by Peter Taylor
Finally, my thanks to my family, Sue, Ben and Sam, who supported me with love and patience throughout the long months and encouraged me to smile, ‘chill out’ and take Josh (our dog) for a walk whenever the clouds seemed to darken over the laptop. They assured me I would get there in the end. I did. I hope Northern Ireland does too.
Picture Acknowledgements
British troops deployed in Londonderry (Popperfoto/Reuters)
‘Bloody Sunday’ (Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd)
Peter (David Barker)
Lt-Gen. Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley (David Barker)
Donegall Street, Belfast (Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd)
William Whitelaw (Popperfoto/Reuters)
Roy Mason (Pacemaker Press International)
Lt-Col. Brian (private collection)
George (David Barker)
Michael Oatley (David Barker)
Francis Hughes (Pacemaker Press International)
John Boyle (private collection)
‘Jim’ (private collection)
Warrenpoint wreckage (Pacemaker Press International); Mrs
Thatcher (Pacemaker Press International)
Stuart (private collection)
The old German rifles in the hayshed (RUC)
John Stalker (“PA” Photos)
Colin Sampson (“PA” Photos)
Kinnego wreckage (Pacemaker Press International)
The Grand Hotel Brighton (Popperfoto/Reuters)
Mrs Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement (Pacemaker Press International)
IRA member shot dead at Loughgall (original source unknown)
‘Frank’ (private collection)
The cake baked for the SAS (original source unknown)
Pat Finucane (Pacemaker Press International)
Brian Nelson (Pacemaker Press International)
Sir Hugh Annesley and John Stevens (Pacemaker Press International)
Aftermath of the IRA mortar attack on Downing Street (Popperfoto/Reuters)
Peter Brooke (Popperfoto/Reuters)
John Major and Sir Patrick Mayhew (Pacemaker Press International)
Sir Kenneth Stowe (David Barker)
Sir Robert Andrew (DavidBarker)
Ian Burns (David Barker)
Commander John Grieve at the scene of the Docklands bomb (‘‘PA’’ Photos)
Artist’s impression of the lorry and trailer that carried the Docklands bomb (Metropolitan Police Service)
James McArdle (Metropolitan Police Service)
The waste ground in Barking (Metropolitan Police Service)
David Trimble and Gerry Adams (Pacemaker Press International)
Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern (Pacemaker Press International)
Mo Mowlam (Pacemaker Press International)
George Mitchell (Pacemaker Press International)
The Northern Ireland Executive (Pacemaker Press International)
Peter Mandelson (Popperfoto/Reuters)
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness (Popperfoto/Reuters)
Gunner Robert Curtis (Pacemaker Press International)
Lance-Bombadier Stephen Restorick (private collection)
Notes
Chapter One: Into the Mire
1. To many, the terminology used to describe each side in the conflict often seems confusing. Each term has its own particular nuances.
On the Catholic side, nationalist is the term used to identify those who aspire to a united Ireland but believe that it should only be achieved by peaceful means. Republicans believe that physical force is a legitimate way of reaching the same goal. The mainly Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), led by John Hume, is a nationalist party. It was founded in 1970 as a radical non-sectarian political party but today only a tiny minority of its members are Protestants. The IRA and its political party, Sinn Fein (roughly meaning ‘ourselves alone’), are republicans, as are the IRA’s offshoots and their political parties.
On the Protestant side, unionists believe in maintaining the union with Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and thereby Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Loyalists, like the Reverend Ian Paisley, are the more fervent or extreme unionists. The loyalist paramilitaries, most notably the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), believe that they are justified in using violence to defend the union against those who seek to destroy it.
2. Provos. The IRA and Sinn Fein, Peter Taylor, Bloomsbury, 1997, p. 8.
3. ‘Easter 1916’, William Butler Yeats.
4. The Green Flag. A History of Irish Nationalism, Robert Kee, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972, p. 575.
5. The Troubles. The Background to the Question of Northern Ireland, Richard Broad, Taylor Downing and Ian Stuttard, Thames Futura, 1980, p. 87.
6. Provos, op. cit., chapter one. This gives more details of the period, the War of Independence and the Treaty.
7. Britain and Ireland. From Home Rule to Independence, Jeremy Smith, Pearson Education Limited, 2000, p. 69. This refers to the so-called Curragh Munity of 20 March 1914 when army officers based at the Curragh military camp in County Kildare were given the choice of putting down unionist resistance in Ulster or being dismissed from the service. Sixty officers chose dismissal. It was hardly a mutiny but it was a warning to the Government that the loyalty of the army in the event of unionist resistance could not be taken for granted.
8. The three counties of the ancient nine-county province of Ulster that were excluded from the new six-county state of Northern Ireland were the border counties of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. Each of them had a clear Catholic majority.
9. Britain and Ireland, op. cit., p. 97. The revised oath required the new Irish Deputies (MPs) to be ‘faithful to H.M. King George V, his heirs and successors by law’.
10. Ibid., p. 96. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921 also established a Boundary Commission designed to review the borders of the new state of Northern Ireland. Lloyd George assured Collins that this would lead to the ‘essential unity’ of Ireland as the likelihood would be that the new boundaries would prove unviable and the six-county state would be absorbed by the new Irish Free State.
11. The Green Flag, op. cit., p. 741.
12. Michael Collins, Tim Pat Coogan, Arrow Books, 1991, p. 403.
13. Provos, op. cit., pp. 30–1.
14. States of Terror. Democracy and Political Violence, Peter Taylor, BBC Books, 1993, p. 120.
15. Uncle Remus. Legends of the Old Plantation, Joel Chandler Harris, 1881, chapter two, the Tar Baby story.
16. Provos, op. cit., p. 32.
17. Ibid., p. 22.
18. Loyalists, Peter Taylor, Bloomsbury, 1999, p. 53.
19. Since Protestant or ‘loyalist’ parades play such a central role in the events that unfold, the following is a brief account of the historical origins of the two main organizations that traditionally hold annual marches, the Apprentice Boys of Derry and the Orange Order. Both trace their origins to the religious wars in Europe of the late seventeenth century when Ireland was caught up in the wider power struggle between the European superpowers, Catholic France and Protestant Holland. The Dutch Prince, William of Orange, feared that England under the Catholic King James II was becoming a satellite of his enemy, King Louis XIV of France. He invaded England and seized the throne from King James. William became King William III and proclaimed the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 in which the Protestant faith and the Protestant succession to the throne were assured. James fled to France and then with his French allies returned to Ireland to attack England from the rear in the hope of regaining the throne. In 1688, his army prepared to lay siege to Londonderry.
The Apprentice Boys of Derry are the Brotherhood founded at the start of the nineteenth century to cherish the memory of the thirteen young apprentices who closed the gates against the invaders. Whenever the Apprentice Boys march, they are reliving history and drawi
ng strength from the victory of their ancestors. Their annual celebrations begin in December, the month the siege began, when the Apprentice Boys construct and then burn a sixteen-foot effigy of the traitor, Lundy (the Governor of Derry who advocated surrender). They end the following August, in the days after the siege was lifted, when Apprentice Boys’ ‘clubs’ from all over the province gather in Derry to march through the city and around its walls. It was this parade on 12 August 1969 that became the catalyst for the introduction of British troops into the Northern Ireland conflict.
Historically, the Protestants’ victory was sealed on 11 July 1690 when their champion, King William, defeated King James at the Battle of the Boyne. (Although Protestants traditionally celebrate their champion’s victory on 12 July every year, the battle was actually fought on the 11th. The confusion arose from a misunderstanding of the 1752 calendar reform.) The Protestant succession to the English throne was secured and ‘Remember 1690’ became another slogan of Protestant defiance.
The Orange Order was founded over a century later in 1795, following a skirmish between Protestants and Catholics near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh. The Protestants won, withdrew to a nearby inn and formed the Orange Order, named after King William of Orange. The huge ‘Orange’ parades throughout Northern Ireland on 12 July celebrate ‘King Billy’s’ famous victory at the Boyne. Traditionally, many Catholics see these marches as ‘triumphalist’ which is why loyalist parades have long been a flashpoint.
20. Loyalists, op. cit., pp. 59–63.
21. Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969. Report of Tribunal of Inquiry, Chairman the Hon. Mr Justice Scarman, HMSO, Cmnd. 566, April 1972, p. 68.
22. Provos, op. cit., p. 48. This section gives a more detailed account of the Battle of the Bogside and the participation of some of those who subsequently became prominent IRA leaders in Derry.
23. Northern Ireland. A Chronology of the Troubles 1968–99, Paul Bew and Gordon Gillespie, Gill & Macmillan, 1999, p. 14. Bernadette Devlin had been elected to Westminster on 17 April 1969 in the by-election brought about by the death of the sitting Unionist MP, George Forrest. She stood as a unity candidate. The turn out was an astonishing 92 per cent. She was twenty-one at the time and the youngest MP to be elected to the House of Commons for half a century. In the Westminster election of 1 May 1997, Martin McGuinness, standing for Sinn Fein, won the same seat.
Chapter Two: Honeymoon
1. Provos, op. cit., p. 50.
2. Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969, op. cit., p. 121. This provides the best, most accurate and detailed account of the confused events in Derry and Belfast in the critical days of August 1969.
3. Ibid., p. 127. The Protestant force Paisley referred to was the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, a branch of the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee of which Paisley was Chairman. For more details of both bodies, and Paisley’s involvement in them, see Loyalists, op. cit., pp. 35 ff.
4. Ibid., p. 131.
5. Republican Movement is the composite term for the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein.
6. Lost Lives. The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles, David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, Mainstream Publishing, 1999, p. 34. The book is an indispensable companion to the conflict, detailing the circumstances of every death on every side.
7. Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969, op. cit., p. 193.
8. Loyalists, op. cit., p. 70.
9. Interview with James Callaghan recorded for Timewatch, ‘The Sparks that Lit the Bonfire’, reporter Peter Taylor, BBC television, 27 January 1992.
10. Interview by the author for ‘A Soldier’s Tale’, BBC television, 7 August 1994.
11. The NLF won the battle to inherit power and formed the Soviet-backed People’s Republic of Yemen.
12. With The Prince of Wales’s Own. The Story of a Yorkshire Regiment 1958–1994, H.M. Tillotson, Michael Russell, 1995, p. 29.
13. Provos, op. cit., p. 57.
14. Law and the State. The Case of Northern Ireland, Kevin Boyle, Tom Hadden and Paddy Hillyard, Martin Robertson and Company, 1975, p. 139. The Yellow Card is thought to have been introduced as a result of the army’s shooting of nineteen-year-old Daniel O’Hagan during a confrontation with a crowd in Belfast’s New Lodge area on 31 July 1970. The circumstances were disputed. The army said he was a petrol bomber. Local people said he was not. The circumstances in which a warning was given were unclear. For details of the shooting of O’Hagan see Lost Lives, op. cit., p. 55.
15. Lost Lives, op. cit., p. 38. The soldier was Trooper Hugh McCabe of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars. He was stationed in Germany and home on leave at the time. His family lived in the Divis Flats complex at the city end of the Falls Road. He was killed by an RUC bullet.
16. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1. 1968–71, Richard Deutsch and Vivien Magowan, Blackstaff Press Limited, 1973, p. 47. The three volumes are unique day-by-day accounts of events covering this critical early period. Volume 3 also covers 1974.
17. Interview with James Callaghan for Timewatch, op. cit.
18. Report of the Advisory Committee on Police in Northern Ireland, Belfast, HMSO, Cmnd. 535, October 1969, p. 12.
19. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1, op. cit., p. 48.
20. ‘Exceedingly Lucky’. A History of the Light Infantry 1968–1993, Anthony Makepeace-Warne, Sydney Jary Limited, 1993, p. 39.
21. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1, op. cit., p. 48.
22. ‘Exceedingly Lucky’, A History of the Light Infantry 1968–1993, op. cit., p. 40.
Chapter Three: Divorce
1. Provos, op. cit., p. 67.
2. Provos, op. cit., p. 29.
3. Ibid., p. 63.
4. The structure of the IRA goes back to the civil war when, on 26 March 1922, the anti-Treaty forces of the IRA called a General Army Convention at the Mansion House in Dublin. The Convention is made up of IRA delegates drawn from units from all over Ireland, North and South. The Convention elects a twelve-person Army Executive which then elects a seven-person Army Council. The Army Council effectively runs the war under the direction of the person it elects to become its Chief of Staff. However, the IRA’s supreme body is the Army Convention and it has to approve all key decisions. In more recent times, these would include the IRA’s decision to allow members of the Republican Movement to participate in the power-sharing executive and Stormont assembly that were the result of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998; and the IRA’s decision to put its weapons ‘beyond use’ in 2000.
5. Provos, op. cit., p. 67.
6. Timewatch, ‘The Sparks that Lit the Bonfire’, op. cit. From transcript of the original interview with Sir Oliver Wright.
7. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1., op. cit., p. 42.
8. The Lambeg is a drum almost the size of a man which is struck contrapuntally with flexible drumsticks to produce a thunderous warlike roar. Its origin is unclear.
9. In Holy Terror. Reporting the Ulster Troubles, Simon Winchester, Faber & Faber, 1974, p. 31.
10. Northern Ireland. A Chronology of the Troubles 1968–1999, op. cit., p. 26.
11. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1, op. cit., p. 63.
12. Lost Lives, op. cit., p. 48.
13. In Holy Terror, op. cit., p. 57.
14. Provos, op. cit., p. 75.
15. Ulster. New edition – The Story up to Easter 1972, the Sunday Times Insight Team, Penguin Special, Penguin Books, 1972, p. 211.
16. Provos, op. cit., p. 76.
17. Ibid., p. 77.
18. In Holy Terror, op. cit., p. 63.
19. Pig in the Middle. The Army in Northern Ireland 1969–1984, Desmond Hamill, Methuen, 1985, p. 36.
20. Ulster. New edition, op. cit., p. 213.
/> 21. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1, op. cit., p. 70.
22. The British Army in Northern Ireland, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Dewar, Royal Green Jackets, Arms and Armour Press, 1985, p. 47.
23. Lost Lives, op. cit., p. 53. See also Ulster. New edition, op. cit., p. 215.
24. The British Army in Northern Ireland, op. cit., p. 47.
25. Ibid.
26. Ulster. New edition, op. cit., p. 220.
27. Provos, ibid., p. 82.
28. Before the Dawn. An Autobiography, Gerry Adams, William Heinemann in association with Brandon Book Publishers Ltd, 1996, p. 141.
29. Ulster. New edition, op. cit., p. 220.
30. Provos, op. cit., p. 81.
Chapter Four: To the Brink
1. Freedom Struggle. By the Provisional IRA. No publisher named, presumably for security reasons. 1973, p. 20.
2. Lost Lives, op. cit., p. 56.
3. Before the Dawn. An Autobiography, op. cit., p. 145.
4. Ulster. New edition, op. cit., p. 244.
5. Provos, op. cit., p. 90.
6. Lost Lives, op. cit., p. 64.
7. States of Terror, op. cit., p. 146.
8. Provos, op. cit., p. 90.
9. Ibid., p. 91.
10. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1, op. cit., p. 96.
11. Northern Ireland 1968–73. A Chronology of Events. Volume 1, op. cit., p. 98.
12. Memoirs of a Statesman, Brian Faulkner, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978, p. 78.
Chapter Five: Crackdown
1. Law and State. The Case of Northern Ireland, op. cit., p. 58. The full name of the legislation that covered internment is the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act of 1922. It was renewed every year until it was made permanent in 1933. It finally lapsed in 1980.
