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The Troubles Part 2 – 1972-1998

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The Troubles

The TroublesPart 2 1972-1998

The TroublesSince before Irish independence, the Anglo-Irish War had been known by the British government as The Troubles.This term continued to be used by Westminster throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland, and is still used today.By using this term, they could avoid admitting to a civil war taking place within the territory of the United Kingdom.They could also avoid using the idea of international war, which would somehow legitimate the I.R.A.s claim to a Republic in the north.

Aftermath of Bloody SundayBloody Sunday focused international attention on the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland . Membership of the I.R.A escalated immediately after the shooting, with volunteers signing up in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. While there were only 50 active IRA members in Belfast in 1969, there were over 1,700 by the end of 1972.This new generation of I.R.A. members was illegal, both North and South of the Irish border. It was not the official Irish Army, and thus called itself the Provisional IRA (i.e. the army for the theoretical all-island republic), often shortened by the media to the Provos.The Provisional IRA were supported by the Nationalist political party, Sinn Fin, which campaigned on both sides of the border.Almost immediately after the Bloody Sunday massacre, the I.R.A. started attacking the British military in reprisal.

Paul McCartny Give Ireland Back to the Irish 1972https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5il1gXFmEY

Organisation of the I.R.A.The I.R.A. was led by a secret army council. These members would sometimes make television announcements, or make bomb warnings, behind balaclava masks.The rest of the army was separated into a Northern Command (for Northern Ireland) and a Southern Command (for the Republic).These commands were split into Brigades, which were active in each regional county and city. The Dublin Brigade, for example, controlled IRA activity in Dublin City.These brigades, in turn, were broken down into active service cells of about 8 people each.These cells did not know any details about who belonged to the other cells, or how the rest of the organisation worked. They were only given minimal information when necessary. This meant that if any one member was captured or tortured, they would not be able to inform the authorities about the other cells.

South of the BorderIn the Republic, I.R.A. support revived the old anti-partitionist political sentiment.Southern IRA brigades often attacked symbols of British Rule in the Republic that had remained since independence.Members of the old colonial Ascendancy who had not left the Republic after independence were often intimidated, and many great mansions were burned. While the Fianna Fil Government explicitly denounced the Provisional I.R.A. and its violent tactics, it nevertheless continued to promote Irish re-unification. In Britain, this was often seen as implicit support. The I.R.A. functioned relatively openly in villages and towns across the Republic. Many in the country openly supported them, while others often felt too intimidated to oppose them.The police force in the Irish Republic ( the Garda Sochna) were ill-equipped to combat this I.R.A. presence, and it was largely tolerated to avoid confrontation.More remote areas in the Republic were used for I.R.A. military training, and for hiding weapons. Fugitives and wanted members were sometimes hidden within local families.The I.R.A. in the Republic made themselves visible primarily with illegal military parades in support of the Northern nationalists, and spectacular funeral processions for those members who had been killed in the armed conflict.

North of the BorderWith the arrival of the army in 1969, so-called Peace Lines were erected in the major cities in Northern Ireland. These walls, about 7.6 metres high, separated the Nationalist communities from the Unionist neighbourhoods.48 of these walls still exist, stretching for about 34 kilometres.In some areas, such as the Ardoyne in Belfast, the Peace Lines literally walled in the Catholic populations. In these communities, which be-came known as No-Go areas, the I.R.A. took over policing and community organisation, essentially functioning as local mafias.Since buses had been regularly used as barricades during the civil rights riots, they were removed from Belfast and Derry, leaving the cities without public transport.Outside the Catholic no-go areas (I.R.A. controlled), the British Army patrolled the city. Commercial districts in Derry and Belfast became high security zones: before entering, each individual was searched and passed through specially constructed barriers. The British Army sometimes invaded the so-called no-go areas. In 1972, 12,000 soldiers stormed the IRA controlled areas of Belfast and Derry. Soon, however, IRA cells re-took control of the communities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DoSq9D7h7g&list=PLD3A90D6D409BB4BE

Catholic No-Go Areas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQS5IzQpi6g

Unionist No-Go areas In the countryside, the Unionist majority continued mostly as normal.In the cities, however, proximity to the I.R.A. controlled Catholic Nationalist No Go Areas were countered with Protestant Unionist No go areas.Unlike the Catholic No-Go areas, these communities had the support of the state and the police force. Paramilitary groups, however, still regulated community life here - notably the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Like the I.R.A., the Unionist paramilitary groups acted as local mafias, often mutilating or sometimes murdering those who broke the community rules.This was seen as a necessity of war, defending the areas from possible nationalist expansion.Neighbourhoods around both Catholic and Protestant No-Go Areas were identifiable by flags and street murals.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu9cAwrNkK0

The Political Parties in Northern IrelandThe Northern Irish parliament at Stormont was mostly made of up of parties opposing or supporting the Union with Britain.Because of the parliamentary structure, gerrymandering, and the Unionist majority, Unionist parties were guaranteed to remain in power. Leading politicians and prime ministers in the province were often English politicians sent over from Westminster.The leading unionist party was the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which governed Northern Ireland from 1921-1972.The DUP, or Democratic Unionist Party, expressed more extremist Unionist views and was led by the religious fundamentalist Ian Paisley. The leading Nationalist party was Sinn Fin, which had continued its campaign for an all-island Republic since before partition.A more moderate Nationalist party, the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party), advocated the Catholic civil rights movement but condemned I.R.A. violence.As violence spread in the North, these parties became increasingly linked with paramilitary activity (UUP with the U.V.F., DUP with the UDA, and Sinn Fin with the I.R.A.).

Edward Carson of the UUP (Ulster Unionist Party) inspecting the UVF in the 1920s

David Trimble and Ian Paisley of the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party).

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness of the Republican Sinn Fin Party

John Hume of the Moderate Nationalist SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party).

Beginning of the I.R.A. Bombing CampaignBombing and guerrilla warfare between the I.R.A. and the British army immediately escalated after the Bloody Sunday massacre.Following the tactics of other nationalist movements in Europe at the time (such as the Basque separatists, ETA, and the Italian Brigante Rosse), the I.R.A. used terrorist methods. That is to say, they aimed to intimidate the authorities and make the province ungovernable until their demands were met.Bombs were preceded by warnings, delivered to the media shortly beforehand. They were not necessarily meant to kill people, but were rather designed to terrorise the public and destabilise the political establishment.Starting in the 1970s, the I.R.A. began to bomb a number of strategic targets in Britain, Northern Ireland, and the Irish Republic.Bombs were usually directed at the British military, but also at symbolic or commercially important targets.

Aldershot Bombing an IRA reprisal for Bloody Sunday 1972 (7 killed)

Bloody Friday 1972 The IRA detonate 22 bombs across Belfast in the space of one hour (8 killed).

Loyalist (Unionist) Bombing and ViolenceIn reprisal for the I.R.A. bombing campaign, Loyalist paramilitary groups like the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) bombed targets in Northern Ireland and the Republic. Loyalist bombs mainly targeted Catholic businesses in Northern Ireland. They also attacked infrastructure in the Republic, including power stations, police barracks, and the Republics television station RTE.In Belfast, a gang known as the Shankill Butchers made random attacks on Catholics, cutting their throats in night-time ambushes.The official Northern Irish police force, the entirely Unionist R.U.C, were known to collude with these Loyalist paramilitary groups providing weapons, transport and even carrying out bomb attacks themselves.

Dublin and Monaghan Bombings 1974 The Ulster Volunteer Force detonate bombs in the Republic of Ireland (33 killed)

Miami Showband Massacre UVF attack 1975

Shankill Butchers Loyalist Terror Group 1972-82

The Maze Political PrisonersIn 1975, the British government tried to encourage normalisation in Northern Irish politics by ending interment without trial in the province.However, those accused of terrorist offences still did not have a right to trial by jury. This was ostensibly to avoid jury intimidation by the different paramilitary groups. Moreover, all distinctions were removed between political prisoners (who had the right to not wear prison uniforms; the right not to do prison work; the right to organise educational pursuits among prisoners; and the right to one letter and visit a week) and civilian prisoners.The status of political prisoner had been one of the main conditions set by the IRA in previous negotiations. It meant that the IRA prisoners were prisoners of war, thus legitimising the idea of a war in Northern Ireland and the idea of the IRA as an official community army. Removal of the status of political prisoner was thus a huge defeat for the IRAs public relations. It also hindered IRA organisation within the prisons themselves.Former prisoners of war were now declared normal criminals, and re-housed in a new mega-complex, called the Maze Prison.

The Maze Prison site today

The 1981 Hunger StrikesSince the end of political status, about 500 IRA prisoners in the new Maze prison had been on extended protest.They refused to wear civilian uniforms, or to Partake in prison work.Many prisoners had learned Irish during their time with the IRA, and communicated with one another through this language (incomprehensible to the prison officers).The prison authorities retaliated by refusing to provide toilet facilities for the IRA prisoners. They, in turn, reacted by smearing their feces on the walls of the cells in what became known as the Dirty Protest.In time, the Dirty Protest escalated into a full-scale hunger strike. The hunger strikers drew new attention to the Republican cause in Northern Ireland; one of hunger strikers, Bobby Sands, gained so much popular support that he was elected to the Westminster parliament while starving to death in the Maze Prison.Two other strikers were Elected to the Dil in as members of the Republics parliament.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/blanket_no-wash_protests_maze#p00lx397

Margaret Thatcher and the Hunger StrikersSince 1979, Margaret Thatcher had led a new arch-Conservative government in the United Kingdom.Thatcher had a personal grievance with the IRA, who had murdered one of her closest friends and advisors, Airey Neave.Unlike previous British leaders, who had focused on establishing diplomatic talks between Westminster, Stormont and the Republic, Thatchers policy focused on military defeat of the IRA.In response to the ten hunger strikers in the Maze, now nearing death, she refused to negotiate on any points. The ten hunger strikers died one by one, including Bobby Sands who was now an MP in the British parliament. The deaths caused mass outrage in Ireland and confusion in Britain, with the strikers funerals attracting up to 100,000 attendees.The new support allowed Sinn Fin to become one of Stormonts major political parties for the first time. The international attention gained by the hunger strikes also increased foreign support for the IRA, with funds from America gaining new impetus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM-iJGtDR2k

1984: The IRA attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher, bombing the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England.

Managing the Troubles in the 1980s and 90sAfter the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher, the conservative government in Britain introduced a broadcasting ban on the BBC: the voices of Sinn Fin leaders were banned from all UK media until 1994.The Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 introduced new co-operation between Westminster and Dublin on the subject of Northern Ireland.This agreement stipulated that the majority of people in Northern Ireland would ultimately decide if the province would continue to remain in the United Kingdom.The agreement was highly unpopular with Unionists, since it introduced the possibility of a United Ireland.It was also unpopular with Nationalists, since the N.I. majority was 2:1 Protestant Unionist.In the 1990s, the IRA escalated their bombing in England, targeting the London Stock Exchange, Heathrow Airport, and the Canary Wharf business district.In the rival communities in Northern Ireland, rioting became a daily occurence, especially during the season of Orange Order marches in July.

Manchester bombing, 1995

London Docklands bombing

Cultural Impact InternationallyThe Northern Ireland conflict continued to capture mainstream media interest around the world throughout the Troubles. Partly, this was because of the involvement of the United Kingdom, but also because of the interest of the American government.Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, in particular, became significantly involved with diplomatic talks, generally taking a Republican stance.The IRA also forged strong links with similar armed conflicts around the world, such as Nelson Mandelas anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), and the Basque separatists ETA.Numerous celebrities and musicians also became engaged in the political rhetoric, with high profile artists from the Republic in particular bringing the issue into focus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=punYUN4y5EA

U2 Sunday, Bloody Sunday 1983I can't believe the news todayOh, I can't close my eyesAnd make it go awayHow longHow long must we sing this songHow long, how longCause tonight, we can be as oneTonight

Broken bottles under children's feetBodies strewn across the dead end streetBut I won't heed the battle callIt puts my back upPuts my back up against the wallSunday, Bloody Sunday

And the battle's just begunThere's many lost, but tell me who has wonThe trench is dug within our heartsAnd mothers, children, brothers, sistersTorn apartSunday, Bloody Sunday

How longHow long must we sing this songHow long, how longCause tonight, we can be as oneTonight, Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Wipe the tears from your eyesWipe your tears awayOh, wipe your tears awayOh, wipe your blood shot eyesSunday, Bloody Sunday (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

And it's true we are immuneWhen fact is fiction and TV realityAnd today the millions cryWe eat and drink while tomorrow they die

The real battle just begunTo claim the victory Jesus wonOn Sunday Bloody Sunday

The Cranberries Zombie, 1994Another head hangs lowlyChild is slowly takenAnd if violence causes the silenceWho are we mistakingBut you see it's not meIt's not my familyIn your head in your headThey are fightingWith their tanks and their bombsAnd their bombs and their gunsIn your head in your head they are cryingIn your headIn your headZombie zombie zombie ei eiWhat's in your headIn your head.Zombie, zombie, zombie Another mother's breakin',Heart is taken overWhen the violence causes silenceWe must be mistakenIt's the same old thing since 1916In your head in your headThey're still fightingWith their tanks and their bombsAnd their bombs and their gunsIn your head in your head they are dying