the "Black and Tans." Formed to reinforce the depleted and beleagured Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the Black and Tans virtually replaced them. However, they were neither militarily nor psychologically prepared for the war which would bestow upon them their perverse fame. Their ill-preparedness and numerous excesses only served to sustain the IRA by rein- forcing popular support. The war continued on into 1921 stalemated - the IRA ruling the countryside, the British controlling the cities. Raiding groups called "Flying Columns" struck throughout the country in quick-hitting raids and ambushes. For the most part, however, the IRA was too ill-armed to fight a sustained battle or in many cases even a sustained firefight. Hence, they sought to create chaos hoping to tie down more forces and induce their predictably aggressive and violent counter-actions. In the cities the IRA simply employed and in some respects created urban terror. By June 1921 Britain had almost 40,000 troops in Ireland. As a nation she was tired of war and the Irish; militarily she could not defeat the IRA in detail; and politically she was unwilling to continue a war which had become both a burden and, in some respects, an embarrass- ment. Thus, on July 11, 1921, Britain and a similarly exhausted IRA began a truce. Both were ready to talk. Ulster was by no means tranquil during these times. Most probably this is when the Protestants' fear of Catholic dominance was greatest. Consequently this period really marks the modern starting point of the Protestants' "embattled minority" syndrome which manifests itself in violent form to this day whenever the subject of a united Ireland arises. For the Protestants, Catholics, Irish and Nationalists were one in the same: they were all "enemies." Despite their regional majority and their even greater political majority, the Northern Protestants' overwhelming, all consuming fear of the Catholics north and south extinguished any measure of tolerance that might have ever existed in Ulster. This great fear of becoming a subjugated minority, like the Ulster Catholics, not only generated this seige mentality but also became hereditary, almost in the form of a genetic defect. With each successive generation of inbreeding, it manifested itself in more varied and more sinister forms. Violence seemed to accelerate its reproduction. Needless to say it has thrived in Ulster since 1969. The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 officially established two Irish Parliaments: one for six of the nine countries in Ulster, another for Ireland's remaining twenty-six. It also provided for continued representation at Westminster and called for the establishment of a "Council of Ireland," a bipartisan forum intended to administer matters of common interest or concern and, in Britain's most optimistic hopes, to decide on a peaceful course to a united Ireland. Though the act became law, no such council appeared.27 While the political background of this is a tangle of debate, deception, compromise, counter-deception, trust and false trust, the decision to draw the line was merely a formal recognition of what polarity already existed in Ireland. It was not a good decision as most interested parties on any side of the triangle would now agree. In fact they did not like it then but for different reasons. Catholics could, would, and do argue that the line, if drawn at all, should have been drawn elsewhere and encompassed less of Ulster. The Protestants for their part swallowed hard the compromise to cede three of the nine countries of historic Ulster that they gave up: Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan despite their Catholic majorities.28 The issue in Northern Ireland has never been so much where the line was drawn but rather that the line was drawn at all. Partition caused Irish north and south to see differences rather than similarities, to become more regionally insular and intolerant and to communicate until only the most recent years indirectly via a third party like Westminster or the media. In its intent to avert a possible civil war it may have temporarily succeeded. Yet by avoiding the hard answer to the Irish Question Great Britain with plenty of later assistance from the Irish ensured that future generations would be able to experience their own "troubles" firsthand. In relation to what exists today in Ireland, the iron- ies of the act are in many ways more telling and lasting than the intricacies. Ulster, which had so vehemently opposed Home Rule to the point of arming for civil war in Iceland and rebellion against the British Government, now had her own local home rule in Stormont and remained firmly united and even more defensive. Witness the popular Unionist slogan, "What we have, we hold." Partition and the later treaty debates had an opposite and divisive effect in the south. At the time of this act the IRA was still fighting their guerrilla war which, if successful, would bring an independent, united Ireland. Thus, the IRA barely took notice of the act if at all. For them it was an issue which could be addressed later. Much has been written about the negotiations which led to the end of the war. Whether Lloyd George and his negotiators diplomatically finessed the inexperienced Irish delegation is not important to this study. On December 6, 1921 the delegation signed the treaty and returned home. The treaty established a separate but not totally independent "Irish Free State" which obviously did not include Ulster and in fact acknowledged Ulster's partition.29 Not all, however, could accept the terms of the treaty, nor could they grasp what Michael Collins, the crafty guerrilla leader and one of the delegates, had accepted perhaps as an intermediate step to complete independence and a united Ireland. Out of this came the next bitter irony, one perhaps unrivaled in Irish history until the 1969 events in Ulster. The debate over the treaty in the Dail Eireann was so intense, emotional, bitter and hard-fought that it shattered the fragile bonds so recently fused by the shared triumphs and tragedies of the last five years of war. "A vote was taken after twelve days of heated debate, and the controversial treaty was rati- fied by the slender margin of sixty-four votes to fifty-seven. But bittnerness reigned supreme, as the anti-treaty TDs withdrew from the assembly, labelling their former comrades as traitors to the republic cause."30 The Irish Free State was born, but independence in the south did not bring peace. So bitterly strong was the division over the treaty that civil war unexpectedly erupted with the recent Irish comrades-in-arms fighting among themselves over what would appear to the modern eye to be primarily a question of semantics. The civil war which followed is significant for several reasons. First, it demonstrated how cruel Irishman could be to Irishman regardless of religion. Many historians (not just British) justifiably suggest that this internecine conflict made some of the earlier British actions pale by comparison. This strain of cruelty would reappear in the sectarian violence which occurred in Ulster in 1975. Second, it caused the familiar splintering of the IRA. Like the IRB earlier and as they would do several times in the future, the IRA divided this time over the treaty issue. Those who opposed the treaty retained the IRA title. Those that supported the treaty became the "establishment." Perhaps the most tragic result of the civil war was its death toll on the leadership of both sides. In Neill's opinion, "No loss was more tragic for the future of the country than that of Michael Collins."31 Collins was a composition of opposing qualities: a hero, a desperado; a high patriot, a ruthless killer. He was also, unlike so many Fenians, a Fenian with a hold on reality. He was a fine adminidtrator; and given the time and experience, he would have become an able statesman. But he was not given the time...(In August 1922) he was killed in an ambush, and by the side which after- ward got the higher marks in popular history.32 The full impact of his loss will never be known. He was different. That difference had already brought results; in it lay hope. Somewhere in Collins' Irish mind might have been the answer to England's Irish question. The IRA's fatal ambush, however, extinguished whatever ideas Collins may have had. One final point exists upon which both the British and some Irish agree: the civil war truly created a new IRA. In pragmatic terms whether the IRA is genuinely linked to the Fenian tradition or is a synthetic likeness is irrelevant. In the propaganda campaign it becomes vital. Nevertheless this new IRA did not have the popular support of the country and soon became outlawed there. Sinn Fein would continue as its political arm. Slowly but inalterably the IRA would orient northward, then eastward. Her leaders would meet many times over more frequently inside prisons rather than out. Yet as they looked north they could not help but see the enclaves of the Northern Catholics particularly in the cities like Belfast and Londonderry, compelled it seemed both by law and by threat of orange guns to second-class citizenship. The IRA would take root in the urban heart of the former plantation. Like a parasite it would feed on an already cancerous and open sore. Nourished by a steady diet of puss-like hatred and discrimination, it would grow. Never would it completely flourish, but never to this day could it be excised. Chapter 2 THE RISE OF AN EMBARRASSED SPLINTER GROUP She scarcely speaks, wakes in the night screaming. Yet she was fortunate when the street exploded into flame. She only took one bruise though Mother was thrown to the wall, the basket whirled into nothingness, and the pram was crushed. Now she expects the whole world to explode again: She hides her eyes and stares into her bomb -blasted imagination. Meta Mayne Reid "Three Year Old: Belfast 1972" Ulster exploded in 1972. John Montague, Ulsterman and Irish poet, described the people, their mindset, and the driving emotion in his homeland in three succinct lines: "twin races petrified/ the volcanic ash/ of religious hatred."1 Metaphorically then Montague would say that Ulster erupted. The combined images of Montague and Meta Mayne Reid poetically illustrate both cause and devastating effect of the troubles in Northern Ireland. But 1972 did not just happen. The half century which followed partition included a world war in which the Republic of Ireland remained neutral and illustrated the intransigence of the Northern Protestants, the continuing belligence of the IRA, and the general indifference of the English. These attitudes were unintentionally symbiotic; and, once combined, they had a synergistic magnetism from which none of the partners could escape. On the international scale Ango-Irish relations after the Irish Civil War to the present time remained distant and often strained. The Irish Free State evolved into the Republic of Ireland and left the United Kingdom. Ireland's subsequent decision to remain neutral in World War II further understandably chilled the British attitude towards her former step-child. Conversely Northern Ireland's active participation as a member of the United Kingdom served to a greater degree to strengthen the bonds between London and her loyal step-children in Belfast. After the civil war the IRA was more of a nuisance than a threat. Their internal security, as their Fenian predecessors' had been except in Collins' time, was flawed. They did not enjoy strong popular support and they remained an illegal organization in the south. Hence as an organization they were largely ineffective; and, as individuals many IRA members spent many years from the end of the civil war to the 1950's in Irish jails for their illegal activities. After World War II the leadership began to reform and to orient towards the north. Then in 1956 the IRA initiated a poorly organized, disjointed border campaign which consisted primarily of cross-border raids and ambushes which did little to win popular support on either side of the border. This effort was so effectively neutralized that some authorities mistakenly believed that the IRA had ceased to exist. Disorganized, perhaps disintegrating, defeated, and dormant, they were. Dead they were not.2 As the IRA recuperated from its escape from death, new leadership emerged with a Marxist bent more oriented toward indirect political action than the traditional republican method of direct military action. The Officials saw in the ghettoes of Belfast and Londonderry the necessary combination of discrimination and social and economic deprivation so vital to their revolutionary movement and their goal of a united Ireland - a united socialist state. They were looking beyond the Catholic areas to the neighboring and equally depressed Protestant ghettoes hoping to unite the workers regardless of religion in their cause. The Officials' ultimate goal was a united Ireland, but not the same one aspired to by Tone, Pearse, or Collins.3 The conditions in Northern Ireland in the sixties were ripe for social unrest; however, with communal discord of such historic depth and religious animosity which took on a decidedly racial nature, it is unlikely that a "workers' movement" could ever transcend sectarian lines. Raymond J. Helmick, S.J., in his 1973 article, "Hope For Northern Ireland???" explains further: If we examine the last fifty years in Northern Ireland politically, we find only a stagnating polarization. The frozen state of Northern politics has generally produced nothing more than a paralyzed apathy on the part of both communities, a kind of apathy never far removed from a flash point of violence. The violence in Ireland came out periodically in civil riots and border raids conducted against customs houses, police stations and military depots by the Irish Republican Army, the embittered "last ditchers" who remained over from the earlier struggle for Irish independence.4 Discrimination by the Protestant majority in every conceiv- able form was at the heart of the issue, and many of the discriminatory procedures were wholly legal under the laws of Northern Ireland. On the national scale voting rights were equally applied with each citizen of voting age having one vote, but this caused the Protestant powers in Stormont little concern. The two-thirds popular Protestant majority ensured the political majority at Stormont; thus, the Unionists had no need to resort to political tricks on that level. Resort they did, however, below that at the local level. In local elections at the county or urban council level different rules applied. Only householders, the person who actually owned real estate had the franchise. Thus, a prosperous individual both in theory and practice had as many votes as houses he owned and could vote in any and all localities where he owned property. His tenants could not. Few Catholics owned property, so fewer voted locally. Conse- quently, through such electoral restrictions and judicious gerrymandering Protestants were able to dominate local governments and urban councils even in those counties and cities where the Catholics were in the majority.5 Economically and socially the discrimination was more blatant. Some have compared the plight of the Ulster Catholic to the American Black. The racial suggestion and the conditions match in many respects as Alfred Alcorn, a native of Belfast and a Protestant, described in 1971: The Catholic working class areas in Belfast and Derry ... include some of the worst slums in western Europe. Large families are piled into squalid redbrick row houses with inadequate plumbing. The physical environment in these places is reminiscent of a prison camp. Unem- ployment is high and frequently it's the mother who must work - usually for a pittance - to keep the family going. The police are largely Protestant and justice has an orange flavor. The better jobs in government and private industry go to Protestants because they control both. For the past several generations, simply by being a working class Catholic ... one was doomed to a niggerdom not dissimilar to that faced by blacks in the United States.6 If one changed the words "Catholics" and "Protestants" to "Blacks" and "Whites" and picked any two large urban areas in the United States regardless of region, the preceding quote could well have described the situation in America at the start of the Civil Rights movements of the 1950's and early 1960's. Though not tainted by the color of their religion, poor Protestants shared similarly degrading conditions in their ghettoes. Nevertheless their total circumstance by virtue of their religion could never counterbalance the Catholics' experience in the area of social, economic and religious discrimination. Out of their common poverty arose perhaps one of the few understandable points of contention in the whole troubled affair. These poor Protestants competed with the poor Catholics for whatever lesser jobs were available. Thus, they saw the Catholics in much the same light as Catholic South Bostonians view the black Roxbury school- children who are bussed to schools in their neighborhoods. In fact the attitudinal comparisons between the religion- based issues in Belfast correspond remarkably to the forced bussing issue in Boston. Ironically the predominantly Irish Catholic residents of South Boston most closely resemble the Protestants in Belfast in their unyielding defiance of law and by their embattled minority disposition. As Ulster stood transfixed in time, old wounds festered consuming what paltry new medicines progressive thought might bring while simultaneously building greater immunity. Only the dynamics of mass communication could penetrate the stagnant atmosphere of thought and social action in Northern Ireland: this it did with dramatic impact in the sixties. Concerned citizens on both sides watched with interest as the civil rights movement in the United States evolved. "Following the example of American blacks, a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association* was founded in 1968. This aimed to use public protests and marches to focus British and internatinal attention upon the problems of Ulster Catholics." to assist in bringing about necessary social, economic and political reform.7 Strangely, as Clutterbuck explains, the success of the movement and the legitimate attempts of the Stormont government to correct the inequities had an aggravating rather than ameliorating effect. The situation which led to the explosion of the Province into violence in 1969 arose, not because oppression and discrimination were at a peak, but because they had begun to be erased ... When things began to move the Northern Irish Catholics wanted them to move faster, while the hardline Protestants wanted to check the move altogether.8 *Hereafter referred to in text as NICRA Politics proved Clutterbuck's apparent contradiction. Prime Minister Terrence O'Neill who had the courage to initiate reform and to open channels with the Dublin Government lost the support of the Protestand right and ultimately resigned under pressure from the same quarter. Rising Catholic expectations brought rising Protestant fears. The civil rights movement in Northern Ireland began quietly enough with a peaceful march from Coalisland to Dungannon outside Belfast to bring attention to a housing discrimination case. It drew the interest and participation of several diverse elements: bonafide moderates, communists, radicals, some Members of Parliament, university students among whom was an unknown young woman by the name of Bernadette Devlin, and members of the Official IRA. After this march the movement fell victim to internal disagreement and power struggles over tactics. The moderate founders preferred to continue the non-violent protests and to force change from within the system. The increasingly more powerful and more numerous extremists favored more direct confrontation with the authorites. As the next march would demonstrate, the moderates inexorably gave way to the proponents of confrontation.9 The next march came in Londonderry on October 5, 1968, and established an ominous portent of things to come. From this point on marches, countermarches or reactions to either or both would consistently spark future violence. In this instance NICRA had properly requested permission to conduct their march but had tipped their confrontational hand in designating a route of march into a Protestant area, something frowned upon by the authorities for sound reasons and by the Protestant inhabitants of Londonderry for less noble ones. When the Protestant Apprentice Boys of Londonderry subsequently filed a march application for the same day to the same point, the Minister of Home Affairs in an unprecedented, preemptive move prohibited any marches for that date.10 This seemingly wise move had a wholly unintended and adverse effect. Clutterbuck explains this contradiction as well: This prohibition attracted more publicity than the march would otherwise have gained. Up till then, there had been a marked lack of enthusiasm amongst moderate Catholics who realized that its leadership had passed to extremists with whom they had little sympathy. The Government intervention, however, in the face of the threat of the Apprentice Boys General Committee, was much resented and drew many who would not otherwise have attended. The press and television descended upon Londonderry in force.11 The stage could not have been more perfectly set by the NICRA stage directors themselves both for the violent effect and the media impact desired. Anticipating that the police would intervene the NICRA marchers advanced on an alternate route which the police soon blocked with its reserve. The batons came out. The police cracked a few heads. NICRA speakers responded with inflammatory speeches, and the crowd with rocks and other articles. The police over-reacted and attacked the crowd which "found their escape blocked by another RUC detachment coming in behind them". The police erred on both accounts; however, with the latter blunder more a result of poor communication than flawed tactical design. With emotions stirred to new heights communal rioting started and continued into the night and the next day injuring 18 policemen and 77 civilians.12 The precedent was set. The familiar script appeared again and again. The police knew that any unchecked confrontation would be a bloodbath. They also knew who would be the aggressor. On November 30, sound police work averted a potential disaster in Armagh. The now famous Reverend Ian Paisley had organized the Protestant counter-action to a scheduled NICRA march. As his "gentle congregation" arrived for their "christian observance" the police moved in and confiscated "two revolvers and 220 other weapons such as billhooks, pipes hammered into sharp points and scythes. Other demonstrators were seen to be armed with cudgels, some of which were studded with nails."13 Wisely the police had simultaneously diverted the civil rights marchers, and this particular march ended without confrontation. Probably the extremists on neither side were happy. 1969 was a critical year. NICRA would retain center stage and achieve confrontation like it had never seen before. Waiting and impatiently watching in the Official IRA were a group of impatient understudies envious of NICRA's position, aching for direct military action and growing more disenchanted by the day with the leftward political drift of their organization. Belfast and Londonderry are about seventy-three miles apart. NICRA started 1969 with a march which left Belfast on New Year's Day destined for Londonderry. All along the route Paisley's followers set ambushes, creating numerous clashes during the first three days. They were ready again on the fourth day waiting "in a well-suited ambush position at Burntollet Bridge some six miles south of Londonderry, where they had stacked missiles in the form of stones, bottles and pieces of iron".14 They also carried their trusty cudgels. NICRA got confrontation. The Paisleyites' ambush inflicted enough injuries that eighty-seven marchers had to be hospitalized. The majority of the marchers continued, joined by large numbers of local supporters as they entered Londonderry. Estimates put their numbers as high as 2,000. More rocks, bottles and missiles flew ending the march and creating for both sides the desired effects. The Protestants had bashed some "Taigs", and NICRA had worldwide front-page copy for the better part of four days. Future events continued to please both groups. On the political scene Prime Minister O'Neill's valiant efforts to walk the moderate middle ground between these opposing factions succumbed to overwhelming right wing Protestant pressure. Consequently, he resigned and gave way to a government oriented along more traditional Protestant lines. Predictably violence erupted again in July, the month in which the annual commemoration of the great Protestant victory at Boyne in 1690 occurred. Londonderry, once again, figured prominently as it would to an even greater degree the next month. The communal disorder spread throughout the province affecting such places as Lurgan, Omagh, Dungannon and, as always, Belfast. In August the troubles burst anew in the mutually supporting hotspots of Belfast and Londonderry. The disturbances in Belfast were the worst the city had seen in thirty years and started with Catholic initiated stone throwing.15 Clutterbuck describes what ensued: Protestant marchers retaliated by attacking a block of flats known as Unity Walk. They smashed windows, looted shops and threw petrol bombs. Barricades were thrown up. Youngsters overturned cars and set some alight. Troops moved into the Falls Road area on 15 August and in September prevented Protestant attempts to invade it from the Shankhill Road district by erecting a Peace Line.16 Londonderry burned even hotter. August 12 commemorated the relief of Londonderry by the Apprentice Boys in 1689. Like the Boyne celebrations of July, the festivities featured orange marches, flag waving and speeches whose implied intent was to remind the Catholics of the past and to intimidate them in the present. With assurances from the leaders on both sides and mindful of their error of the previous October, the authorities allowed the march to take place. The route of march did not cross through any Catholic area but it did wind through the city and around the walls of the Catholic Bogside area. What they did not know, however, was that the Catholics had organized the Bogside area into defensive areas and were prepared to defend against any intrusion. "As an indication of what was coming, dairymen reported that very few milk bottles were put out for collection in the Bogside on 10 and 11 August. There were none on the 12th."17 On that day a battle started and raged until the 14th. This confrontation was significant for several reasons. First, it demonstrated the inability of the RUC to effectively control communal rioting in the cities. They were numerically inadequate and overmatched, undertrained, and almost completely Protestant. Next, it marked the first time security forces used CS gas not just in Northern Ireland but within the United Kingdom. Finally, for the first time British troops had to be called in and were warmly greeted by the Catholic Bogsiders.18 Across the province it had equally important but more specific consequences. For the first time in the modern era communal rioting had brought death. Ten died, 154 others received gunshot wounds, and a total of 745 people were injured. The B Specials, a reserve paramilitary force, acted more like Paisleyites than a backup police force; they were responsible for much of the violence. Both the RUC and the B Specials lost any credibility in Catholic eyes. As a direct result the former were disarmed and relegated to duties in other than Catholic areas. The B Specials were officially disbanded. Lastly, the outbreak of violence, particularly the Protestant raids into Catholic areas, discredited and embarrassed the IRA.19 The violence had exposed their military impotence. By one account only 22 IRA weapons were in Belfast; thus, the IRA could not provide the basic defense of the Catholic neighborhoods that was implied in their charter. Slogans such as "IRA - I RAN AWAY' were daubed on the walls. Militant members of the IRA were furious at the humiliation."20 This humiliation drove the final wedge between the militants and the Official IRA leadership and ultimately gave birth to the Provisional IRA in December 1969. The rift had been developing since 1962. Within the IRA in the sixties the core of traditional direct action proponents remained intact and largely dissatisfied with the leftist, political approach of the Official IRA. As the civil rights marches became more confrontational, the IRA militants unsuccessfully sought a more direct approach. The leaders, however, did not want to alienate the Protestant workers they hoped to coopt. Sean MacStiofain, who would later become Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA, described his frustration. "I had kept patience long enough. The Irish Republican Army had been bogged down in politics to the point where young girls from the Northern universities had left it far behind in revolutionary initiative."21 Bernadette Devlin, the most famous of "the young girls to whom MacStiofain referred, rose to prominence during the civil rights marches of the late sixties. Her political rise presents an interesting perspective from which to view the political issues which strained the unity of the IRA during the same period. MacStiofain and his followers envied her for her headlines and for her successful more direct approach. The Official IRA saw her as a living example which vindicated their shift towards a more politically oriented movement and as irrefutable proof that the time for the IRA's longstanding practice of political abstentionism had long since passed. The issue was put to a vote at the December 1969 Army Convention, an annual gathering of the military side of the IRA, and the proponents of the new political approach emerged victorious.22 The losers withdrew and issued the following statement: We declare our allegiance to the 32-County Irish Republic proclaimed at Easter, 1916, established by the first Dail Eineann in 1919, overthrown by force of arms in 1922 and suppressed to this day by the existing British-imposed Six-County and 26-County partition states.23 The following month on January 11, 1970, a vote on the same issue at Sinn Fein's Ard Fheis, the annual political convention, failed to reverse the policy. Consequently the traditional Republicans walked out and the Provisional IRA was born. The Provisional IRA offered a somewhat novel political policy which called for four regional parliaments, one for each of the historic four provinces, but which at the same time had a somewhat socialistic bent. As an organization the IRA had five basic objectives which they first issued publicly on September 6, 1971. The IRA wanted the British Government to cease its violence, abolish Stormont, agree to the regional paralimentary scheme, release all Irish political prisoners both in England and Ireland and finally to compensate those who had suffered financial loss at British expense.24 Essentially these were the same five demands the Provo's would present when they finally and briefly came to the negotiating table in July, 1972. MacStiofain as the newly elected Chief of Staff of the newly formed Provisional IRA* took the managerial initiative in 1970, immediately established a six county Northern Command, and initiated a plan to organize, arm and execute a three-phase guerrilla campaign. Initially they would concentrate most where they had just been most embarrassed - area defense of the Catholic areas. As MacStiofain writes in his autobiography, "All our energies would be devoted to *For the remainder of the text IRA and Provisional IRA are synonymous. The Official IRA will be addressed as such. providing material, financial and training assistance for the Northern units. The objective was to ensure that if any area where such a unit existed came under attack ... that unit would ... be capable of adequate defensive action." The second phase would combine "defense and retalia- tion."25 Naturally the final phase would be the traditional guerrilla war of movement against the British intended not so much to drive the British out as "to render the existing state inoperable."26 Nowhere in the stated strategy did the IRA outline their plan to obtain popular support among the Catholics. Whether they overlooked the need, assumed they already had support or believed that it would follow in natural progression, the type of committed popular support necessary to win a guerrilla war never fully materialized despite the IRA's alternatingly best and worse efforts to "protect" the Catholic community. In 1970 the Provisional IRA organized along the traditional Republican lines, essentially a military structure. At the top a Provisional Executive of twelve provided political leadership, cultivated and coordinated external support, and influenced the strategies employed. A seven-man Provisional Army Council coordinated military operations led by a chief of staff selected from within the council by the council members.27 Under the chief of staff was a "GHQ staff who [were responsible for] ... such areas as intelligence, supplies and finance."28 The IRA was not, as many writers on the subject have said, blessed with leaders of any great intellectual capacity unlike most movements which consider themselves revolutionary. They did, however, have strong survival instincts and a practical understanding of what was important. After forming the leadership "one of the first things done was to appoint a Supply Department under a Quartermaster General. For security they operated as a watertight section, keeping details of those they dealt with very much to them- selves."29 Security and logistics were from the outset fundamentally and vitally important to their cause. Below the GHQ level were the companies, battalions and brigades which formed an underground military structure, each with an assigned area of responsibility. At the lowest level "individual operations [were] invariably carried out by small 'active service units' or ASU's, consisting of less than half a dozen men."30 In order to make this structure viable, the first task, as MacStiofain and his staff knew, was to organize, arm and train. Implied in this task was the need for money and externally based support. Many factors combined to favor the IRA. The Marxist philosophy of the Official IRA leaders did not have strong grassroots support within the IRA nor among the Irish in general. After the events of 1969 demonstrated the Officials' inability or reluctance to provide the protection many had assumed they would naturally provide, the appeal of a direct action oriented IRA drew support within the North from two main sources - those who wanted protection and those who wanted retaliation. There were plenty of both. Thus, within a relatively short period the majority of Catholic support had shifted to the Provisional IRA. Similar shifts to even greater proportions occurred in the United States and Canada where civil rights and Irish movements drew astounding support from even less well-informed and romantic sympathizers. Such sympathetic groups have existed in various forms on both sides dating back almost to the earliest immigrations. Few argue the existence of such groups; however, even fewer can identify the actual sources and channels of IRA funds. Recently in 1981 a New York federal court found the Irish Northern Aid Committee (NORAID), a New York based Irish support organization, in violation of the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act for failing to register as an agent for the IRA. Yet other older, less publicized organizations and sources play a greater role. Those closer to the Irish movement readily point out that the majority of funds and support moves through older groups like Clan na Gael or the Red Hand of Ulster, or are simply passed through family connections. Catholic support funnels in through points in Ireland and then overland to the North. The Protestant support is ferried across the Irish Sea from its intermediate stop in Scotland. Support came from other directions as well. Provis- ional leaders, like Sean MacStiofain had shared space in Wormwood Scrubbs Prison in England with Cypriot guerrillas and had also shared tactical lessons.31 This friendship, aside from its educational value, later took the form of external support. Later the IRA would establish more international contacts in the expanding terror network of the seventies; however, in this early stage of its development it relied heavily on its traditionally strongest sources: the Republic, the United States, Canada and of course the Catholic ghettoes of Londonderry and Belfast. The IRA organization was based on a "three-tier defence structure" according to MacStiofain. Regulars formed the first tier and were the general purpose forces of the IRA. On the second level were the auxillaries who constituted a quasi-ready reserve with the mobility to augment defensive Click here to view image operations when and where needed. The third tier was the local neighborhood defense committees; they had a purely defensive mission and an area of responsibility limited to the street or block where they lived. In the event of a combined effort all knew and understood that they came under the command of the IRA local OC.32 Bell described the organization in its geographic sense. Belfast's religious segregation meant that Catholic areas were safe ground, organized by local men and protected by their neighbors, who were in turn protected by the local IRA company. The city was divided into three battalion areas and commanded by a brigade staff, directed in general terms by the seven-man Army Council and the GHQ Staff in Dublin. There was a large unit in Derry and smaller groups scattered about the province, but the key was Belfast.33 The OC who commanded a given area was responsible for any activities within his boundaries. Implicit in this fundamental task was a sizable coordination problem, particularly in a city like Belfast. Uncoordinated inde- pendent action at any level or among any of the numerous IRA-sympathetic groups could thwart or preempt planned military operations. The OC was a jack-of-all trades: leader, trainer, tactician, politician and recruiter. The Battalion OC selected his company OC's, theoretically on their respective merits, capabilities and loyalty to the movement. Daily communications allowed the company OC to report his unit's actions and to receive pertinent instruc- tions from higher headquarters. Community relations was another additional duty of the OC. The IRA supported youth and local activities insofar as they did not detract from command responsibilities. Finally, as reflects the IRA's necessary preoccupation with security, the OC was the only officer other than the quartermaster or his assistant who knew the locations of arms and ammunition dumps in his area.34 The Adjutant functioned as the second-in-command and ensured that the company or ASU operated daily. By way of comparison to American military organization, he served as a combination chief-of-staff/operations officer; thus, he figured prominently in such vital areas as discipline, morale and selection of members for specific operations.35 Consistent with the emphasis already seen at the GHQ level, the Quartermaster was one of the most important members of the staff. Consequently, both he and his opera- tions were a matter of highest security. The arms and supplies, except for those related to demolitions, came under his cognizance, as did the responsibility for their placement, storage and local security. Dump selection was not a simple process in the city and the Quartermaster made his site selections only after a careful and thorough update on enemy activity in their area from the Intelligence Officer. Once chosen, dumps were governed by strict rules of use and access and were planned from the start as only short-term holding areas. Thus, the Quartermaster constantly watched for signs that a dump was becoming too visible; hence, both he and his assistant were constantly searching for and evaluating future dump sites.36 As any who have experienced guerrilla warfare at any level will attest, intelligence takes on even greater importance for both sides. The IRA intelligence apparatus reflected that basic understanding. The Intelligence Officer was the most important staff officer in the unit. As previously mentioned, he worked closely with the Quartermaster on logistics security. Other responsibilities included screening prospective recruits; this required a detailed form of background investigation to ensure that undesirables or "Touts" did not infiltrate the movement. He also monitored the activities of off-duty members as a security precaution against loose talk or excessive drinking, which often led to the former. Operationally the Intelligence Officer was the linchpin who provided tactical intelligence from his comprehensive general files and from his specific-mission collection capability.37 Each company also had an Engineer who was the unit demolitions expert. Some engineers were home-grown veterans of the Border Campaign of 1956-1962; others were sometimes veterans of service in the British Army. Essentially a special staff officer, the Engineer taught all aspects of demolitions and booby traps and was responsible for logistics planning and acquisition in his specific area. In the same manner as the Quartermaster but independent from him, the Engineer established his own dump sites which by necessity required different physical specifications but similar security procedures. Like the Quartermaster, he sometimes had an assistant.38 The OC delegated the greater portion of his training responsibility to the Training Officer, whose training mission was far broader than the Engineer's. His was no cursory training package. For each weapon in the unit's arsenal he taught all the steps from nomenclature, assembly and disassembly to immediate action, firing positions and advanced firing techniques. Inherent in his training mission was staff coordination with the Quartermaster to obtain weapons for training sessions and for use on specific operations.39 With this basically sound staff structure the Provisional IRA was able to capitalize further on their "fish in the sea" position through their perception and projection of themselves as guerrillas and through typical guerrilla ingenuity. Intelligence drove the action. Using information available to the public such as ordnance survey maps, electoral registers, street directories and telephone books, the Intelligence Officer scrubbed these sources for their considerable intelligence value and organized his information into five files: military, police, economic, civilian and paramilitary.40 No doubt the skilled Intelligence Officer effectively cross-referenced his files and kept them constantly up-to-date. The beauty and simplicity of this system is astounding. For example, armed with these tools the intelligence officer could identify nembers of the RUC, determine if they were married or had children of voting age, age, address, phone number, etc. all within the secure confines of his home. From this detailed pencil sketch direct surveillance made coloring the subject a simple paint-by-the-numbers process which often led the IRA to become more familiar with the target, his movements and the target area than the victim, himself, who along with his family may have lived in that house or neighborhood for years or, not uncommonly, for generations. Surveillance provided the hard, tactical data. Human targets unwittingly betrayed often fatal information. The IRA noted things such as color and make of car, companions, children, patterns of movement, favorite pubs or recreational spots and other seemingly innocuous data. For point targets such as police stations and army forts, the IRA required similarly keen surveillance. The company attempted to maintain current situation maps of their assigned sector and enlarged specific area maps highlighted to reflect known sentry positions, entrances, watch towers and their own best observation sites. The details extended to noting power lines, sewers and water supply lines into each facilty.41 Human and vehicular activity added significantly to the intelligence mosaic. IRA observers counted vehicles entering and leaving, noted times, recorded descriptions of any private vehicles and identified when possible contents of trucks and any civilians known to work within or have access to any of the facilities.42 A change in pattern of vehicular traffic or an unfamiliar face or unit designation might tip an operation or signal a rotation of units. For patrolling soldiers any carelessly repetitive tactic or habit if too ingrained could make them or their patrol the next target of an IRA sniper or ambush. Thus, the IRA combined both active and passive surveillance measures to illuminate their targets. The intelligence derived from surveillance, standing files and situation maps provided the figurative IRA cameraman sufficient light to confidently take his photographs at the slowest shutter speed and thus obtain prints both high in quality and rich in detail. While the IRA bought time and enjoyed their intelligence advantage in 1970, the security forces intelligence was out-of-date. As the intelligence war goes, the security forces inadequacy magnified the IRA's efficiency. Both the RUC and the British army initially lacked the required number of skilled intelligence personnel needed to build their own network or to impede the IRA's.43 They were also more prone to wrestle over the intelligence issue rather than effectively resolve it. Initially they did not share necessary information. Also numerous adjustment difficulties arose for the British security forces who were under Stormont's control.44 Priorities came into play here also. In 1970 though aware of the IRA's existence and general philosophy, the security forces, particularly the army after their warm greeting, may have seen their principal threat and most likely enemy avenue of approach as coming from the Shankhill side of the "Peace Line" in the form of the Ulster Volunteer Force. With attention thus diverted elsewhere, the IRA grew as it had never grown before. Clutterbuck reports that "between July 1970 and January 1971 Provo strength grew from a few hundred, often self-selected, volunteers to a thousand. There were arms, often ill-matched and insuf- ficient, explosives, often primitive and unstable, and vast enthusiasm."45 This influx of personnel while clearly advantageous did pose two major problems. It presented the threat to security from infiltration, and it offered a challenge of huge proportions in terms of training. Units did their own recruiting locally; thus, the OC as an implied task under his security mission had to screen recruits. The Intelligence Officer had staff cognizance for recruit background investigations which were very thorough when properly conducted. Aside from the normal data like name, age, and address, the Intelligence Officer would check out old addresses, drinking spots, past criminal record and anything else that might pique his experienced curiosity. Until the recruit gained the initial clearance he was kept out of contact with other members or grouped with other recruits of similar status in a holding section. Once cleared they moved onto the training cycle.46 The training program encompassed both centralized army level and decentralized unit level training. In 1974 the Institute for the Study of Conflict described the former: In the north training (took) place in Repub- lican strongholds, or in remote areas on farms, beaches, and woodlands. In the south training took place in Monaghan, the Donegal/Londonderry border, the Dublin area and the Wicklow mountains. Usually less than 30 members are trained at any one time in a camp. Instructors are usually IRA members living in the Republic. Recruits usually undergo a week's training in small arms, target practice, demolition techniques and fieldcraft. There are advanced courses for more experienced members which include bomb-making, handling machine-guns and rocket launchers.47 Unit level training was more related to specific missions or proficiency and took place locally in "training houses." Training sessions required strict security which generally included lookouts, staggered arrival and departure intervals, prestaging of the requisite training aids and weapons in the vicinity of the house with a correspondingly secure retrieval plan and the deliberate practice of having the Training Officer depart first at least five minutes ahead of any member.48 The training program had a superficial aspect stemming partly from the tremendous influx of new members and the complexities of urban guerrilla warfare; hence, this explains in part some of the later "ghastly errors of timing and inefficiency"49 which occurred. According to Coogan, the British referred to this phenomenon as the "Paddy Factor."50 It was trial and error. The IRA soldier either learned fast or became the well-remembered object of an IRA funeral. The "Paddy Factor" was a legitimate IRA concern. Their front-line soldiers were: young, working class, limited in vision and experience, very often cut off from central direction by the duress of circumstance, and had to rely therefore on 'targets of oppor- tunity' or personal initiative. These last two circumstances in particular were sometimes responsible for awful tragedies of bungled warnings as to bomb explosions, or for the unforseen tragedies.51 Nevertheless, the endless progression of detonations in Northern Ireland and England since 1969, the continued existence of the IRA and the continued presence of the British army in Northern Ireland in a counterinsurgency role indicate that many ambushes, bombings and sniper attacks have from the IRA perspective been successful despite the "Paddy Factor," a variable that has diminished considerably through better training, tactics and equipment. IRA tactical doctrine reflects standard military practices, is sound and has proven to be adaptable. When time allows every move is based on detailed planning. Ambushes are precisely detailed, much like raids, to include: primary and alternate positions, cover for automatic weapons if used, specific weapons for specific targets, routes to the position, time of attack, duration and planned withdrawal routes posted and covered. Bombings are even more complex. Unfortunately for many innocent people as well as the security forces trying to protect them, the IRA has mastered the complexities and even refined some. In the early period ASU's carried cat these operations with a simple task organization comprised of driver, engineer, and required covermen. Their operations checklist included: a route reconnaissance in the form of a dry run to detect any British checkpoints or patrols; inspection and test-firing of weapons; ignition and re-ignition of vehicles as a cursory safeguard against mechanical failure and a final check on fuel so they did not run out of petrol as some had done before. They were cognizant of a "Lessons Learned" analysis of each operation. The engineer, of course, worked his own pre-operations checklist for his specialty.53 Since the cars were usually stolen or "borrowed" from a waiting hostage, the ASU was instructed to wear gloves. Consequently British vehicle check procedures soon included among other items on their aide de memoire the question, "Is the driver wearing gloves?" Procedures at the bombsite were precise: cover the movement in; capture, isolate and restrict hostages or witnesses while the engineer placed the bomb; deliver instructions to those being held; conduct a circumspect, covered withdrawal followed by a calm drive to a pre-arranged drop off site preferably away from their home area. After a debrief the OC disbanded the ASU, issued necessary instructions, and reported results and any infor- mation gained to higher headquarters.54 The fortunes of war mostly in the form of attrition due to accidents and arrests led the IRA to develop different tactics like the car bomb and the use of proxy drivers while simultaneous technological advances made bombs more sophisticated, delivery and detonation easier, and the engineer an even more highly valued and protected human asset. Richard Clutterbuck, drawing on George Styles' Bombs Have No Pity, describes a more accurate picture of later IRA bomb operations. Many more people (are) involved ... than those who actually lay the bomb and who usually get caught. First, there is the designer, a back- room boy far too valuable to risk on the operation ... Next in line is the man who assembles the bomb and its container; his particular skill is in camouflage, so that it looks like an innocuous hold-all or shopping bag. Then there is the electrician, who assembles the firing circuits and, in a sophisticated bomb, inserts some anti-handling device; his skills lie not only in the undetectability and effectiveness of his current, but also in arranging a simple and foolproof means of arming it or putting it into operation such as can be done by the relatively unskilled bomb layer in a tense situation without arousing suspicion.55 The latter task was the counter-Paddy Factor. As Clutterbuck described, the technicians are behind the scenes non-operators. The overall coordinator is the bomb officer who will designate "one or two bomb layers with a driver, ... the exact route, where to park and "how to get away, and precisely what time to place the bomb." As in other tactical doctrine, pre-positioned lookouts or covering gunmen as necessary might be employed. As the execution phase starts, the bomb officer's final decision is then made: when, if and how a warning will be issued.56 The sniper attack was an IRA standby which was, despite the best intelligence and planning, at first ineffective. Several factors contributed, not the least of which was poor marksmanship. The British on the other hand were superior in marksmanship, equipment and counter-sniper tactics. The IRA snipers simplified the British mission by firing too long, "up to an hour or more" by MacStiofain's account, from a known position.57 In this employment the IRA sniper was easy target practice for the highly-skilled British snipers. It was no great act of tactical genius then that the IRA modified their tactics. MacStiofain deduced that: Prolonged sniping from a static position had no more in common with guerrilla theory than mass confrontations. When a sniper did that he was giving away his location and presenting himself as a target to a counter-sniper or machine-gun fire from armoured cars.58 Out of this came the "one shot sniping" approach which when later conducted by true marksmen raised the British's level of respect for the IRA sniper. To develop the marksmen the IRA began to take the high shooter from each marksmanship course and immediately place him in an advanced marksmanship course. They would then take the top two shooters in the latter course, pair them into a sniper team and train them as such.59 They were drilled to fire one well aimed shot and then move along a predesignated escape route dumping or handing off the weapon enroute. They knew that the delay for a second or third shot might be all the counter-sniper needed to accomplish his mission or all the time the well-drilled security forces would require to block escape routes with another of their usually mutually supporting patrols which was not under ambush. With these doctrinal concepts, their orgainization fleshing out and their training program attempting to keep pace, the IRA in 1970 was fully content to concentrate on the first phase of their strategy: area defense. They were buying time and not in any particular hurry to rush open conflict with the British. Bell noted that: Until January 1971, the British army was still tolerated, though not welcomed as it had been a year before, and some Provo units even cooperated informally in keeping the peace. By that time, however, there had been a largely unnoticed change husbanded by the leadership, was about to be revealed.60 Since August 1969, and the British army's assuming the security functions formerly the domain of the police, many factors had conspired to the advantage of the IRA. Intelligence was weak or non-existent. "The network of informers (had broken) down in 1969 when the army held the ring and no one patrolled the ghettoes."61 This tacit acceptance of the so called "no go" areas stemmed from faulty intelligence and threat assessment. Tony Geraghty corroborates the early intelligence problem in his book, Inside the SAS, "Intelligence available to the incoming troops was scarce and inaccurate. At the time, the total resources devoted to the entire province comprised one Intelligence Corps Captain and one Sergeant."62 Also, in contrast to the warm reception of the Catholics, the militant posture of the UVH caused the army to be "more concerned with Protestant than Catholic guns at this time."63 To that end the British constructed "Peace Lines" to separate Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in Belfast and Londonderry and "patrolled the countryside between the Glens of Antrim and the Mourne Mountains to establish whether the Protestant gunrunning operations of 1914 - when the Ulster Volunteers landed 3,500 rifles at Larne might be repeated."64 Throughout this troubled period the UVF and other Protestant extremist groups had been in the midst of or impatiently standing on the periphery of the war in Northern Ireland. As the seventies started the only Protestant terror group of any prominence was the Ulster Volunteer Force, UVF, related in name only to the "Volunteers" of Carson's era. Known to be active as early as 1966, it was proscribed in the same year. Its primary tactic, like the IRA's, was terror. It was loosely organized along military lines, had uniforms and conducted regular training sessions. They supported themselves via criminal activities and protection rackets which was also similar to their Catholic rival's modus operandi. Many of their arms were World War II vintage or earlier. Their newer arms were generally stolen in "raids on arms dealers, the UDR and rifle clubs." Like the IRA again, they were extremely security conscious and well-hidden within the much larger and equally supportive Protestant sea. Their single objective was "to destroy the IRA and to uphold the constitution of Ulster 'by force if necessary'." Thus, the UVF presented an interesting paradox of an illegal organization fighting for constitutional integrity with the threat and actual use of illegal force.65 Closely identified with and often mistaken for the UVF is the Ulster Defense Association, UDA, which first appeared in the Shankhill area of Belfast in August 1971. In theory it differed from the UVF. "The UVF [was] illegal while the ... [UDA] had solid links with the Loyalist Association of Workers ... and William Craig's Vanguard movement." It was organized along geographic lines with eight "company" sectors in Belfast. The UDA also differed in its stated purpose which was to retain their (Ulster's) ties to Britain and maintain Protestant ascendancy. While heavily armed they were for the most part legally armed.67 And, though not openly espousing terrorism, "some of its fitful violence has differed little from that of the UVF."66 To the British "peacekeepers" these groups, not the IRA, were the threat in 1969 and on into 1970. Hence, when the attitude of the Catholic population shifted and then the Provisional IRA rose out of their midsts, the security forces were not fully prepared. Chapter 3 FROM GUARDIANS TO INVADERS - AN UNTIMELY CHANGE OF MISSION Maybe we cannot understand this thing That makes these rebels die; And yet all things love freedom and the Spring Clear in the sky! I would not do this deed again For all that I hold by; Gaze down my rifle at his breast - but then A soldier I. Thoughts of a Welsh "Tommy" who was a member of the firing squad that executed James Connolly in May 1916 as written by Liam MacGowan, a contemporary Irish poet in "Connolly." If the combined forces of the factors which helped the IRA during their build-up and the diversion provided by the Protestants were not enough of a challenge for the British army, that of a conventional force trying to intervene as a peacekeeping one certainly was. Yet as the RUC and B Specials were discredited, one disarmed and the other completely disbanded, the British were compelled to assume their role. Even before, their mission was a classic "no wind situation. Positioned as a neutral third force between the Catholics and Protestants, they could satisfy neither. The polarity that existed was so extreme that even legitimate actions appeared partisan in the eyes of the opposing faction. Whether the forces in Northern Ireland fully realized it at the time, as they assumed the police function their neutrality expired. Their position was similar to that of a referee trying to officiate a contest in which he is also a participant, an impossible task despite his qualifications. So, as June 1970, and marching season approached, the IRA was buying time while the British army struggled to retain its image as the officiating third force and simultaneously enter the match. By June 1970 the British Army, having assumed the majority of the police function for the Catholic areas, was "seriously overstretched" and unable to control all areas of the cities.1 In fact, they allowed both sides free rein within "no go" areas in their respective sectors. In partial response the British fed in more troops. By this time, 17 battalions compared to the normal three were in Northern Ireland.2 On July 3, 1970, when the Army found a weapons cache in the Official IRA stronghold in the Falls Road area of Belfast, the situation in Ulster took a dramatic turn. The Officials took the British under fire and the local populace too responded against the British. Barricades went up. The British sent in more troops. Even the Provo's joined in. The British imposed a curfew and restricted public movement for the better part of three days while they conducted aggressive house to house searches. In a military sense the venture was successful as "over 100 guns were seized, along with 20,000 rounds of ammunition, 100 incendiary devices and 20 pounds of gelignite."3 But, for all intents and purposes, they had lost whatever remained of their mantle of neutrality, and what was a successful military operation paradoxically was simultaneously a political defeat. In this incident also they had killed four Catholic civilians,4 had restricted an entire area and searched homes, thus lending visible support to the IRA's description of them as foreign invaders and supporters of the Protestants. Clutterbuck describes two major results of this July confrontation. It brought the IRA Provisionals [in Bally- macarett ] into a direct shooting war before they had intended it. Secondly whether the soldiers knew it or not it drove the Catholic population to the IRA and effectively ended any role as "peacekeepers" they might have fulfilled to that point.5 For the remainder of 1970 the IRA attempted to return to their phase one objective - defense. If the IRA intentions were not clear after the unplanned firefight of 1970, both their intentions and their target became abundantly so on February 6 of the next year. In the early hours on that day a British patrol was ambushed "by snipers using machine guns." As a direct result, the British had their first KIA at the hands of the IRA in the modern era and an additional four wounded.6 MacStiofain and his army council had decided that now "it was time to move into a far more determined phase of retaliation, one of anti-personnel operations."7 Clutterbuck summarizes the plan in action. The Provisionals had declared war on the army. Within the next six months, seven soldiers were shot dead, including three who, off duty, were on 10 March lured into a pub and then shot in the back of the head. All were Scots and their murders could have only one purpose; to provoke the soldiers to overreact, thereby in turn whipping up public support for the IRA against them.8 If overreaction was the desired effect, the IRA did not immediately obtain its objective. Nevertheless, other results did follow and by any account have to be considered plusses for the terrorist side. On the political scale the selective terrorism campaign brought enough Unionist political pressure on the Prime Minister, Major James Chichester-Clark, that he chose to resign, an event which the IRA certainly considered a victory. In his article "The Security of Ulster," published in Conflict Studies in November 1971, Robert Moss gained his readers' attention by bluntly stating, "It is already clear that the IRA have succeeded in many of their tactical goals."9 Moss identified six IRA objectives: assass- ination of British soldiers; disruption of the government's economy and security through terror; sponsored riots and demonstrations; incitement of security forces and the Protestant community into violent overreaction and backlash which hopefully would impact on British national will; involvement of Dublin's government in the crisis ideally in an adversary role with Great Britain; and force emergency measures from the government that would be or appear repressive to the Catholic community.10 The IRA had achieved several of these by mid-1971. Soon they would gain more ground with the enactment by Stormont of internment without trial in August 1971, and then in 1972 they would gain a strategic victory of tremendous proportion when the British imposed direct rule. Despite their success the IRA faced a similar situation like their southern brethren in the Civil War earlier in the century--the might of the British Army. This army, however, was not inexperienced or psychologically unfit as were the "Black and Tans." It was better led and had come fully expecting that their stay would by necessity be a long one.11 It is unlikely that the IRA ever underestimated the British soldier or expected to drive him from Ireland by military force. But in their strategic concept of creating a failure of will in Great Britain proper or in Westminster in particular, the IRA had made a serious misjudgement. Also, though they were on a successful course to this point, their failure to truly win the "hearts and minds" of their people was about to be exposed by their own tactics. After the IRA saw that they could not draw the Army into the desired overreaction, they resorted to the old tactic - selective assassination. Of course, they would still pick off soldiers if the chance presented itself. They focused instead on "softer" targets using assassination and bombings. The RUC now became the target.12 The IRA could use local public directories to identify policemen, and then after a period of observation, would spring a well planned ambush. The statistics reveal their success. In 1969 and 1970, three RUC policemen had been killed and no Army or UDR personnel. In 1971, as a result of the IRA's selective terrorism campaign, the figures were 11 RUC and 48 Army/UDR respectively.13 However, the most casualties were suffered by the non-combatants and predominantly the Catholic non-combatants as a result of the bombing campaign. According to Clutterbuck, Only 33 civilians had been killed up to January 1971 but by March 1972 after fourteen months of the urban guerrilla campaign, this figure had reached 200, with over 3,000 injured.14 The majority were bombing victims whose only crime had been their presence in the wrong place at the wrong time. In addition to the human carnage and losses, tremendous physical damage occurred. Janke cites the bill for 1971-1972 attributable to bomb damage at 3.97 million pounds up from the 2.98 million the year before and from the 1.98 million in 1969-1970.15 Also no pattern to the bombing appeared once it started. Restaurants, shopping areas, bus stations and other soft targets seem to have been preferred. The frequency was astounding. For example, in 1971, "there were thirty-seven major bomb explosions in April, forty-seven in May, fifty in June and ninety-one in July."16 In other words, they ranged from daily to thrice daily occurrences. It was in using this violent tactic against such defenseless targets that many authorities believe the IRA started to alienate what legitimate support they did have within the Catholic population. Senseless and counter- productive as it appeared to be for the IRA, Clutterbuck postulates that the IRA bombing did have a purpose. The IRA Provisionals had spent one and a half years in planning, preparation and stocking up with arms and explosives, and during this time they had been studying the urban guerrilla classics--Carlos Marighella and Grivas. They knew that the urban guerrilla is most vulnerable to betrayal by the public amongst whom he lives and fights, and this can best be discouraged by fear--or terror.17 But logical an example as that sounds for what seems such a vicious and counterproductive tactic, at this time the IRA already controlled the Catholic areas by a mixture of fear, terror, and respect. Their objective was most probably unchanged: demonstrate the government's inability to govern, hope for over-reaction or repressive measures, strain the British national will and keep the Protestant community aroused. They succeeded in all these objectives. Repressive measures came before the year ended. Mr. Brian Faulkner, the Prime Minister, introduced internment without trial on August 9, 1971, one of the most controversial and, in retrospect, poor decisions of the entire period. It was a desperate measure by a government desperately trying to maintain its credibility and internal order. J. Bowyer Bell describes Stormont's and Westminster's conflicting and irreconcilable goals: What Stormont wanted was a sweep of known agitators and traitors, that is, visible Catholic troublemakers to humiliate the truculent minority - and incidentally hamper the IRA. What the British security forces wanted and what they told London they could not get was an effective sweep that would break the IRA ... Internment was a disaster.18 Robert Moss also describes its impact: Internment changed the whole political context of the terrorist campaign in the North. In military terms, it formalized the basic change in the army's role that had come about since it had first been brought in as a peacekeeping force in 1969. The British army was now committed to an offensive role designed to root out the IRA as an organization. Some 300 suspects were rounded up in the early hours of Monday, 9 August, but 70 of them were released shortly aterwards, and the dramatic appearance of Joe Cahill, the leader of the Provisionals in Belfast, at a crowded press conference a few days later showed that many of the IRA leaders had slipped through the net.19 Internment had not surprised the IRA. In fact, the IRA had expected that internment would have come much earlier. By MacStiofain's account, the IRA had seen and read the signals in the weeks prior to internment: there had been a vast intensification of British army intelligence work ..., which was noted in turn by Republican counter-intelligence. One symptom was increased activity by British army cameramen at funerals, demonstrations, and meetings. They were taking hundreds and hundreds of photographs ... But the photographs they were taking now were of individuals. Collated with other intelligence and the analysis of various bits of open information, it pointed to a big move being planned.20 As a further indicator starting on July 23 the British started a series of raids "all over the North" detaining and interrogating certain people. Finally, in observing the ports and airfields, the IRA had detected an increased influx of men and equipment.21 In the first stroke of internment the security forces arrested 342 people, most in the dark of night and in their homes, some in bed, and all Catholics.22 Of those arrested the IRA would claim that less than sixty had any IRA connections.23 Using Moss's figure of 70 whom he said were immediately released as a base, the British perception of what percentage had IRA connections was almost exactly opposite. Assuming error on either side, the clear losers were the security forces. Even if only a handful of innocent people had been incarcerated in this manner, no matter how swift their release, irrevocable damage would have been done. With the spectacle of at least seventy innocent people arrested in their homes at nights and the IRA still publically walking the streets in Belfast by day, internment provided the IRA with a lucrative propaganda item ideal for consumption at home, in the South, and abroad. As a direct result of internment, the IRA enjoyed its highest level of active popular support ever in the North.24 Aside from the severe loss on the propaganda front, the British did not lose all. If the major leaders escaped, some of the lesser ones did not, and some of them talked. A form of interogation known as "interrogation in depth", though highly controversial in the human rights arena25 and later discontinued by the British in part because of that controversy, proved highly effective on the twelve suspects selected.26 Armed with this intelligence and that which MacStiofain's counterintelligence network had previously noted being collected, the British were building the effective intelligence base which they had so sorely lacked. The potential security threat was MacStiofain's only serious concern from internment. As he later wrote, "By the first day it was obvious that internment had failed on every level except one. We could not tell how much intelligence they might have obtained."27 As MacStiofain had suspected the concerted intelligence effort actually preceded internment. Geraghty explains: By the spring of 1971, ... the authorities had become desperate to penetrate the terrorist network. The Army did so by adopting the 'countergang' tactics developed during Kenya's Mau Mau campaign by Kitson. Ten proven IRA activists, including one who was a recently demobized soldier of the Royal Irish Rangers, were arrested and given the choice between long terms of imprisonment or undercover work for the British army. They opted to join the British.28 This Special Detachment of the Mobile Reconnaissance Force or Freds as they came to be known focused their attention on attempting to identify IRA members. Geraghty describes how they operated and the risks they ran. It was a lethal, complex and bewildering game of cat-and-mouse and not many of the 'Freds' survived to enjoy the freedom promised them after the MRF service. Some attempted to become double agents. Others made the mistake of returning home to their Catholic ghettoes after a decent interval.29 Once the British sensed the former case, they would compromise him to the IRA. In the latter case, the IRA took direct action. The work of the "Freds" no doubt figured into the planning for the execution of internment; and internment always provided a new group of prospective "Freds." The IRA's "initial response to internment was clumsy. and disorganized."30 Moss' analysis is easily understand- able since the majority of the IRA leaders had left the immediate area in anticipation of internment.31 Good communications had never been the IRA's forte as the numerous garbled warnings in their bombing campaign would indicate. Without strong local leadership or clear standing orders, the local IRA men did what came naturally to them. They fought. "The IRA cells engaged in stand-up street battles in which they were bound to be outgunned; one group even occupied a bakery and allowed themselves to be beseiged,"32 reminiscent of Jacob's Biscuit Factory in the Easter uprising of 1916. The IRA leadership quickly realized that it could not stand and fight for a variety of practical reasons. They could not afford the personnel losses, combat the British superiority in firepower and accuracy, nor logistically sustain a street battle.33 Hence, "after a week of open confrontation, the IRA went back to more selective operations."34 Internment and the week of open conflict with the security forces, ineffective as it was, drove IRA stock at home among Ulster Catholics and abroad to its peak. The British aimed internment indisputably at the Catholic population, and the Catholics responded, as one would expect, with even more active support for their only protectors, the IRA. Abroad the sympathy for the "oppressed Catholic minority" grew due largely to worldwide mass tele- communications. As MacStiofain recalled, The international media went overboard for the 'Provo Press Conference' ... stories and pictures went all over the globe ... [it] was a brilliant piece of propaganda which well and truly twisted the lion's tail."35 Notwithstanding the important short-term intelligence benefits, internment was a double-edged failure. It failed to reduce IRA terrorism, and more importantly it "served merely to strengthen the Provisional bonds with the Catholic population."36 Finally, as a direct result of its failure, internment would paint Britain further into her no win corner and lead the IRA to its first and only strategic victory - imposition of direct rule from Britain. Britain would have no viable alternative. For those who prefer order in historical analysis, the period of the present day troubles causes endless agony. It does not lend itself to convenient phasing where one key event or one timely or untimely decision simultaneously ends one phase and introduces the next. There are distinct phases but with a perplexing, disorderly twist; phases never end and often merge. As a new one is discernible it merely super imposes itself over the earlier phase or phases creating a collage of violent effects. Communal rioting did not end with IRA bombing nor sectarian assassination. Thus, concludes Janke, "the successive phases super-impose them- selves building up into a complex terrorist phenomenon."37 Thus the month after internment saw rioting mixed with IRA sniping and ambushes, selective bombing and assassination, and unpatterned sectarian violence consistent in only one aspect: certainty of occurrence. From a military perspective 1972 stands out as the turning point of the war. The IRA would raise urban violence to unprecedented levels, bomb their way to the bargaining table thus coming as close to political legitimacy as they ever would and fail, choosing instead their all too familiar path of violence. The British would continue to build their intelligence base, make inroads into the IRA security structure and begin to counter IRA propaganda. They would rebound from some serious blunders early in the year with concentrated effort on the cities culminating in the military masterstroke which struck at the heart of the IRA. If nothing else comes clear from a study of Northern Ireland, it should be absolutely clear that guerrilla warfare and counterguerrilla warfare is indeed a dirty business. Both sides propagandize. Both sides brutalize at least in the eyes of the other. Both sides sanitize reports and rationalize legitimate errors. Either will deny all just said for their own part while at the same time emphatically claiming that their opponents wrongs are understated. Somewhere in the midst of this contorted obfuscation lies the truth, perhaps never to be fully sifted out, partly distorted through bias and the reporting of the mass media. No year better paints the dirty picture and coldblooded nature of urban guerilla warfare than 1972 in no other place than Northern Ireland. The IRA introduced 1972 with a vicious bombing campaign which had commenced in earnest in August 1971 in direct response to internment. One-hundred separate bombings shook Northern Ireland in August, and the figure increased monthly to a total of one-hundred forty-six in January 1972. Clutterbuck recorded that on one day in December over thirty bombing operations took place throughout the province.38 The 1971 statistics appeared gruesome in comparison to 1970. Deaths went from 25 to 174; 48 army or UDR, 115 civilians, and the remaining 11 RUC. Injuries jumped from 290 in 1970 to 2,395, almost 1,800 of whom were civilians. With the exception of RUC deaths and injuries, each of these categories would more than double in 1972.39 If the 146 bombings which occurred in January 1972 were not enough terror for one moonth, "Bloody Sunday" was a fitting coup de grace. NICRA, the civil rights group, had announced a march for January 30, and had on this occasion for the first time since 1968 support from almost every faction of the Republican movement.40 The setting was the same Londonderry which had erupted in October 1968 and whose chaos had led to police over-reaction, riots and ultimately to the disestablishment of the B Specials. NICRA intended to conduct the march despite a ban. Fearful of a violent Click here to view image Catholic/Protestant confrontation, the security forces which included the British Parachute Regiment planned to block off the Catholic areas of Creggan and Bogside. One battalion, 1st Battalion of the Paras, was held in reserve as the arrest force.41 Clutterbuck summarized the action and the ensuing debate concisely: The actual events of the day are not generally in dispute, though there is some divergence of detail and interpretation between the public inquiry by Lord Widgery and the inquiry by the Sunday Times. Both agree that all the deaths took place within twenty or thirty minutes; during which both the IRA and the soldiers fired at each other, and that the soldiers killed thirteen while the IRA did not hit any soldiers at all. The Sunday Times, however, said that the soldiers fired first; Lord Widgery that the IRA fired first.42 In addition to the dead thirteen others had been wounded. As Bell aptly points out, explanations and investigations "could not transform what in Catholic eyes was a massacre."43 Not only Catholic eyes or Irish saw red. Clutterbuck details the reaction abroad: Overseas - and particularly in the Republic of Ireland and the United States - the reaction was quite different (from that of England). The only facts they knew were that there had been a Civil Rights march, that troops had fired, that thirteen civilians had been killed, but that no soldiers had been killed. Understandably they deduced that the soldiers had fired upon unarmed marchers, and the IRA were commendably quick in dissemina- ting this view.44 To Americans it kindled memories of Lexington, Concord and the Boston Massacre. As the British army knew all too well in the furor that arose following Bloody Sunday, except to them and their country it did not matter if the IRA had fired the modern shot heard around the world. Internment followed closely by Bloody Sunday carried the IRA to their single great strategic victory. On March 24, 1972, the British Government imposed direct rule. The IRA barely paused to applaud its victory, mistakenly sensing or hoping that continued pressure would undermine the British resolve. Their objective now was to incite Protestant backlash to direct rule, a task for which the Protestant majority needed little encouragement.45 The number of bombings rose again in April. In one twenty-four hour period on April 13-14 thirty-one bombs exploded.46 In seeking the Protestant backlash the IRA had two objectives: assistance in driving British out and assistance in keeping the Catholic population with them.47 Even before direct rule the Protestants had complained about the security forces' "soft" approach toward the IRA whom they had allowed to control "Free Derry" in what Clutterbuck described as a "live and let live policy [with security forces] patrolling those areas only at night. After direct rule ... they dropped even the night patrols."48 This low profile approach was a boost for the IRA who were able to openly patrol these recognized "no-go" areas in uniform, thus reinforcing their control on the Catholic areas and their inhabitants. It was another frustrating discouragement for the security forces particularly in the intelligence area they had so diligently been developing. D. L. Price writing for Conflict Studies made the following observation in 1974 article on the security forces intelligence plight: The breathing space afforded the terrorists was a net loss in intelligence gathering ... Overt operations virtually ceased while covert operations became increasingly hazardous to acquire. New recruits joined the IRA so that when the conflict intensified the security forces ... did not know who the gunmen were. This lack of information led to costly delays which caused military and civilian casualties.49 As frustrating as the "no-go" areas were to the army, they caused even greater consternation within the neighboring Protestant communities. In the Protestants' eyes the light treatment of the IRA after direct rule was just another indication of the long- feared British sell out; hence their embattled minority syndrome came to the fore once again. In response to the British toleration of the "no-go" areas and as a direct challenge to the IRA, the Protestant UDA established similar barricades and "no-go" areas similarly patrolled by "uniformed and masked vigilantes," all members of the UDA. Other than to issue a direct challenge to the IRA, the objective of this gesture was to induce the British to invade the Catholic "no-go" areas.50 The British response took them by surprise, and the Protestant counteraction probably surprised the British. On May 20, the British removed the barricades with bulldozers setting off riots and shooting much like that they had experienced in the Catholic areas.51 Northern Ireland was on the verge of anarchy. Bell summarizes the IRA's violent half-year's success: By mid-1972 Belfast and Derry were cities under seige. Large areas were demolished by bombs, British roadblocks faced those of the IRA, there was armor in the streets and constant sniping. The car bomb was introduced in March and more shops and offices were turned into rubble. Constant ambushes in the country and a border war drew forces away from the urban areas. There was no peace with or without justice, and more and more people began to feel that the Provos just might bomb their way to a place at some ultimate bargaining table. And in fact they did.52 Chapter 4 LEGITIMACY SPURNED - THE MADMEN EMERGE He is not a person who thinks a lot. He is continually trying to prove that he is as much an Irishman as anyone else. He has no time for politics of any kind - and a revolutionary who has no time for politics is in my opinion a madman. Cathal Goulding, Official IRA leader, on his past friend, Sean MacStiofain The civilians are casualties of war. Sean MacStiofain At the end of May 1972 the Official IRA agreed to a ceasefire. The Provisionals were reluctant, but they finally agreed late in June due primarily to pressure from within their Catholic community. In early July repre- sentatives of the IRA met secretly with the new British cabinet Minister in charge of Ireland, William Whitelaw, in London.1 They talked. The IRA made their demands known. Nothing was resolved nor agreed upon, but they had talked, and they had stopped shooting and bombing. If ever the IRA had an opportunity to bring about some form of negotiated political settlement, these talks marked the beginning. Several political factors conspired against any settlement. First, the IRA by their own choice was not a legitimate political representative of any constituency. As a natural corollary to political abstentionism, the IRA was then politically inexperienced and naive. Last and clearly the most significant point is that the negotiations did not include representatives of Stormont or the Protestant terror groups, both of whose consensus is vital to any lasting solution. The IRA knew that they could not carry Northern Ireland by force of arms, nor did they stand any chance of weakening the British determination to endure regardless of the costs. They must have known. Only by negotiations could they, as Michael Collins and the treaty delegation had fifty years before, have brought about positive change. Yet as the parties on both sides came face-to-face, an almost sinister disparity immediately became visible. The incongruity must have been almost tangible. On one side were the cultured, experienced and intellectual English statesmen. On the IRA side were MacStiofain, the OC's from Belfast and Londonderry, two Provisional staff officers from Belfast, one high ranking IRA official and a Dublin lawyer who acted as secretary for the delegation. Among this high powered delegation were a former bookmaker's runner, a barman, a mechanic and a butcher's assistant.2 This undereducated but streetwise cross-section illustrated the grass roots origin of the IRA leadership and further demonstrated that the IRA was somewhat distinct amongst revolutionary movements by its lack of intellectuals in its hierarchy. The disparity between the negotiating parties, however, did not defeat the talks. It was a start and it took considerable courage and entailed considerable risks for both parties. But the truce broke down before any further negotiations or any positive results could ensue. The IRA broke the truce. Seamus Twomey, OC of Belfast and one of the recently returned secret delegation, decided that a Protestant move to force Catholics out of their homes in Lenadoon on the western fringe of Andersontown could not pass unchallenged. The Catholic inhabitants had already moved out under Protestant pressure. When the IRA tried to move the former occupants and their belongings back into the neighborhood, shooting broke out between the IRA and UDA.3 Coogan in writing on this action observed, "Whether the IRA were wise to attempt to force the housing issue during the July period or whether the truce would have ever come to anyghing is arguable - what is certain is the ensuing death toll."4 Twomey's move was a blunder of unprecedented proportion which hurt the IRA on several fronts. They had handed the British a major victory in the propaganda war. In an ironic twist of fate, the IRA was in the same position as the British Paratroopers of Bloody Sunday notoriety; who fired first was irrelevant. This cost the IRA dearly in terms of support. Pressure from among their supporters had led them into the truce. In breaking it after such a short period of peace, the IRA severely disappointed their supporters crushing their rising hopes and shattering in them any image the IRA may have enjoyed as a concerned protector. Even in the worst case had the British not been genuine in the negotiations, the IRA would have benefitted significantly. They could have turned that into successful propaganda against the British and still continued the fight. If nothing more, they could have enjoyed the respite provided by a longer truce to rest, resupply and prepare for the next phase of action. From this point on, the IRA's failure to revise or rethink their strategy would guarantee that they would never again approach the zenith of July 1972. On the IRA's lack of strategic sense, J. Bowyer Bell observed: The IRA did not create long-range scenarios. Its prime concern was to manipulate conditions ... [that] would make the province ungovernable ... Few recognized that ... tactical options would be limited unless seriously reappraised ... Provo tactics ... were not carefully orchestrated for effect or cunningly directed at target rather than victim ... Provo hopes shifted to the prolonged effect of violent attrition ... Accordingly the same tactics, improved or elaborated, were continued; commercial sabotage by means of bombs, sniping, mass confron- tations, and ambushes in the countryside. There was some improvement in techniques and more sophisticated weapons were introduced, but, with one or two exceptions no novel tactical innova- tions were attempted.5 Just how closely the IRA would follow their same old tactics and how much they would elaborate on them became obvious on July 21, 1972, which is more commonly called "Bloody Friday." That strain of cruelty that Irishman seems to reserve for Irishman burst in all its viciousness and cruelty in the form of nineteen bombings in central Belfast within a one hour and five minute period in mid-afternoon, "a busy time of day." The targets inclued bus and train stations, a ferry terminal and a shopping center. Nine people died; one hundred thirty were injured. Seventy-seven of the injured were women or young girls. A mother of six and a boy of fourteen were among the dead. "The targets selected left no doubt that the aim was to kill and maim the maximum possible number of ordinary people. It was an operation of war."6 The IRA motive behind this offensive was simply to reassert its presence. MacStiofain felt that it was necessary to indicate to all concerned that the IRA "had in no way lost heart for the struggle."7 Actually the IRA claimed to have set off twenty-two bombs in Belfast and thirteen elsewhere on Bloody Friday, all aimed at "industrial, commercial or economic" targets in their eyes. MacStiofain further claimed that "three warnings were given for each bomb placed" via separate channels as "a further precaution against risk to life."8 Whether what he alleged was true mattered little and was believed less, particularly from a man who had earlier stated coldly, "The civilians are casualties of war."9 Bloody Friday set the stage for the major British mili- tary move of the entire troubles. Sensing the mood of the people and keenly aware of the military necessity of force- ful action, they launched Operation Motorman, a well- conceived, well-executed coordinated night maneuver to elim- nate the no-go areas in Belfast and Derry. In preparation: on 27 July 4,000 extra troops arrived in Ulster bringing the total to 21,000. At 1:30 a.m. on 31 July, the security forces...entered the no-go areas .... barricades were removed and despite sporadic shooting there were few casualties. Details of the massive build-up had been announced, a fact which convinced the IRA that a straight confrontation with a modern counter-insurgency force would be tactically unwise. The gunmen in Londonderry ... dispersed across the border ... while those in Belfast went south to Dundalk.10 Peter Janke identifies Motorman as the: turning point in the military campaign because the security forces, following classic counter-insurgency practice, had driven a wedge between the terrorists and a section of the community.11 It also yielded tangible results. The influx of new information stimulated intelligence. Within two weeks the security forces had arrested ten senior Provisionals in Belfast. By the end of November they had captured more than 150 gunmen at least 100 of whom were officers from the IRA command structure in the north. . . . Materiel captured included large quantities of arms, more than 14,000 rounds of ammunition and over two tons of explosives.12 Though Motorman was not the Hue City type urban fight some British might suggest, it was a brilliantly conceived plan. By announcing the imminent move,13 the British separated the IRA from their arms and from their support without the costly street fighting that surely would have met a complete surprise attack. They had given the IRA time to run but not time to pack. Though IRA violence would continue, the British had broken the stranglehold of terror on the cities and would continue to control the military action to the present day. As 1972 drew to a close, MacStiofain was arrested and jailed in the South under the Republic of Ireland's Special Powers Act aimed specifically at the IRA.14 The British kept up the pressure which would yield big dividends in 1973 and 1974. There is no doubt that the war continued into those years or that it continues today. But, in retrospect, 1972 ended the classic brand of urban guerrilla warfare the IRA had waged, and waged with some measure of success. Perhaps the lesson of 1972 at least for terrorists is that terror beyond a certain point of irrationality is counterproductive. In 1972, 468 people died, and of them 322 were innocent civilians. Almost 4,000 civilian casualties, more than double the previous year's toll, were recorded. Between the RUC, the UDR, and the army, almost 1100 were injured and 146 were killed.15 The bombing tab for destruction skyrocketed from 3.97 million pounds in 1971-72 to 26.59 million pounds. The IRA had crossed their Rubicon, but unlike Caesar who had tremendous support on the other side of the river, the IRA had crossed in the opposite direction, leaving their dwindling and exhausted support behind. The ensuing years would see the bombing damages continue to soar to a peak over fifty million pounds for the year 1977.16 The British security forces since 1973 have placed a greater concentration on Belfast and on destroying the IRA command structure at the command and brigade level.17 Their improved intelligence capability and the infusion of fresh, mission-trained troops in a carefully thought out rotation enhanced their overall control of the military situation, particularly in the cities. From a purely military standpoint the training program and the supporting training fcilities developed by the British were remarkable for their quality and detail. Starting in late 1973-1974, before any soldier set foot in Northern Ireland, he was thoroughly familiar with his area of operations, or "patch," he knew who the known IRA gunmen were by name and sight; he had drilled under live fire for the entire gamut of known IRA tactics in a realistic mock up. Often RUC policemen with whom the unit would be working participated in the training, thus providing first-hand information and breeding even greater RUC-army cooperation.18 The British rotated units at four and one-half month intervals. To compensate for the danger of lost continuity, the inbound unit's advance party, primarily intelligence men, preceded their unit by a month and one-half thereby serving six month tours. During this period the incoming unit's personnel would work closely with the in country unit and with their counterparts in the RUC; thus, the army's vital recent term corporate memory was effectively passed on.19 The combined effect of British persistence and their thorough approach to their military mission bore fruit in 1973. On 19 June the Security Forces acting on "information received," arrested 16 members of the Provisional IRA, four of them were members of the brigade staff, in parts of Belfast and Co. Armagh. Of those arrested the most important was Gerry Adams, commanding officer of the Provisionals. In political and military terms the capture of Adams... compelled the Provisionals Belfast brigade to reorganize drastically. In material terms an equally important capture, in the New Lodge district of Belfast, was that of a Provisional quartermaster.20 The increased success of the security forces directly con- tributed to reduced casualty figures except in one area which really gave them no cause for concern, within the IRA. Given the high priority placed on security within any "secret" society or guerrilla movement, security breaches breed mistrust, break down unit cohesion and generally lead to increased security measures and stricter disciplinary procedures. Consider such a breach within an organization as inherently violent as the IRA in the light of arrests such as those of June 1973 just described, and severe Click here to view image repercussions were bound to follow. The incessant British pressure continued to strain and crack IRA security which led to incredibly brutal disciplinary actions within the IRA. The most well-known punishment is kneecapping which was accomplished by any of several methods: a bullet through the kneecap fired either from the front or rear of the knee; the simple use of an electric drill; or sometimes a cinder block dropped from a step ladder upon the outstretched legs of the guilty party. Kneecapping was more effective in many respects than death because the crippled victims were marked for life, and their hobbling presence reinforced the terror and fear so vital to the IRA's existence. Another older form of punishment, and one familiar to Americans from their own history, was tar and feathers or a similar form of public humiliation which usually reserved for women for dating or socializing with British soldiers or for violations of secrecy.21 Tarring and feathering had been seen with some frequency earlier with 27 known cases in 1971 and 28 in 1973. Kneecapping, however, did not surface until 1973 when the IRA marked 74 victims by this cruel disciplinary method. The number of such disciplinary cases jumped to 127 in 1974 and peaked at 189 for the year 1975.22 Obviously during this period security and discipline had become a major concern within the IRA. Their desperate internal state and the increasingly more cohesive external pressure from the security forces manifested themselves in other ways. Organizationally especially in Belfast, ... the three Provisional battalions formerly based in Andersontown, Bally murphy and Ardoyne districts, ... virtually ceased to exist. Consequently tactics changed to smaller operational formations - Active Service Units (ASU) - ideally to contain four to eight men, but the erosion of the IRA hard-core ... meant that an ASU [was] often nothing more than a single gunman operating ... with sporadic local support and much of that coerced.23 Two tactical changes came about both in the area of bombing. The IRA began to use the more sophisticated incendiary bomb to great effect. "These bombs are small enough for flip-top cigarette packets, a larger one would fit in a tape cassette box."24 In addition to more sophisticated devices, the IRA layered their security further by use of "proxy bomber attack" where an innocent driver is stopped, his vehicle loaded with a bomb and by threat either to him or to hostages, - he is forced to drive it to a specific target."29 According to Price these two tactics were highly favored for economy of personnel reasons. Since 1969 over 60 IRA bomb planters had died from either the Paddy Factor or premature explosions. Particularly with the incendiary device, manufacture, concealment and placement were greatly simplfied.26 In Ireland there is always a third side of war which especially in the present conflict has played a major supporting role. Since 1969 the Loyalists or Protestant paramilitary forces stood always on the fringes eager to strike at the IRA or the Catholics, which to most were one in the same. The lack of widespread Catholic appreciation for the reforms which evolved on paper from the civil rights movement was surpassed in the Protestant community by an even more widespread, almost singular, "sense of fear and rage"27 that any concessions had been granted. This sense of angry paranoia manifested itself in sectarian murders, predominantly by Protestants. Lebow explained some of the feelings which drove this murderous phenomenon. The expression of Protestant rage in the form of sectarian killings must be understood in the terms of the military dilemma faced by the Protestant activists. IRA violence had been directed ... against ... realistic pressure points for an organization striving to force a British withdrawal ... Protestants, by way of contrast, have no such obvious targets save IRA cadres which they found difficult to identify and attack. They were thus reduced to striking out against the Catholic community as a whole and whose opposition to the status quo and support for the IRA was taken for granted by the Protestant militants. Sectarian assassination became a surro- gate for more effective kinds of political-military action."28 Lebow further explained the more specific motives behind these killings noting first that their incidence rose as political initiatives toward compromise or settlement brightened. They also wanted to help influence public opinion against the IRA and attempted to do so by IRA style bombings and killings which, they hoped, would be attributed to the IRA. The third underlying motive and the strongest factor was simply revenge which appeared as a "tit-for-tat response ... of sectarian killings on both sides."29 This wave of Protestant sectarian terror demonstrates more dissimilarities between the IRA and the Protestant terror groups than similarities. In Lebow's opinion, the Protestants exploited the violence internally as an enforcement measure to ensure their own cohesion while IRA's role in sectarian violence was mission oriented. Many of these killings were not random. Such operations were authorized from above, had specific political objectives, and were carried out in a comparatively professional manner.30 The Protestant groups were more gang-like in organization than military; more reliant on charismatic leaders than on a chain of command; and more subject to lack of cohesion and breakdown of discipline than was the IRA. Their attacks on Catholics were more likely to be random and more violent than the IRA killings. Torture, mutilation, and ritualistic initiation murders by the Protestant terror groups are documented.31 Citing statistics for Belfast alone, Lebow attributed 198 deaths to sectarian assassination from 1971 to 1976. Casting aside the common notion of random selection, he further convincingly argued that almost half were planned and that many victims were killed by their own kind either for security reasons, jeolousy or in more instances as a deliberate ruse made to appear as an IRA act.32 Lebow astutely identified the most significant result of sectarian terror: With such a threat breeding and crossbreeding in adjacent ghettoes within one city, it is understandable why the Catholics have supported the IRA and why, despite British military effec- tiveness, recruits kept coming to the IRA.33 If the flow of new recruits was not a problem, it did present the IRA with the same problems it had failed to fully master since its founding: security from penetration and training. In 1977 Gerry Adams, one of the publically recognized leaders of the IRA and a former OC of Belfast identified this twin problem and introduced a reorganization plan intended both to enhance security and to re-indoctrinate some members of the army.34 An IRA "Staff Report" prepared to define the new structure outlined the weaknesses of the traditional army model: We are burdened with an inefficient infra- structure of commands, brigades, battalions, and companies ... with which the Brits and Branch* are familiar ... We recommend reor- ganization and rebuilding of a new Irish Republican Army.35 This reorganization established an additional staff position, the Education Officer, whose responsibilties would entail indoctrination lectures and instructions on anti-interrogation procedures. Additionally below the Brigade level, a cellular structure replaced the traditional army structure of battalions and companies. * Special Branch, RUC Cells, according to the same "Staff Report," would consist of four members and would be controlled at the Brigade level by the Operations Officer. In practice they were sometimes larger. The Brigade task organized these cells according to mission specialties, such as intelligence operations, sniping, assassination, bombings and robberies and supported the cells centrally both in terms of funding and supplies.36 The report revealed two additional significant changes, one both organizational and philosophical, the other strategic. In the former case, Cumann na mBan, the women's wing of the IRA which had heretofore played a supporting role, was "dissolved with the best being incorporated in the IRA cells"; thus, the IRA reflected the more contemporary terrorist thought that "women and girls have greater roles to play as military activists."37 Strategically the IRA finally accepted the long term war of attrition. In a clever twist which both enhanced security and supported the long term strategy, they selected new leaders from their best younger but unknown volunteers. The older but more well-known leaders remained visible as front men.38 The combined effect of these changes was evident in a British army document which the IRA intercepted late 1978-early 1979 which acknowledged the increased efficiency and elusiveness of the new IRA. It noted, "The mature terrorists ... are sufficiently cunning to avoid arrest ... [and] are continually learning from mistakes and developing their expertise."36 Hence since 1977 the reorganization of 1977,"activists are told only of their particular task, not the names of colleagues, and disperse afterwards until called upon."35 Dobson and Payne estimated in 1982 that the Provisional IRA's strength was 300-400 hard core36 "who were better trained and better equipped than before. The IRA has the U.S. M-16 Armalite, Remington Woodmaster equipped with telescopic sights for sniping and the U.S. M-60 machine gun."37 Janke also reports that the Russian-made RPG-7 has been used and suggests, with the international links that have developed between terrorist groups, that the SA-7 could ultimately find its way to Northern Ireland.38 With these newer, more capable weapons, the IRA has improved upon but not radically altered their traditional tactics of ambush, bombing and sniper attacks. "A typical activist cell in Belfast's Ballymurphy district, may be from five token strong," where formerly there was a battalion. "For sniping two covers and lookouts are used, the gunman being equipped with a pocket sized walkie-talkie radio."39 The most significant breakthrough, according to Janke, is the IRA's enhanced communications intercept capability. The IRA constantly monitors "the security forces radio channels, and has become adept at cracking codes. Also they have penetrated the telephone system and are known to engage in bugging and telephone tapping."40 Looking at the enhanced security, the regenerated hard core and the better equipment of the IRA, this conflict will continue into the indefinite future. And with their increasing leftward progression politically, the IRA is in a position to enjoy the fruits of both east and west continuing to find substantial support in the United States while more recently finding powerful boosters within the European terrorist network and those governments which actively support them.41 This new IRA is now content to fight the long war of attrition. The security forces despite all their best efforts have not rooted out the IRA. The British presence has been reduced in terms of size of "areas controlled and numbers of troops involved. They have turned many of the police functions back over to the RUC and an ever-increasing share of the military responsibility to an expanded UDR. Nevertheless, the underlying problems which lit the fires in 1969 lie in the social, economic and the political arenas, remain largely unchanged and have roots which extend deeply into Anglo-Irish history. Military action cannot alter or alleviate such problems. In this impasse lies the very existence of the IRA. As one writer wrote: The key point of the matter is that the fossil which is Northern Ireland hasn't evolved beyond the conditions imposed upon it in the 17th century. Little Cromwells like Ian Paisley are still stomping the hedgerows and beating the bushes for wayward papists. 48 As long as Catholic thoughts and perceptions run along those lines and the economic, social and political ills persist, he IRA will continue to live. And, as long as the politicians on all three sides of the Irish Question demur, he IRA will continue to fight, to bomb and to kill. The British as much as acknowledged this stalemate in the army document previously mentioned which concluded: The Provisionals' campaign of violence is likely to continue while the British remain in Northern Ireland. We see little prospect of a political development of a kind which would seriously undermine the Provisionals' position.49 To merely state that political consensus must be gained or argue that the British must go or remain is too simple and too superficial for a situation of such historical and and emotional depth. Ultimately the solution must encompass change, concession and compromise, actions virtually alien to all sides of the confrontational triangle. Several basic assumptions underly any political solution. First is that no quick solution is possible. No political act or series of actions will eradicate the ingrained perceptions of Catholics or Protestants. Consensus can only follow confidence in the political system. Building the necessary confidence will be an evolutionary process requiring patience, perseverance, courage and most assuredly, a considerable period of time. After more than fifteen years of terror in Northern Ireland, it should be clear that no purely military solution is possible. The idea behind the movement lives on fed by the social, economic and political ills which continue; thus, political inaction guarantees future long term military action. Security and stability are vital to any solution; but, without concurrent political action aimed at the root causes military effort no matter how efficient can at best severely restrict but never eliminate terrorist groups. A third assumption is that constructive dialogue must include all parties to include terrorist leaders on both sides. Unorthodox as this is in the counterterrorist area and as revolting as it would be to those legitimate powers who have opposed the terrorists for so long, the participation of the terrorist leaders in Northern Ireland is vital. Tremendous risks are involved in conceding any status to such groups; however, if the invitation to participate and to lay down the gun coincides with legitimate change and increasing popular confidence in the government, the terrorists will again face the alternative of working within or continuing to fight the system. They might still opt to fight, but in doing so they will have established beyond question their position as an illegitimate force unrepresentative of any responsible segment of the population, and their popular support will diminish. The tenuous prospect of the last assumption being met with acceptance either by the legitimate authorities or groups such as the Provisional IRA supports the final assumption: that there is no bloodless solution. Even if all terrorist factions participated, some within their ranks would resist, probably form new more radical groups and definitely fight the prospects of a political consensus with extreme, perhaps unprecedented, violence. The best a well- orchestrated solution can hope for then is to keep further bloodshed to a minimum. To seek a bloodless answer is to continue without one. With such formidable obstacles as basic assumptions and the additional barriers posed by history and religion, one could reasonably conclude that no solution exists, or that only impossible tongue-in-cheeks solutions such as the one ascribed to George Bernard Shaw appear to have any merit. Shaw suggested that the Dutch and Irish should change countries. The Dutch, he believed, would civilize Ireland; the Irish, he was sure, would be too busy fighting among themselves to maintain the dikes. Hence they would drown. One element of Shaw's humorous proposal is critical to the final solution. At some point the Irish issue must be left to the Irish, but not immediately. Neither Northern Ireland nor the Republic of Ireland individually or collectively is as capable of providing the security that the British presently do. Thus, the British must remain for the near term. Nevertheless, the British must plan to leave, establish a date and plan the related timetable which will allow for the gradual but irrevocable return of responsibility for the destiny of Northern Ireland to the people who live there. Many crucial initiatives must concurrently occur. The lines of communication must be cleared and kept open to all parties. The British, who have tried before, must continue to actively find a way to return political power to Northern political power to Northern Ireland. For their part, the people of that troubled state must make politics in Northern Ireland different than it was in the past. But the most critical and most difficult to achieve change must be in the attitudes and the education of the inhabitants of Ulster and their future generations. Here is where the compromise, concession and courage must show. Catholics and Protestants must learn to understand both the history they so bitterly re-live annually and the senselessness of living in that past. They must see the absurdity, ineffectiveness and ultimate hopelessness of an educational system split along sectarian lines both in demographics and curriculum. Over time they must build a public educational system. Initially perhaps they should strive to develop a non-sectarian core curriculum for use in the present school system. Finally the churches must reorient themselves, becoming at once both more and less involved in the affairs of state. The Catholic Church must accept segregation of church and state in the Republic of Ireland and bring itself more in step with the rest of the contemporary Catholic Church beyond Ireland. The Protestant leaders too must turn more to their people than their politics. Both sides must concede and work together on the issue of education; both must recognize their common christianity over their more deeply rooted, historical opposition. Only in the legitimacy of such a solution can the British ever hope to establish the illegitimacy of the IRA. Without such a solution future politicians turning to view Northern Ireland will find the same frozen vista that Winston Churchill observed in 1922. Then came the Great War ... Great empires have been overturned ... The position of countries has been violently altered. The modes of thought of men, the whole outlook on affairs, the grouping of parties, all have encouraged tremendous changes ... But as the deluge subsides and the waters fall short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again. The integrity of their quarrel is one of the institutions that has been unaltered by the cataclysm.50 Political impasse, social ills, economic discrimination, religious hatred, military stalemate will all continue. So too will the IRA; so too will the war. Epilogue Many intelligent and concerned persons have struggled in search of a solution. The British attempted to return power as early as 1973 in a promising power sharing arrangement supported by moderate Protestants and Catholics. All was undone, however, in the face of mass action in the form of a Protestant workers' strike in May 1974. More recently, the New Ireland Forum, one of the most remarkable and constructive organizations yet to study the problems of Northern Ireland, offered some ideas. The members would be the first to admit that they did not solve the problems, but their collective efforts were a positive first step. For a brief moment at least, Irishmen from North and South were looking forward in hopes of finding common objectives rather than looking backward to dwell on their past differences as Irishmen seem more often inclined to do. They did not ignore their troubled past nor the problems the Irish sense of past poses in the present; but, they focused on the future. Most importantly they established a political discourse where none had previously existed at least in such constructive terms. The Report of the New Ireland Forum demonstrated Dublin's willingness to commit to their part of the challenge of ending the troubles. It inspired hope among all parties of moderation. In the North voices of moderation also have spoken. The Ulster Unionist Party published a discussion paper on "Devolution and the Northern Ireland Assembly" which discussed quite accurately the problems on all sides of the political situation. While certainly more conservative in tone, it acknowledged the need for "a dependable constant minority" in any future devolved government.1 Their conservatism is understandable considering their past. Nevertheless, their concluding paragraph too raised hope. The Ulster Unionist Party recognizes that its proposal may be considered by some to be modest, but it has watched while grander and more ambitious schemes have failed. The ... objective is to find a level at which consensus may be obtained to effect a beginning in the recon- ciliation of divided communities. Roads owe no allegiance to those who travel upon them and, for the traveller, such roads are neither green nor orange but only good or bad. It would be a start if the travellers were given a chance to repair them.2 The IRA, feeling threatened, saw the need for dramatic life preserving action. In October 1984, just one month before British Prime Minister Thatcher and Irish Prime Minister Garrett Fitzgerald were to meet in what would be the first Anglo-Irish conference since publication of the New Ireland Forum report, the IRA detonated a bomb which devastated a hotel in Brighton, England; it almost killed Mrs. Thatcher and much of her cabinet. Other British subjects were not as fortunate. Worldwide outrage followed the bombing. A week after the incident an editorial in The Economist discussed the bombing and its probable impact on Anglo-Irish relations. "The Brighton bomb ... alters nothing in the framework of Anglo-Irish policy. It does, however, reinforce its urgency." The editorial went on: "All it has produced is a new emphasis on Anglo-Irish security cooperation, which is precisely what the ... IRA wants to avoid." Later it emphasized that "London must equally acknowledge that improved Anglo-Irish relations are built in reciprocity. It matters how (emphasis supplied) London reacts to the Forum report."3 The editor's conclusion is poignant both in its truth and in its error. The understandable hesitancy Mrs. Thatcher retains towards policy innovation in Ulster [has] left London as the less willing partner in the search, for a movement in Ulster. Most serious evidence of this is the cabinet's failure to respond constructively to the Forum report. Both Britain and Ireland have a vested interest ... leaders in Dublin and London should now prove it was truly a bomb in vain.4 On November 23, 1984, the Washington Post described the results of the Anglo-Irish summit. "Statements by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her new minister for Northern Ireland after this week's Anglo-Irish summit have shattered what was characterized as the 'positive' mood of the meeting, ... Irish officials ... said today." The article further asserted that "Thatcher flatly rejected three major models ... for some new form of joint authority in British-ruled Northern Ireland that had been proposed by the New Ireland Forum in May." Mrs. Thatcher's press conference remarks and leaks in his own government caused Mr. Fitzgerald considerable embarrassment at home. One final extract illustrated yet another disastrous British political judgement on Northern Ireland. As reported in the article, Mrs. Thatcher expressed an opinion "that Britain cannot impose any solution in Northern Ireland ... only the people of Ulster can."5 If the country that governs and provides the security for Ulster rationalizes itself out of its responsibility in this manner, that country has granted a lifetime to the IRA. Mrs. Thatcher's actions have proven the editorial in The Economist wrong. The IRA bomb may have missed its most important human target, but it was not in vain. Irish history has completed another of its uneven, triangular cycles. English and Irish leaders bicker publically in the press while British soldiers still fight terrorists on British soil on the island called Ireland. After fifteen years they must wonder how and why the IRA fights on. While the politicians dance around the perimeter of the triangular stage, the IRA stands protected by their lack of choreography. Politics, like chldren's play, just does not seem to work in threes. Have you ever watched three children playing? Notes Introduction 1 Richard Clutterbuck, Guerrillas and Terrorists (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1977), p. 60. Hereafter cited as Guerrillas. 2 Clutterbuck, Guerrillas, p. 61. Chapter 1 Plantation to Partition - An Historical Overview 1 George Dangerfield, The Damnable Question (Boston/ Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1976). 2 Robert B. Eckles and Richard W. Hale, Jr., Britain, Her Peoples and the Commonwealth (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1954), p. 54. 3 Eckles and Hale, pp. 541-42. 4 Eckles and Hale, p. 541. 5 J. C. Beckett, The Making of Modern Ireland (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1966), pp. 390-392. 6 Beckett, p. 392. 7 Norman J. Gibson, "The Irish Problem," The Holy Cross Quarterly, 6 (1973), p. 16. 8 Neill, p. 156. 9 Eckles and Hale, p. 522. 10 Eckles and Hale, p. 523. 11 Beckett, p. 425. 12 Constantine FitzGibbon, Red Hawk, The Ulster Colont (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1972), pp. 331-314. 13 Patrick Buckland, A History of Northern Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1981), p. 14. 14 A. J. Barker, Bloody Ulster (New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1973), p. 41. 15 As quoted in Holy Cross Quarterly, p. 60. 16 Dangerfield, pp. 165-178. 17 Dangerfield, p. 169. 18 Dangerfield, p. 177. 19 Dangerfield, p. 177. 20 Dangerfield, pp. 186-206. 21 Dangerfield, p. 207. 22 Neill, pp. 170-71. 23 Neill, p. 173. 24 Dangerfield, p. 313. 25 J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army (New York: The John Day Company, 1971), p. 23. Hereafter cited as 26 Bell, Army, pp. 21-22. 27 Buckland, pp. 17-21. 28 Buckland, p. 20. 29 Tim Pat Coogan, The I.R.A. (Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co., Ltd., 1980), p. 41. 30 Neill, p. 176. 31 Neill, p. 180. 32 Dangerfield, p. 294. Chapter 2 The Rise of An Embarrassed Splinter Group 1 John Montague, as quoted in Holy Cross Quarterly, p. 3. 2 For a detailed account of the period between the end of the Civil War and 1962 see either J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army (New York: The John Day Company, 1971) or Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA (London: Fontana, 1980). 3 Bell, pp. 337-50. 4 Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., "Hope for Northern Ireland???," Holy Cross Quarterly, p. 90. 5 Neill, p. 191. 6 Alfred J. Alcorn, "Ulster--Politics of Sectarian- ism," Holy Cross Quarterly, p. 27. 7 Neill, p. 215. 8 Richard Clutterbuck, Protest and the Urban Guerrilla (New York: Abelard-Schuman Limited, 1973), p. 56. 9 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 63-65. 10 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 62-63. 11 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 61. 12 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 68. 13 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 69. 14 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 69. 15 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 71-79. 16 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 85. 17 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 74. 18 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 71-79. 19 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 71-79. 20 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 62. 21 Sean MacStiofain, Revolutionary in Ireland (London: Gordon Cremonesi, 1975), p. 113. 22 Bell, Army, p. 366. 23 Bell, Army, p. 366. 24 Coogan, pp. 469-470. 25 Sean MacStiofain, p. 146. 26 Coogan, p. 470. 27 MacStiofain, p. 132. 28 Peter Janke, "Ulster: A Decade of Violence," Conflict Studies, 108 (June 1979), p. 17. 29 MacStiofain, p. 147. 30 Janke, p. 17. 31 MacStiofain, p. 146. 32 MacStiofain, pp. 146-47. 33 J. Bowyer Bell, On Revolt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 196. Hereafter cited as Revolt. 34 "Copy of Documents Found During a Search of the Maze," 17 pages. Hereafter cited as "Documents." 35 "Documents" 36 "Documents" 37 "Documents" 38 "Documents" 39 "Documents" 40 "Documents" 41 "Documents" 42 "Documents" 43 Brian Crozier, ed., "Ulster Politics and Terrorism," Conflict Studies, 36 (June 1973), 9. Hereafter cited as "Politics." 44 Janke, p. 19. 45 Bell, Revolt, p. 196. 46 "Documents" 47 Kenneth MacKenzie, ed. dir., "Ulster: Consensus and Coercion," Conflict Studies, 50 (October 1974), 22. Hereafter cited as "Consensus." 48 "Documents" 49 Coogan, p. 472. 50 Coogan, p. 472. 51 Coogan, p. 472. 52 "Documents" 53 "Documents' 54 "Documents" 55 Clutterbuck, Guerrillas, p. 97. 56 Clutterbuck, Guerrillas, pp. 97-98. 57 MacStiofain, p. 301. 58 MacStiofain, p. 301. 59 MacStiofain, p. 301-02. 60 Bell, Revolt, p. 196. 61 Robert Moss, "The Security of Ulster," in "The Spreading Irish Conflict," Conflict Studies, 17 (November 1971), 21. Hereafter cited as "Security." 62 Tony Geraghty, Inside the SAS (New York: Ballantine Books, 1982), p. 160. 63 Geraghty, p. 160. 64 Geraghty, pp. 160-61. 65 MacKenzie, "Consensus," p. 24. 66 Crozier, "Politics," pp. 15, 19. Chapter 3 From Guardians to Invaders--An Untimely Change of Mission 1 Moss, "Security," p. 21. 2 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 94. 3 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 94. 4 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 94. 5 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 94-95. 6 Moss, "Security," p. 13. 7 MacStiofain, p. 166. 8 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 96. 9 Moss, "Security," p. 13. 10 Moss, "Security," p. 13. 11 Moss, "Security," pp. 20-21. 12 Janke, p. 16. 13 The Institute for the Study of Conflict, "Northern Ireland: Problems and Perspectives," Conflict Studies, 135 (1982), 12. 14 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 98. Janke claims 35 civilians were killed. 15 Janke, p. 16. 16 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 100. 17 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 98. 18 Bell, Revolt, p. 197. 19 Moss, "Security," p. 19. 20 MacStiofain, p. 176. 21 MacStiofain, p. 176. 22 Buckland, pp. 149-50. 23 MacStiofain, p. 184. 24 Buckland, pp. 149-52. 25 Buckland, p. 150. 26 Clutterbuck, pp. 104-06. 27 MacStiofain, p. 186. 28 Geraghty, p. 161. 29 Geraghty, p. 163. 30 Moss, "Security," p. 19. 31 MacStiofain, p. 186. 32 Moss, "Security," p. 19. 33 MacStiofain, p. 186. 34 Moss, "Security," p. 19. 35 MacStiofain, p. 190. 36 Janke, p. 12. 37 Janke, p. 11. 38 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 111-17. 39 Janke, p. 18. 40 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 118. 41 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 118-28. 42 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 118-19. 43 Bell, Revolt, p. 198. 44 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 128-29. 45 Clitterbuck, Protest, p. 134. 46 CLutterbuck, Protest, p. 134. 47 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 134. 48 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 137. 49 Crozier, "Consensus," p. 6. 50 Crozier, "Consensus," p. 6. 51 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 139-40. 52 Bell, Revolt, p. 198. Chapter 4 Legitimacy Spurned--The Madmen Emerge 1 Coogan, pp. 490-95. 2 Coogan, p. 492. 3 Coogan, p. 495. 4 Coogan, p. 496. 5 Bell, Revolt, pp. 202-03. 6 Clutterbuck, Protest, pp. 140-41. 7 MacStiofain, p. 8 MacStiofain, p. 9 Crozier, "Politics,", p. 7. 10 Crozier, "Politics," p. 7. 11 Crozier, "Politics," p. 7. 12 Clutterbuck, Protest, p. 142. 13 Coogan, p. 516. 14 Janke, p. 18. 15 Janke, p. 16. 16 Janke, p. 16. 17 D. L. Price, "S.F. Attrition Tactics," in "Ulster: Consensus and Coercion," Conflict Studies 50 (October 1974), 7. Hereafter cited as "Attrition." 18 Major Scott McKenzie, "Preparing A Commando For Northern Ireland," Marine Corps Gazette, 19 Lt.Col. Jake Hensman, British Royal Marines, Class presented to United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, January 30, 1985. 20 Price, "Attrition," p. 7. 21 Janke, p. 15. 22 Janke, p. 15. 23 Price, "Attrition," p. 7. 24 Price, "Attrition," p. 9. 25 Price, "Attrition," p. 10. 26 Price, "Attrition," p. 10. 27 Richard Ned Lebow, "The Origins of Sectarian Assassination," International Terrorism, p. 43. 28 Lebow, pp. 43-44. 29 Lebow, p. 44. 30 Lebow, p. 45. 31 Lebow, p. 45. 32 Lebow, pp. 45-46. 33 Lebow, p. 46. 34 Janke, p. 17. 35 Coogan, p. 578. 36 Coogan, pp. 578-581. 37 Coogan, p. 580. 38 Coogan, pp. 578-579. 39 Coogan, pp. 581-582. 40 Janke, p. 17. 41 Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, The Terrorists (New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1982), p. 199. 42 Janke, p. 17. 43 Janke, p. 17. 44 Janke, p. 17. 45 Janke, p. 17. 46 Dobson and Payne, pp. 198-99. 47 The Institute for the Study of Conflict, "Problems," pp. 19-24. 48 Thomas P. McDonnell, "Catholic Press Reprinting on Northern Ireland," Holy Cross Quarterly, p. 71. 49 Coogan, p. 582. 50 Winston S. Churchill, as quoted in Holy Cross Quarterly, p. 36. Epilogue 1 Ulster Unionist Assembly Party's Report Committee, "Revolution and the Northern Ireland Assembly: The Way Forward," (Belfast: The University Press Limited), p. 5. 2 Ulster Unionist Assembly Party's Report Committee, p. 6. 3 "After the Bomb," Editorial, The Economist, 20 Oct. 1984, pp. 13-14. 4 "After the Bomb," p. 14. 5 Michael Getler, "Thatcher Remarks Anger Irish," Washington Post, 23 Nov. 1984, pp. A37, A39. BIBLIOGRAPHY A. Primary Sources 1. Autobiography MacStiofain, Sean. Revolutionary in Ireland. London: Gordon Cremonesi, 1975. Autobiographical account of events leading to establishment of Provisional IRA, early strategy, organization, tactics. Useful to this study. Propaganda effect must be recognized. 2. Documents Copy of document found in a search of the Maze. undtd. 17 pages. Single-spaced typewritten IRA mini-manual which discussed organization, tactics, training, recruiting, etc. Used extensively in conjunction with MacStiofain's work to describe the inner workings of the IRA. 3. Reports New Ireland Forum. Report. Dublin: Stationery Office, 2 May 1984. An information packed document. Reviews historical causes of the crisis, economic results and proposes possible models for the much-needed political solution. A visionary study. "The Cost of Violence Arising from the Northern Ireland Crisis since 1969." 3 Nov 1983. Ulster Unionist Assembly Party's Report Committee. "Revolution and the Norther Ireland Assembly: The Way Forward." Belfast, The Universities Press, Limited, undtd. A discussion paper. Outlines the moderate Protestant position in Ulster and recognizes the need for minority representation and participation. B. Secondary Sources 1. Books Bartlett, Jonathan, ed. Northern Ireland. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1983. A series of excerpts/articles which range from historical background, IRA hunger strikes, and life in prison in Northern Ireland to life in general in that country. Provides tremendous contemporary insights. Useful to this study for its descriptive articles on the atmosphere of Northern Ireland and for its description of the IRA organization and discipline in prison. Beckett, J. C. The Making of Modern Ireland. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1966. An excellent general history which covers the period 1603-1923. Rich in detail and explanatory background. Used extensively to develop historical perspective. Bell, J. Bowyer. The Secret Arm . New York: The John Day Company, 1971. Comprehensive history of the IRA from 1916-1970. Emphasis and detail on years after Civil War to beginning of the present troubles. Excellent background for this study. ---------. On Revolt. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1976. An analysis of seven guerrilla campaigns or wars of national liberation. Emphasis on British colonial experience and that in Northern Ireland. Suggests British continue to follow similar patterns. Interesting and valuable to this study. ---------. A Time of Terror. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1978. A general study of government response to terrorism. One chapter devoted to "The Irish Experience" from 1922-1977. Buckland, Patrick. A History of Northern Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1981. A recent history of Northern Ireland since partition. Full of vital statistics. Last third of book deals with present troubles. Obtained late in research. Therefore, not as fully utilized as it could have been. One of two books I would start with next time. Churchill, Winston S. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, The New World. New York: Dodd, Mead and "Company, 1956. Second of four volumes by reknowned author and statesman. Provided vital English historical perspective to study. ---------. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, The Age of Revolution. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1957. See comments for The New World immediately preceding. Clutterbuck, Richard. Protest and the Urban Guerrilla. New York: Abelard-Schuman Limited, 1973. A study of violence in Britain, Ireland and then elsewhere. Provides a detailed account of the sixties and early seventies: civil rights marches, Provo/Official IRA split, British response, etc. Relied upon heavily in this study. ---------. Guerrillas and Terrorists. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1977. A more recent work on growing terrorist phenomenon. Better suited to general study of terrorism than for Northern Ireland specifically. Useful. Not essential. Coogan, Tim Pat. The I. R. A.. Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1980. Sixth impression. First published by Pall Mall Press, 1970. A comprenensive history of the IRA. Revised edition has added benefit of section on the Provisional IRA. Particularly useful on details of IRA reorganization, 1977. Dangerfield, George. The Damnable Question. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976. Focuses on Anglo-Irish past from 1800-1921. Extensively referenced. Provides in-depth study of the period. Particularly adept at portraying depth of major figures and events. Used extensively in developing chapter one of this study. Deutsch, Richard. Mairead Corriqan, Betty Williams. Woodbury, N.Y.: Barrows, 1977. Introduction by Joan Baez indicates the slant. Describes peace movement in Northern Ireland. Useful in combination with other sources for perspective. Dobson, Christopher and Payne, Ronald. The Terrorists. New York: Facts on File, 1982. Revised edition. Examines internationally known terrorist groups and profiles each in terms of organization, training, funding, arms, etc. Good source for thumbnail sketch with current, as of 1980, data. Eckles, Robert B. and Hale, Richard W., Jr. Britain, Her Peo" les and the Commonwealth. New York: McGraw-Hill Boo Company, Inc., 1954. A general history used primarily to balance historical perspective of Parnell, Gladstone and Home Rule Era. Fields, Rona. Society Under Seige. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977. Interesting book by psychologist. Provides detailed discussion of "interrogation in depth" and its effects. Valuable as background for the 1970 period in Ulster and for acquiring a sense for what life is like in this period. Fitzgibbon, Constantine. Red Hand: The Ulster Colony. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1972. One of the foremost studies of the plantation of Ulster and resulting effects on the people of Ulster. Critical historical perspective. Heskin, Ken. Northern Ireland: A Psychological Analysis. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1980. Author is Belfast native and psychologist. Highly interesting psycho- analysis of the situation, to include factors influencing both group and individual behavior. Includes analysis of motivation of Catholics to join IRA. Geraghty, Tony. Inside the SAS. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982. One of the few books which openly discusses the SAS in Northern Ireland. Though not extensive, the details are interesting and objective. 39 pages on the Northern Ireland role of the SAS. Hyams, Edward. Terrorists and Terrorism. New York: St. Martins Press, Inc.:, 1974. Study of terrorism in 20th century. Argues that terrorism does work. Citng Ireland 1912-1921 as example. Also briefly discusses Ulster later. Concludes that IRA has been largely successful in terrorists' terms. Not used. Lebow, Richard Ned. "The Origins of Sectarian Assassina- tion: The Case of Belfast." In International Terrorism, pp. 41-56. Edited by Alan D. Buckley and Daniel D. Olson. Wayne, N.J.: 1980. An extremely well-written, well-documented article. Describes the frustrations of the Protestant population of Belfast in clear terms and contrasts the IRA and Protestant terrorist groups. Read as initial background and used in the latter portion of the study. MacManus, Seamus. The Story of the Irish Race. New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1977. Comprehensive history of Ireland. Extensively referenced. A must for students of Irish history. Provides excellent background on early Fenian movement. Moss, Robert. The War For the Cities. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., 1972. Study of urban terrorism. Uses several case studies. Well-written. Chapter on Ireland is basically same material Moss wrote for Conflict Studies, Nov. 1971 (See Periodicals under Crozier Neill, Kenneth. The Irish People. New York: Mayflower Books, Inc., 1979. A well-written, illustrated history. An excellent chronology. Used extensively in researching the historical background. O'Brien, Maire and Conor Cruise. A Concise Histor of Ireland. New York: Beckman House, 1972. A brief history. Useful for general reference, not detail. Thompson, Sir Robert, ed. War in Peace. London: Harmony Books, 1982. Excellent reference book on war since 1945. Provides initial starting point for study but lacks specific detail on the IRA to the extent sought for this study. Weiner, Joel H. ed. Great Britain: Foreign Policy and the Span of Empire. Vol. II. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1972. Provides actual content of documents and debates in Parliament in the period 1691-1922. Invaluable for in depth study of that period. Interview Collins, Col. Patrick. USMC. Personal interview at Colonel Collins' home, Fairfax, Virginia, 16 Feb. 1985. Well- read on Ireland and Northern Ireland. Extensive personal library generously made available. Strong emphasis on understanding history as key to grasping situation in Northern Ireland. Newspapers Getler, Michael. "Thatcher Remarks Anger Irish." Washington Post, 23 Nov. 1984, pp. A37, A39. Washington Poet Foreign Service. Report of Mrs. Thatcher"s press conference after Anglo-Irish summit with Prime Minister Garrett Fitzgerald. Mrs. Thatcher reported opposed to proposals of New Ireland Forum. Her remarks a political embarrassment to Mr. Fitzgerald. Used in the epilogue. Periodicals Casey, William Van Etten, S.J. ed. The Holy Cross Quarterly, 6 (1973). Entire issue devoted to the Irish issue. A series of essays, excerpts and observations from scholars from all sides of the issue, many of which could be considered primary sources. This is an excellent place for one to start learning about Northern Ireland. Articles by Norman J. Gibson, "The Irish Problem"; Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., "Hope for Northern Ireland???;" and Thomas P. McDonnell, Catholic "Press Reporting on Northern Ireland" were specifically cited in the study. Quotes from poetry of John Montague used in text also come from this periodical. Crozier, Brian, ed. "The Spreading Irish Conflict." Conflict Studies, 17 (Nov. 1971). Contains work of two authors: Iain Hamilton and Robert Moss. The latter's "The Security of Ulster," pp. 5-23 was particularly useful. ---------. "Ulster: Politics and Terrorism." Conflict Studies, 36 (June 1973). Divided into two parts. The first entitled "The Constitutional Issue" and the other "The Problem of Security." Second used extensively. Two appendices provide brief descriptions, facts and figures on known terrorist groups and their goals and on terrorist related casualties, incidents, etc. Grear, Lt. Col. J.F.M. RE, ANBIM. "Engineer Operations in Northern Ireland August 1969-February 1971." The Royal Engineers Journal, LXXXV, No. 3 (Sept. 1971), pp Extremely informative article on the extensive engineer efforts that went into the early years of the crisis. Discusses construction of "Peace Lines" and some futile attempts at constructing obstacles along the border. Hamilton, Iain. "The Irish Tangle." Conflict Studies, 6 (Aug. 1970). The first of the Institute for the Study of Conflict's works on the situation in Northern Ireland. Gives a good account of the events of the late sixties as the situation was just starting to erupt. Hennen, 1st Lt. Christopher, "Terrorism in Northern Ireland." Military Intelligence, (Oct-Dec. 1984), pp. 17-22. A recent article which discusses the intelli- gence aspects, to include army-police cooperation, initial intelligence deficiencies and some methods of obtaining intelligence in such a situation. Used to corroborate analysis of intelligence. Institute for the Study of Conflict. pub. "Northern Ireland: Problems and Perspectives." Conflict Studies, 135 (1982). An excellent summary piece complete with statistics and charts. ----------. "Political Violence and Civil Disobedience in Western Europe 1982." Conflict Studies, 145 (1982), pp. 1-4, 11, 12, 25-31. A chronology of terrorist related events in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Cites names, places, groups involved if identified. Not used directly in study; however, the volume of activity had a definite impact on the study's basic conclusion. Janke, Peter. "Ulster: A Decade of Violence." Conflict Studies, 108 (June 1979). Probably the best of the series for detail. Emphasizes the importance of a credible role for the police. Sees the IRA as most efficient. Concludes that political settlement "is government's most important task." Used extensively. Mackenzie, Kenneth, ed. "Ulster:. Concensus and Coercion." Conflict Studies, 50 (Oct. 1974). Contains two authors' works. Peter Janke writes on "Return to Direct Rule" and D. L. Price on "S(ecurity) F(orces) Attrition Tactics." Price's article bears particular interest because 1974 was when the British security measures were really beginning to have their intended effect. Contains appendix which profiles known terrorist groups. McKenzie, Maj. Scott W. "Preparing a Commando for Northern Ireland." Marine Corps Gazette, 66, No. 8 (Aug. 1982), pp. 70-74. Excellent article which describes the standard training package all British units receive prior to assignment to Northern Ireland. APPENDIX A. The Origins of Hate To the glorious, pious and immortal memory or William III, Prince of Orange, who saved us all from popery, brass money and wooden shoes. Irish Protestant Toast Up the long ladder and down the short rope, To hell with King Billy and God bless the Pope, If that doesn't do it, we'll tear them in two And send them to hell with their red, white and blue. Irish Republican Chant Centuries of history provide the background for such chants and toasts which abound in Ulster today. To those who live in Northern Ireland and who chant or toast in this manned humor is not their intent. The purpose of either side is similar: to embrace their version of history, to signal their defiance to their historical opponents and to ensure that the multiple wounds of centuries past are left open and are not forgotten. To understand how such seemingly innocuous chants and toasts have taken on such profound historical and emotional depth, one must first examine the history of Great Britain and Ireland to identify the origins of hate. Anglo-Irish history is a tangle or misunderstanding mixed with hatred. The hybrid fruits or this bitter history are Northern Ireland and the "troubles" which have plagued her for the past fifteen years and which remain unresolved to this day. To understand the present one must first traverse the confusing twists and turns of Ireland's past. No single event stands out to illuminate the issue. From the time of the first English plantations, political, economic, social and religious factors have become so entwined as to be at times indistinguishable one from another. If the politics and history of Ireland are clouded, the legendary founding of Ulster is not. Michael Olmert, writing in a May 1984 article in Smithsonian, recounted the discovery of Ulster: Once upon a time, a few Celtic warlords were roving over the wide Atlantic, extending them- selves and their boats northwest from Europe. When they spied a green headland, it occurred to them to race for the beach - the first one to touch land, it was understood, would acquire the whole place for himself and his descendants. But as one slower boat slipped slightly but inexorably behind in the churning surf, its captain, the Brave O'Neill, decided on a rash act. Deliberately wielding his battle-ax, he chopped off his own left hand and hurled it ashore, thus claiming the territory forever. In the bargain, O'Neill won for his people not only a homeland, but also an emblem, the Red Hand, a badge by which their shields and property could be spotted from afar. The Bloody Hand of Ulster, as it is sometimes called, is one of the oldest of heraldic symbols.1 Neither the ancient author of the legend nor the herald who first depicted "the red hand" knew how prophetic their creative efforts would be. The legendary O'Neill's rash act was the first of many to impact on Ulster's history, but at least in his actions there was an unselfish purpose. To this day the thirsty soil of Ulster remains bloodied but unquenched. The Red Hand continues to mark Ulster from afar, but not as the herald intended. Bloody hands, however, are not confined to Northern Ireland; they may be found elsewhere in such places as Dublin, London and even New York. Again history provides the only clues. Kenneth Neill in his introduction to The Irish People has written a most concise yet complete description of Ireland's geography and its impact on her history past and present. And from this description alone, much of the historical background of today's troubles comes into clearer perspective. Despite occupying a similar geographical position and climate as England, Ireland unlike her powerful neighbor to the east never developed into a seafaring state due in large part to a rugged coastline and an agricultural base which adequately supported the native population. Neither the forces of nature nor history forced the Irish to the sea; both, however, would conspire to drive them west in their native land or to leave Ireland for adopted homelands troughout the world. Like most countries Ireland was not blessed with favorable soil throughout, a point not missed by those who were to come. Neill pointed out that there is less desireable and productive land which "often coexists with the good"; this increases in proportion to the good as one moves west across the island, and across the River Shannon. As any of the native Irish displaced and driven west first by colonization and then by Cromwell in the 17th century could later attest, "Those areas west of the Shannon were considerably poorer than those to the east."2 The topography of Ireland, though her mountains are not impressive by international standards, has made a distinct impression on her history. Kenneth Neill described the relationship: Virtually the entire coastline is ringed with rugged highland, from the Mourne Mountains in the north east to Macgillicuddy reeks in the far south west. . . . Inside the coastal ring of mountains lies a central basin that contains few major geographical obstacles aside from some fairly small rivers. This saucer-like arrange- ment has been very advantageous in one sense throughout the island's history; it has promoted a high degree of cultural unity. While travel in the more mountainous coastal regions has often been difficult, it has always been relative- ly easy for people - and ideas - to move across the central part of the country.3 Consistent with her later history, Ulster differs geographically from the rest of Ireland. Not surprising but nonetheless perplexing is the reversibel role her geography has played: initially as a barrier to keep foreigners away and then, once penetrated, as an effective outer fortification providing relative sanctuary for the foreigners it for so many years repelled. Neill decribed it well: The atlas . . . does not yield all of Ireland's geographical secrets so easily. While on a map the terrain of the north-eastern province of Ulster appears only somewhat rougher than usual, the medium-high region shown on the map acturally consists of steep hills known as drumlins. Today these seem little more than scenic variations of the terrain from the motor car window. In earlier time, however, these drumlins presented a form- idable barrier. For the weary traveller on horse or foot, entering Ulster was like entering a maze; as each steep hillock was painfully traversed, it was followed by another, and another, and another. Geography, therefore, a stood in the way of Ulster's full participation in the affairs of the island. Ulster developed its own particular variation of Irish culture; even today, Ulster speech patterns are radically different from those of the rest of the country. Not surprisingly, the north-east was the last province conquered by the British during the sixteenth century. When the province was colonized by Scottish immigrants during the next century, georgaphy contributed to the antipathy and hatreds which developed between these people and the rest of the Irish population.4 Some Irishmen might argue that the seeds of hatred were effectvely sown in the first English invasion by Strongbow in 1169. Officially known as Richard, Earl of Pembroke, he did not come the Ireland as an invader; rather he arrived at the request of Dermont MacMurrough, the recently deposed king of Leinster, who was seeking to regain his lost throne. Dermot enticed Strongbow by offering his daughter's hand in return for military support. Strongbow succeeded in restoring his soon-to-be father-in-law; later in 1171 he, himself, became king after the untimely death of Dermot.5 To say that the roots of hatred extend this deep in history is both hyperbole abd distortion. The distortion lies in the fact that, as Dermot's war indicates, no sense of Irish nationalism existed at this time. Tribal chieftans rules georgraphic areas by force and custom, and they were more preoccupied with fighting among themselves and protecting their regions than responding to the call of their still undiscovered and undeveloped spirit of nationalism. The exaggeration is proven by the fact that Strongbow and the ensuing Normans, though indeed foreign and victorious on the battlefield, did not assume the role of conquerors. Rather than remain foreign, they were assimilated into the Irish culture thus becoming in the words of an oft quoted phrase "more Irish than the Irish themselves." The hatred does not run this deep. This acculturation process was of no small concern in London to those in government whose foremost intent was to maintain clear economic, social and political distinction between English and Irish. This led to the issuance of the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 which belatedly "forbade Norman and English settlers to practise Irish customs, to speak Irish language and to have any social or economic dealings with the native population."6 Though perhaps an early indicator of the English's historically condescend- ing attitude toward the Irish and their tendency toward impractical, unenforceable laws, these new laws had little legal or emotional effect in Ireland. As English grew into an imperial power in the late 16th and early 17th century, she established a pattern of colonial development called plantation. At the same time that John Smith and company were founding the Jamestown plantation, England made similar plantings in Ireland. These were not the first. Twice already, during the previous thirty years, plantation had been attempted in Ireland though without much success . . . in the territories of Leix and Offaly, on the borders of the Pale, . . . and in north-east Ulster.7 In 1583 after suppressing a rebellion in Munster, the English planted settlers in that country. "Imperfectly executed though it was, it marked a great advance of royal authority"8 and set the stage for the next planta- ion whose poisoned roots still bear poisoned fruits in Ulster today. Paradoxically Ulster, which later would stand ready to to fight to retain her ties to Great Britain, was the last Irish province to yield to English colonization partly because of her geography and partly because the Gaelic inhabitants cherished both their independence and their independent Gaelic ways. They, like their later Protestant brethren, would not submit without one good, last fight. Of the many risings which flood Irish histroy, the rebellion led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, in 1595 is significant as the last Anglo-Irish conflict free of religious undertones. Though the English had been Protestant now for about sixty years since Henry VIII's break with Rome and the Irish rebels were Catholic, independence not religion was at the heart of this rebellion. In winning the English broke the Gaelic independence of Ulster; in defeat, followed closely by the "flight of the Earls," the leaderless, conquered inhabitants were defense- less against the next English attack - plantation. This new plantation took place in six counties, the four forefeited by the departed earls: Donegal, Coleraine, Armagh and Tyrone; and Cavan and Fermanagh as well.9 Of the remaining three counties in the province "Antrim and Down already contained large Scottish and smaller English settlements, and were . . . loyal subjects of the London Government."10 The ninth and last, Monaghan, in England's estimation was successfully converting to English ways. Accordingly, none of the last three were "planted."11 In discussing the reasons for planting Ireland, Constantine FitzGibbon in Red Hand, The Ulster Colony asserts bluntly that: the motives behind the Plantation were crude; to make money, to keep the Irish down, and if possible to turn them into second-class Englishmen or Scots at least to prevent them from speaking, thinking and thus even being Irish.12 He counterbalances his bluntness by proceeding to note with equal force that "the basic motive . . . was not the destruction of Gaelic culture, nor even in the first instance [of plantation] of the Roman Catholic religion."13 Most historians generally agree with FitzGibbon on these points, though they might well state them in different order, with different words, with varying priority and as with most matters related to this issue in widely ranging extremes of passion. Without getting into prolonged discussion of the actural plantation system and its implementation in Northern Ireland, a brief description is essential be- cause of its direct relation to Ulster today. J.C. Beckett in his History of Modern Ireland described it thusly: In each country a comparatively small area was assigned to the 'deserving' natives, who were to grant leases to their tennants, build houses and follow English methods of husbandry. The rest of the territory, apart from the extensive church land, was set aside for colonization. The main work was to be entrusted to 'undertakers'. They were required to bring over English or Scottish settlers and establish them close togetter in villages and townships; to build stone or brick houses with fortified enclosures or 'bawns,' and to keep arms for their defence. Lands were also to be granted to 'servitors' men who had served the Crown in Ireland ; they were under similar obligations as to building and defence, but were allowed to take native Irish tennants, though they were encouraged to plant with English or Scots.14 This planting took root but not entirely as disigned. Between 1610 and 1630 approximately 49,000 settlers, predominantly Protestant Scots, came to Ulster, but they were unable to displace the inhabitians for two simple reasons. There were not enough settlers to occupy all the estates; consequently, those settlers who did come needed to retain the Irish as laborers out of economic necessity. Thus, the Catholic minority which figures so prominently to this day was created. Even with this concerted effort toward plantation and the large influx of protestant settlers, the more remote counties to be "planted," Donegal and Cavan, remained predominantly catholic.15 During this same period too came the first attempts by the government to gerrymander political districts and rig elections to ensure a Protestant majority over the "recusants" who controlled the Irish Parliament. With these political shenanigans, the planting of Protestant settlers in a Catholic country, and the subjugation and displacement of the native population, the seed which would produce the ugly hybrid had been planted. Nurtured by the lesser qualities of man, soon to be spread by impassioned by unchrisitian religious fervor, and carried forward in time by the everpresent winds of hatred, violence and death, it grew uncontrollably strangling the healthy fauna of moderate thought in its birthplace; it further stretched across local boundaries, seas, and oceans to both draw sustenance and destroy. Ugly fruit soon appeared. The first rebellion directly attributable to plantation occurred in 1641, having long term political consequences and igniting religious fires which still burn. The issues were not religious, but since the opposing parties were divided along religious lines, pitting Protestant against Catholic, unavoidable sectarian passions resulted. This rising was much different than the O'Neill rising of 1595. The latter was a last-ditch stand to retain independence, a simple bipartisan war. In 1641 the rebels took the offensive in an attempt to re-occupy lost terrain and to regain their lost independence. It was not a gentleman's war. Many English settlers were slaughtered in the first heat of the rising; others, after being held as prisioners for a time, were deliberately murdered, sometimes by scores together. Thousands more, driven from their homes, plundered of their goods, stripped almost naked, were left to find their way to some place of refuge, or perish in the attempt. These excesses sprang from the undisciplined fury of the Irish, chafing under a thousand grievances, not from the settled policies of their leaders.16 Policy or not, little astute leadership existed to prevent such violent over-reaction. The Irish leadership was inexperienced and poorly organized. Successful initially in the countryside, the Irish lacked the leadership and arms necessary to gain a decisive victory. Realistically, victory no matter how decisive would certainly have been short-lived enduring only until England was able to bring her military might to bear. The Irish could not win. Falling back, the Protestants successfully defended strongholds in places like Enniskillen, Coleraine and Londonderry; they also operated offensively in parts of Donelgal. This stalemate was extremely advantageous to the Protestants. Concentrated in these strongholds, they gained that unity that only the shared experience of war can produce; they would not lose it. Successful in holding off the Irish rebels, they gained tremendous confidence in their ability as a group, notwithstanding their minority, to defend their interests. This determin- ation and confidence too have become hereditary. Finally, and most important in terms of the outcome of the rebellion, in delaying they bought time. With each day the Protestants' unity, confidence and determination grew in inverse proportion to the diminishing momentum of the Catholics. If religion was not yet indelibly inscribed in Irish history, Oliver Cromwell and his army looming on the horizon would forever ensure that it was. Cromwell arrived in 1649 with a highly efficient force of ten thousand veteran troops and crushed the rebellion.17 His victories were followed by massacres at Drogheda and Wexford, a campaign of terror which, in the later words of Winston Churchill, was "deeply embarrassing to Cromwell's nineteenth- century admirers and apologists."18 Cromwell for his part saw this campaighn as almost a holy mission. Churchill addressed the fact and the fallacy of Cromwell's fanaticism. In his hatred of Popery, which he regarded as a worldwide conspiracy of evil, he sought to ident- ify the garrison of Drogheda witht he Roman Catholic Irish peasantry who had massacred the Protestant landlords in 1961. He ought to have known that not one of them had the slightest connection with that eight-year-old horror.19 Churchill's cool hindsight may have been a little unfair since neither the blazing emotions of war and religion, which compelled and blinded Cromwell, did not obsure his vision. Cromwell believe in the righteous- ness of his actions. After Drogheda he wrote, "I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches who have imbued their hands in so much innocent blood."20 Churchill summarized perfectly Cromwell's legacy to Ireland. We have seen the many ties which at one time or another have joined the inhabitiants of the Western islands, and even in Ireland itself offerred a tolerable way of life to Protestants and Catholics alike. Upon all of these Cromwell's record was a lasting bane. By an uncompleted process of terror, by an iniquitous land settlement, by the virtual proscription of the Catholic religion, by the bloody deeds already described, he cut new gulfs between the nations and the creeds. "Hell or Connaught" were the terms he thrust upon the native inhabitants, and they for thier pare, across three hundred years, have used as their keenest expression of hatred "The Curse or Cromwell on you." The consequences of Cromwell's rule in Ireland have distressed and at times distracted English politics down even to the present day. To heal them baffled the skill and loyalties of successive generations. They became for a time a potent obstacle to the harmoney of the English-speaking people through- out the world. Upon all of us there still lies "the curse of Cromwell."21 A generation later in 1689 the Irish rose again for a most unlikelly purpose - to assist James II, the Catholic King of England, in regaining his throne. James was the brother of Charles II, who died without heir; by the rules of succession, he became king. James was also a convert to Catholicism and had been less than circumspect in his personal life, attributes which pleased neither a Protestant Parliament nor a predominantly Protestant country. In fact, some members of parliament had unsuccessfully battled Charles II for several years attempting to pass an Act of Exclusion which would have "legally" adjusted established lineage procedures. Charles resisted until his death in 1685, and thus was able "to transmit the crown of a Protestant country to a Catholic successor."22 James, after thwarting an early unpopular and unsupported rebellion, ruled for three years until the comulative weight of his desire to rule arbitarily, his use of a strong standing army, his tolerant measures towards Catholics, his open policy of placing them into incresingly important positions, and finally the birth of his son, a Catholic heir, crushed what minimal support he had enjoyed. He fled and William of Orange ascended to the throne. While William III took power, James was organizing support in France. In March 1689 the deposed Stuart monarch landed in Ireland: Where he was welcomed as a deliverer. He reigned in Dublin . . . and was soon defended by a Catholic army which may have reached a hundred thousand men. The whole island, except the protestant settlements in the North passed under [James'] control.23 William did not address this threat in force until 1690, when he personally led his army into the Protestant force beachhead area in the north. On July 1, 1690, a mere two weeks after his landing at Carrickfergus, William and his army met and defeated a numerically superior Irish army at the Battle of Boyne, a victory commemorated annually in Northern Ireland by the Protestant Orangemen. After this defeat James fled Ireland, but the Irish fought on for another year until they were defeated in the truly decisive battle of this war at Aughrim on July 12, 1961.24 The Treaty of Limerick which ended the war was in many respects conciliatory and lenient in its terms - too lenient in the view of Protestants, particularly in Ireland. Not all its best intentions came to pass. By 1697 Parliament had forced William's hand, passing Laws which forbade Catholics sending their children abroad for education, eliminated their right to bear arms and banished the Catholis clergy.25 Thus, within a decade after Boyne, the character: Of the new Protestant ascendancy had declared itself. The practical toleration long injoyed by the Roman Catholics was to come to an end and they were to be deprived of every means by which they might threaten the position of the dominant minority. The era of penal laws had begun.26 By any standard of comparision to earlier times in Ireland, the 18th century was a period of relative prosperity and peace. As oppressive as the letter of the Penal laws was, the effect, like many past statutes, diminished rapidly over time. After thirty years of rel- atively strict application, they lossened in practice; by 1777 they were virtually both unenforceable and unenforced.27 These laws affected both Catholics and all dissident Protestants (i.e., non-Anglicans). This along with the increasing religious tensions in Irelands, led many "dissenters" to emigrate to the more hospitable American colonies. By 1770 it was reckoned that 12,000 Ulstermen were reaching America each year. . . . It was not untill well into the next century that really massive Roman Catholic immigrations into Canada and the United States took place.28 Beneath the peaceful facade of this period, not all were basking in prosperity nor content with the status quo. Underlying social ills festered, linked to the plantation system, religious intolerance, subjugation and minority rule. Though not yet visible or organized on a national scale, secret Irish societies arose; notably, these were both Catholic and Protestant bearing "such colorful names as Blackfeet, Whiteboys, and Hearts of Oak,"29 they con- centrated their efforts most frequently on collection agents, not on humanitarian social issues. For similar reasons in 1641, the "Hearts of Steel" banded together in Antrim to take direct action against unscrupulous landlords who had forced them to give up their lands due to exorbitant renewal rates.30 For any who may have thought otherwise, the actions of the "Steelboys" proved beyond all doubt "that the presbyterian tenants of the north were, when aroused, just as ready as the Roman Catholic teneants of the south to defend their position by violence."31 In fact, many of them would join forces toward a common goal in the next rising. But no century in Ireland would be complete without a rising of some kind. In the last decade of the 18th century, Theobald Wolf Tone, a young Protestant lawyer inspired by the French Revolution, strove to unite all the Irish people. He formed the Societ of United Irishmen, first in Belfast and largely Protestant based.32 The Catholics did not respond quickly. Nevertheless, by 1794 the organization posed a significant enough threat that the English banned it as dangerous and revolutionary. Stressing union of all Irishmen regardless of religion and aided b the excesses of a new Protestant paramilitary organization, the Orange Society, which first appeared in Armagh in the 1690's and later became a national movement, Tone gradually won the much needed Catholic support so vital to a truly national movement. While Tone was in France attempting to muster external support, crown agents effectively infiltrated the society and crippled its leadership in a series of arrests.33 The actual rising was from the start widely dispersed, uncoordinated and understandably unsuccessful. The rebels struck the first blow in Wexford. In May 1798 a Catholic force led by a priest won initial victories; however, it was eventually forced on the defensive and was destroyed a Vinegar Hill. A Protestant rising in Antrim during August was also suppressed, but with less brutality. Later the same month French forces landed in Connaught, waged a valiant but hopeless campaign, and surrendered on September 8, 1798. The final blow came about one week later when the Royal Navy intercepted French ships off the coast of Donegal capturing Tone along with additional French forces. Tried and condemned to death, Tone committed suicide in his prision cell.34 Another Irish rising had come to a familiar conclusion. Tone's place in Irish history is significant. Though unsuccessfrl, the rising of 1798 was truly national in scope and produced in Tone a martyr of lasting national fame. But his movement did not unite all the Irish people, particularly in Ulster. There his political actions toward unity heightened the fears of the Protestant minority that had remained loyal to the crown and their own economic interests; thus in Ulster greater polarization resulted. Consequently two armed camps developed: the Catholic "Defenders" and the Protestant "Peep O'Day Boys,"35 precursors of later sectarian, terrorist groups. On a larger scale the rise of the Orange Society into an Ulster-wide organization of unprecedented political and military force guaranteed it a decisive role in the rest of Ireland's immediate and distant future. In the 19th century, "Home Rule" became the dominant issue. What home rule the Irish Parliament provided was lost in 1800 by the Act of Union between Ireland and the United Kingdom. On this occasion the Irish Parliament actually voted to disestablish itself. The vote, however, was the culmination of a deliberate English plan. Cornwallis and Castlereagh were authorized to promise the peerages, places, and pensions necessary to meet the claims put forward. The support thus gained, however, was hardly suffic- ient for the purpose now in hand, partly because so many of the independent gentlemen who normally voted with the government had gone into opposition on the question of union, partly because it was thought neccessary that the measure should be carried by a substantial majority. Castlereagh set himself, therefore, to win every possible vote, by threats, by promises, in a few cases even by direct puchase for cash. Some members who could not bring themselves to vote for union were nevertheless indiced to vacate their seats and make way for government supporters. Other vacancies resulted from transfers of allegiance on the part of burrough-owners, whose nominees refused to accept the change of policy and were obliged to resign.36 Thus Home Rule became the question and the cause of Irish politics for the entire century and into the next. One of the major political oversights of the Act of Union was its failure to eradicate the Penal Laws. This left the path for challenge open, and challenge the Irish did. The laws restricting Catholics from holding elected office crumbled under the weight of mass popular action and resulted in what is commonly referred to as the Catholic Emancipation of 1828.37 Emancipation combined with the earlier loss of Parliament effectively sounded the death knell for the "Ascendancy" in Ireland, except in the Protestant strongholds in Ulster. In Ulster, in a manner still evident today, each perceived step forward by the Catholics in the South was viewed as a threat by the Protestants in the North; thus each occurrence resulted in violent repercussions against the Catholic minority there. Led by the Ian Paisley of that ear, the Reverend Doctor Henry Cooke, the Protestant majority adamantly opposed home rule because home rule to them meant southern home rule; it would be based in Dublin and would not distinguish between "North" and "South." They preferred the status quo. Dr. Abraham Maslow, the noted behavioral scientist, could have looked to Ireland in the 1840's had he wanted a national example to support his "hierarchy of needs." By mid-century lofty national issues vanished in the face of a severe challenge to basic survival; the "Potato Famine" saw to that. In 1845 a blight struck Ireland's primary agricultural crop and then struck with even more severity the following year. An extremely bitter winter ensued. Starvation and hardship similar to that which, except for climate, shock the modern world's conscience in Central Africa in 1985 stalked Ireland in much the same manner with much the same result. The blight did not appear again in 1847 with even greater suffering.38 If ever Ireland has experienced what modern psychologists call a significant emotional event, "the Famine" more so than any rising must be it. Human tragedy aside, the famine is important for a variety of reasons. Ireland's population, which had almost doubled in the first four decades of the century, shrunk; it became a victim of death and emigration. Some two million Irish came to the United States alone between 1845 and 1858.39 These people brought few material belong- ings but many bitter memories, not just of famine and death but also of politics and history. This national disaster furthered deepened the ingrained bitterness of the Irish toward the British who, in the opinion of many, did little and cared less about the famine to their west. While it is true that the British government did little, one must consider her inaction according to the values of that period rather than with the modern day conscience. From that perspective Kenneth Neill more objectively points out that "few govenments of this period would have behaved differently."40 Nevertheless, for the people and the nation affected the bitter aftertaste remained. Once in America the Irish did not forget Ireland. Forming organizations like the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Clan na Gael in New York and the other northern cities where they first settled, the Irish raised funds and collected arms in anticipation of the next rising. Much like later republican organizations in Ireland, they split several times over the issue of political action versus military force; concurrently both their numbers and the numbers of groups multiplied. As an example of just how extreme some were, one of the more radical factions after the United States' Civil War actually invaded Canada from the United States to strike a blow at Great Britain.41 The Irish in America did not lose their great love for Ireland faithfully passed this emotional bond to subsequent generations. This romantic inheritance brought with it the correspondingly strong hatred for Britain, which has repeatedly mainfested itself over the years. As one author has commented, the Irish, thought lowly regarded initially in their adopted land: Acquired in due time and with successive emigrations a new respectability and an important political influence, and became an object of grave concern to English statesmanship. They collected and transmitted funds to Ireland; worse still they touched a sensitive nerve in the high- est places in American government. By the end of the nineteenth century, no English government could think of them without a shudder.42 As the 20th century draws rapidly to a close, Irish- Americans, both Catholic and Protestant, continue to support their Irish cousins with arms, money and propaganda. Hence they share vicariously, sometimes unwittingly, in the "troubles" that are Northern Ireland. If the British ever had legitimate cause to shake their heads in wonderment and disbelief, it may have first occurred in 1848 or during the decade or so that followed. After a nationalist group known as the Young Irelanders staged a feeble rising in that year which the British easily suppressed, the British did not adopt a hard-line stance toward the rebel leadership. Instead they were content to deport them rather than spark the coals of rebellion further. Thus the rebels gained no martyrs and little national (Irish) sympathy. More import- antly for Britian, by this wise action she preserved both military and political victory. This leniency, however, would very quickly come home to roost causing subsequent British leaders to deal more harshly with future Irish rebels. Two of the Young Irelanders deported were John O'Mahoney and James Stephens. Coming to America, O'Mahoney founded the first anti-Britiah group of significance, the Irish Republican Brotherhood: this organization's avowed purpose and clearly stated obj- ective was the total overthrow of British rule in Ireland. Like many things with the Irish, that single objective may have been the only point upon which they could agree. This Fenian movement split several times through disagreement; nevertheless it remained strong in its adopted homeland. With support from America and an infusion of Parisian revolutionary spirit, the Fenian movement, like plantation in Ulster, once planted could never be uprooted form Ireland's soil. In the mid-19th century Paris was to revolutionaries what Beirut has been to terrorists in the modern era. Even today Paris is the home of many leaders and governments in exile. After leaving Ireland, the second of the two Young Irelanders, James Stephens, "spent much of the next decade in Paris, where he became absorbed in the techniques and methods of the revolutionaries who traditionally made that city their home."43 Returning to Dublin in 1858, he formed his "Secret, oathbound" Brotherhood, shortly to become Ireland's twin branch of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.44 The Fenians had landed; but without British help, they would never have gotten the situation in hand. Endnotes APPENDIX A. The Origins of Hate 1 Michael Olmert, "Hail to Heraldry, A Most Intricate and Revealing Art," Smithsonian, May 1984, p. 86. 2 Kenneth Neill, The Irish People (New York: Mayflower Books, Inc., 1979), p. 8. 3 Neill, pp. 8-9. 4 Neill, p. 9. 5 Neill, pp. 38-39. 6 Neill, pp. 45-46. 7 J. C, Beckett, The Making of Modern Ireland (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1966), pp. 21-22. 8 Beckett, p.21. 9 Frank Gallagher, The Indivisible Island (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974), p. 23. 10 Constantine FitzGibbon, Red Hand. The Ulster Colony (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1972), pp. 19-20. 11 FitzGibbon, p. 20. 12 FitzGibbon, p. 19. 13 FitzGibbon, p. 21. 14 Beckett, pp. 45-46. 15 Neill, p. 45. 16 Beckett, p. 83. 17 Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples, The New World (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1956), pp. 288-292. Hereafter cited as World. 18 Churchill, World, p. 288. 19 Churchill, World, p. 291. 20 Churchill, World, p. 290, n. 1. 21 Churchill, World, p. 292. 22 Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples. The Age of Revolution (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1957), p. 9. Hereafter cited as Age. 23 Churchill, A", p. 9. 24 FitzGibbon, pp. 41-42. 25 FitzGibbon, pp. 44-46. 26 Beckett, pp. 151-152. 27 Beckett, pp. 157-159. 28 FitzGibbon, p. 49. 29 Neill, p. 77. 30 Beckett, pp. 177-179. 31 Beckett, p. 179. 32 FitzGibbon, pp. 91-95. 33 Beckett, pp. 261-268. 34 Beckett, pp. 261-268. 35 Neill, p. 90. 36 Beckett, p. 278. 37 FitzGibbon, pp. 91-95. 38 Neill, pp. 109-115. 39 Neill, p. 118. 40 Neill, p. 112. 41 Neill, p. 114. 42 Dangerfield, p. 14. 43 Neill, p. 129. 44 Dangerfield, p. 94.
