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
