by Ed Moloney
I think there are a number of regrets that I would have but I’m not inclined to make apologies for them. What I am inclined to say is that at times people like me have too simplistically been reasonable … and I’m minded of a George Bernard Shaw quote: ‘The reasonable man attempts to adapt himself to the world, the unreasonable man attempts to adapt the world to himself, therefore all change is created by the unreasonable man.’
* * *
By the end of 2006, David Ervine, now the sole PUP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, had joined the Ulster Unionist Assembly group at the invitation of its new leader, Reg Empey. The move gave the UUP an extra ministerial post in the event of a power-sharing government at the expense of Sinn Fein but the ploy was controversial. The UVF’s ceasefire was still delisted by the two governments and for a large section of the UUP this liaison with a group responsible for some of the most horrid killings of the Troubles was a step too far. But in a way it was the circle completing a full turn. By Gusty Spence’s account the UVF had come into being at the initiative of members of that party’s ruling Ulster Council back in 1965 and many of the UVF’s early members had been active in Unionist constituency politics, especially in the Court ward on the Shankill. Like the UVF of 1912, the UVF of Gusty Spence and Bo McClelland had a credible claim to a distinct relationship with the Unionist Party and in a way David Ervine acknowledged this when he sought shelter under the UUP’s umbrella.
Whether the deal might have seen Ervine given a post in a future power-sharing government or was the first stage in the PUP’s absorption by the UUP was a piece of conjecture destined never to be tested. In the event the move was stopped by the Assembly speaker and when the UUP suffered dramatic reversals at the 2007 Assembly election any immediate gain from such an alliance evaporated. By that stage in his life, Ervine and his wife Jeanette had taken to retreating at weekends to a caravan in Groomsport, a popular Protestant resort on the shores of Belfast Lough, midway between Bangor and Donaghadee, and a welcome escape from the busy life of a constituency politician. On the first weekend of 2007, the caravan was being repaired so the couple stayed at home in Braniel on the eastern fringes of the city, within sight of the Castlereagh hills, and on the Saturday Ervine went to watch his favourite football team, Glentoran, thump Armagh City eight goals to nil. That night the couple went for a walk. Jeanette Ervine took up the story: ‘It was quite hilly and David complained on the way back, “I haven’t the breath I was born with,” he said but everything seemed normal. We watched TV, shared a bottle of wine and then went to bed. He awoke and disturbed me, went to the bathroom and when he came back he sat at the edge of the bed. “I’m not feeling well,” he said. “I’m feeling very ill.” He complained of a burning sensation inside but when I touched him he was freezing and his colour was awful.’ Jeanette Ervine phoned for an ambulance and her husband was taken to Dundonald Hospital in East Belfast where at first he seemed to be making a recovery, chatting to the nurses and offering to raise their complaints about the Health Service in the Assembly. But later he deteriorated badly. His heart attack had triggered a stroke and he was transferred across Belfast to the Royal Victorial Hospital right in the heart of the Falls Road for specialist care. But the two blows had been fatal and on Monday, 8 January 2007, David Ervine died. He was just fifty-three.
David Ervine’s death and funeral happened at one of those frequent moments in the peace process when the entire enterprise balanced on a knife edge of failure or success. Previous crises had been weathered somehow but this one came with very few throws in the game left to play. If it faltered and failed this time, it might be very difficult to reconstruct it. The endless crises in the near decade-long process had acted like grit in a glacier, scratching away the surface of politics in Northern Ireland, with the IRA’s undecommissioned stockpiles of arms and explosives playing the role of the ice-embedded gravel. David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, was a major casualty and so was the SDLP, the dominant voice of Northern Nationalism for so long. The DUP had destroyed Trimble and his party, skilfully exploiting Protestant suspicions about the Provos’ bona fides, while Sinn Fein had eclipsed the SDLP by playing on Catholic resentment at the Unionists’ reluctance to have Republicans in government. With the extremes triumphant in each community it seemed as if the Good Friday Agreement was doomed. But both the DUP and Sinn Fein harboured ambitious leaderships. They had each plotted and schemed the downfall of their rivals, they had succeeded brilliantly and now they dominated their respective communities, seemingly beyond challenge. The IRA’s moves, completing the destruction of its weaponry and formally ending its war against Britain, changed the game for some in the DUP, offering its leader, Ian Paisley, an extraordinary way to end his life in politics, as first minister of Northern Ireland and the leader of Unionism. For Sinn Fein, sharing power with the DUP might be distasteful but there was a bigger picture to consider, the boost this could give to the party’s electoral fortunes in the South. It was not inconceivable the party could some day soon be in government in both jurisdictions.
Both parties had good reason to want to play. Some two years of delicate negotiations had produced a deal at St Andrews in Scotland in October 2006 which could see a new executive in power by mid-2007 with Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness holding down the top jobs. The sticking point hitherto had been Sinn Fein’s recognition of the new policing arrangements and the judicial system. Would the Republicans say yes to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) before or only after power-sharing was up and running or should SF be kept on ice, as some hardliners in the DUP favoured, for months or even a year while its commitment to the PSNI was tested? St Andrews had been convened to resolve this issue but it had only partly succeeded. The deal set a date for elections to a new assembly and a deadline for the new executive to take office but as the New Year dawned there were signs of unrest in both parties’ grassroots. One opinion poll found less than half the DUP’s activists in favour of sharing power with Sinn Fein and in response Paisley was beginning to move away from the St Andrews commitments. Sinn Fein’s imminent acceptance of the police service was likewise unsettling for some in the ranks, especially in the IRA, and some key stalwarts had decided the time had finally come to leave, their departure boosting the ranks of dissident groups.
David Ervine’s death came just as this set of difficulties was gaining strength and not surprisingly his funeral became a metaphor for Northern Ireland’s possible future, one in which Loyalist and Republican could sit down and share responsibility for governing their people. And so the plaudits for Ervine the UVF bomber turned peacemaker flowed in from across the spectrum. Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern called him ‘a courageous politician’; his British counterpart Tony Blair said he had ‘played a major part … in trying to bring peace to Ulster’; George Mitchell, the former US Senate leader who chaired the Good Friday talks, said Ervine’s legacy was that ‘he has led Loyalism out of the Dark Ages’ while the Ulster Unionist leader, Reg Empey, called him ‘a unique, charismatic and uncharacteristically spin-free politician’.
His funeral at the East Belfast Methodist Mission on the New-townards Road, not far from where he was born and reared, was as politically eclectic as it was possible to be in Northern Ireland. The British Secretary of State Peter Hain shared pews with former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, the Republic’s Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, the PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and a host of Unionist and Nationalist politicians, Catholic clerics and Protestant ministers and community workers from both sides of Belfast’s sectarian divide. The UVF turned out in force, as did the PUP. The UVF longtime Chief of Staff, John ‘Bunter’ Graham, the UVF’s Brigade Command staff and scores of UVF activists were there, as were Gusty Spence, Billy Hutchinson and other PUP leaders.
Just before the hearse was due to arrive, as the crowds of UVF veterans gathered outside the church to greet it, a car drew up and out stepped the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, accompanied by the former SF Mayor of Belfast, A
lex Maskey. Some of those present remember it being an eerie moment, Adams walking into the church past men who a few years earlier would gladly have shot him or worse. After the service the cameras caught Adams giving Jeanette Ervine a comforting hug, as she stood at the door of the church thanking mourners. The photograph of the IRA leader commiserating with the widow of a UVF man seemed to symbolise the possibilities ahead.
‘It was no surprise that he came,’ she told the author. ‘Tom Hartley had been in touch and asked if he could come over. David had worked in Belfast City Council and the Assembly with these people; he engaged with them. Tom Hartley had made a programme about the Battle of the Somme with David so he was welcome. Jim Gibney also asked to come over, so we had Tom Hartley and Gibney to the house, and there were UVF people there and that opened the way for Gerry Adams to come. I didn’t know he was coming but he was welcome. We talked briefly and later he actually rang me at home to express his condolences. I thought it was brave of Gerry Adams to come. I told him that and he said he had come out of respect for David.’58
Notes – 7
57 Belfast Telegraph, 13 April 2002.
58 Interview with Jeanette Ervine, 21 May 2009.
CHRONOLOGY
1170 First English invasion of Ireland led by Strongbow.
1541 English Tudor monarch, Henry VII declares himself King of Ireland.
1558–1603 Six of Ulster’s nine counties ‘planted’ with English and Scots settlers.
1690 King William of Orange defeats Stuart King James II at Battle of the Boyne.
1795 Orange Order founded after battle between Catholic Defenders and Protestant ‘Peep O’Day Boys’.
1798 United Irishmen Rebellion put down.
1801 Act of Union unites Ireland and England creating United Kingdom.
1867 Fenian Rising defeated.
1916 Easter Rising put down.
1919 Sinn Fein wins 75 of 105 Irish seats at Westminster and forms First Dail in Dublin.
1921–23 IRA wages armed campaign to force British withdrawal and Irish independence.
Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiated.
Irish Civil War begins.
Michael Collins killed.
IRA defeated.
Northern Ireland state and the new Free State consolidated.
1926 Eamon de Valera forms Fianna Fail.
1932 De Valera forms first Fianna Fail government.
1938 Anti-treaty remnants of Second Dail elected in 1921 pass on their powers to the IRA Army Council.
1939 IRA declares war on Britain with bombing campaign in English cities.
1942 Belfast IRA leader Tom Williams hanged.
Gerry Adams senior jailed.
1948 Brendan Hughes and Gerry Adams junior born.
IRA General Army Order No. 8 promulgated. Forbids military action against Southern security forces.
1953 David Ervine born.
1956 IRA begins Border Campaign in Northern Ireland.
1959 Eamon de Valera retires as Taoiseach and succeeded by Sean Lemass.
1962 Border Campaign abandoned in failure.
Cathal Goulding becomes IRA Chief of Staff.
1963 Terence O’Neill becomes prime minister of Northern Ireland.
Roy Johnston and Tony Coughlan join Republican Movement.
1964 Divis Street riots in Belfast over display of Irish flag.
1966
deaths 3 UVF re-formed in Belfast and kills Catholics.
1967 Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) formed.
Unionist prime minister Terence O’Neill meets Irish Taoiseach Jack Lynch at Stormont – Loyalist demonstrators marshalled by Ian Paisley throw snowballs at his car.
1968 First civil rights marches in Northern Ireland.
1969
deaths 18
total 21 Riots in Derry and deaths in Belfast.
Brendan Hughes joins D Company of Belfast IRA.
British Army sent to Northern Ireland.
IRA splits into Official and Provisional wings.
Provisional IRA Convention held; Sean MacStiofain becomes first Chief of Staff.
1970
deaths 28
total 49 Sinn Fein splits after majority vote to drop abstentionism; dissidents walk and give their allegiance to new ‘Provisional’ IRA.
Ian Paisley elected to Westminster parliament.
Siege of St Matthew’s; Falls curfew boosts Provisionals.
IRA commercial bombing campaign begins.
Billy McKee is Belfast Commander.
Adams heads IRA in Ballymurphy and choreographs Ballymurphy riots, defying McKee.
1971
deaths 180
total 229 IRA campaign intensifies.
First British soldier shot dead and Provo commercial bombing campaign begins in Belfast.
Brendan Hughes become O/C of D Company; Gerry Adams on Second Belfast Battalion staff and then Commander;
Adams on Belfast Brigade staff.
Internment without trial introduced.
IRA campaign mushrooms.
1972
deaths 496
total 725 Bloody Sunday in Derry.
Stormont parliament prorogued and Direct Rule from London imposed.
Adams interned but at insistence of Ivor Bell is released to take part in ceasefire talks with British.
Adams becomes Adjutant of Belfast Brigade.
Special-category status granted to IRA prisoners.
Ceasefire breaks down at urging of Belfast Brigade.
Adams introduces Armalite rifle to IRA.
IRA kills nine in ‘Bloody Friday’ bombings.
David Ervine joins UVF.
Operation Motorman puts IRA under pressure.
Adams becomes Belfast Brigade Commander; Brendan Hughes is the Operations Officer.
Four Square Laundry operation.
‘Unknowns’ cell formed by Adams.
Belfast Brigade begins to ‘disappear’ double agents starting with Joe Linskey and including Jean McConville.
Breton Nationalists introduce IRA to Libyans.
1973
deaths 263
total 988 London bombings carried out by Belfast Brigade.
Adams and Hughes arrested and interned.
Hughes escapes from Long Kesh and becomes Belfast Commander.
1974
deaths 303
total 1291 Power-sharing Sunningdale deal brought down by Ulster Workers’ Council general strike assisted by UDA and UVF and mainstream Loyalist politicians.
Brendan Hughes re-arrested.
David Ervine arrested while on bombing mission.
1975
deaths 267
total 1558 IRA ceasefire called, IRA leadership believes British wish to disengage.
Lengthy talks with British.
Adams, Hughes and Ivor Bell lead Long Kesh dissidents against Billy McKee and David Morley leadership and oppose ceasefire.
Loyalist killings of Catholics surge and IRA responds with sectarian assassinations.
IRA ceasefire peters out.
1976
deaths 308
total 1866 New British security policy introduced. RUC put in charge of security operations, internment phased out, juryless courts set up, IRA to be treated as criminals in jail. Prison protest to restore political status by IRA inmates in new H-blocks begins.
1977
deaths 116
total 1982 Police interrogation centres begin to process scores of IRA suspects.
Adams released from jail and eventually reappointed as Belfast Brigade Commander.
Brendan Hughes becomes IRA Commander in jail.
Adams becomes Adjutant-General and joins Army Council.
Long War speech at Bodenstown in June.
Northern Command set up and Revolutionary Council established.
Cellular restructuring of IRA starts.
1978
deaths 88
total 2070 Adams loses his rank
as Chief of Staff when he is arrested in the wake of La Mon bombing.
Martin McGuinness becomes IRA Chief of Staff.
Adams cleared and released – he becomes Adjutant-General, second in command to McGuinness.
British Army document, Northern Ireland – Future Terrorist Trends, leaked to IRA; names Adams and Bell as architects of IRA restructuring.
1979
deaths 125
total 2195 Margaret Thatcher becomes British prime minister.
Lord Mountbatten killed in IRA bombing.
18 British soldiers killed in ambush on border.
1980
deaths 86
total 2281 First IRA prison hunger strike begins with Brendan Hughes leading the protest.
Northern IRA leaders negotiate secret deal to end fast with Britain’s MI6.
Hunger strike ends with no significant concessions; IRA leadership tries to disguise defeat
1981
deaths 117
total 2398 Second jail hunger strike starts.
IRA prison leader Bobby Sands elected MP for Fermanagh–South Tyrone.
When Sands dies Owen Carron is elected in his place.
Two IRA prisoners elected to the Dail in Dublin.
Hunger strike ends with ten deaths.
Brendan Hughes moves to non-IRA blocks.
Sinn Fein adopts ‘Armalite and ballot box’ strategy and agrees to contest elections.
1982
deaths 112
total 2510 Army Council allows Adams and McGuinness to stand in elections to new NI Assembly but McGuinness forced to quit as Chief of Staff while Adams stands down as Adjutant-General, the last time he holds rank in the IRA.
Ivor Bell becomes new Chief of Staff.
Sinn Fein wins 10 per cent of the vote in Assembly elections, causing political sensation.
