by Thomas Leahy
15 Taylor, Brits, pp. 127–37; Simon Cursey, MRF Shadow Troop (London: Thistle Publishing, 2013), p. 65; TNA, CJ 3/98, Paper by Frank Kitson on future developments in Belfast, 30 December 1971, pp. 1–6.
16 Cursey, MRF, pp. xxvii–xxix.
17 TNA, CJ 3/98, Paper by Frank Kitson on future developments in Belfast, 30 December 1971, pp. 1–2.
18 Cursey, MRF, xxvii–xxix, pp. 46–8, 62–85, 202–5, 224–5.
19 Cursey, MRF, pp. 82–4, 189–190.
20 Cursey, MRF, p. 190.
21 For examples see Gilmour, Dead Ground, pp. 143–5, 173–5, 309.
22 TNA, CJ 4/650, ‘The Use of Computers in Northern Ireland in a Security Situation’, undated document.
23 Cursey, MRF, p. 109.
24 Cursey, MRF, p. 173.
25 Taylor, Brits, pp. 27–36.
26 Cursey, MRF, pp. 171–3; Taylor, Brits, pp. 131–7.
27 Cursey, MRF, pp. 171–3.
28 Cursey, MRF, p. 172.
29 ‘IRA Investigation Locates Grave Sites’, An Phoblacht, 1 April 1999: www.anphoblacht.com/contents/4724.
30 Hughes in Moloney, Voices, pp. 118–24; see reference numbers 626 and 627 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Taylor, Brits, pp. 127–37; Moloney, Secret History, pp. 119–21; see also the families of the disappeared’s side of events at ‘Bodies Found’, The Disappeared of Northern Ireland: https://thedisappearedni.co.uk/index.php/people-found.
31 Charters, ‘Have a Go’, pp. 219–28.
32 Cursey, MRF, pp. xxvii–xxix.
33 The Bodleian Library Special Collections Oxford University (BLOU), MS Wilson C.1193/23/2, Meeting with the GOC Northern Ireland Lieutenant General Sir Harry Tuzo, 16 November 1971, p.1.
34 Patrick Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border: Policing Ireland’s Frontier: Irish Security Policy, 1969–1978 (Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2017), pp. 41–56, 88–108.
35 Bradley with Feeney, Insider, p. 48; Moloney, Secret History, p. 87.
36 Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 18 May 2011.
37 Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 18 May 2011; Moloney, Secret History, pp. 156–7.
38 Operation Banner, point 303.
39 McKearney adds the important caveat: ‘because the IRA was a volunteer organization a lot depended on … enthusiasm … if someone … couldn’t come along because his wife was ill … that excuse had to be accepted’. Interview with Tommy McKearney, Monaghan, 23 May 2012.
40 Bradley with Feeney, Insider, p. 49.
41 TNA, CJ 3/98, Paper by Frank Kitson on future developments in Belfast, 30 December 1971, pp. 1–6.
42 Interview with Féilim Ó hAdhmaill, Cork, 9 September 2013.
43 For example see Hughes in Peter Taylor, Provos, p. 53.
44 O’Doherty, The Volunteer, p. 64.
45 Conway, Southside Provisional, pp. 70–1.
46 English, Armed Struggle, pp. 81–336; English, Does Terrorism Work?, pp. 92–147.
47 Interview with republican activist 1, Belfast, 21 May 2012.
48 See Appendix A.1 for IRA ‘intended-target’ killings; for financial damage caused in Belfast up to June 1972, see ‘Chronology of the Conflict 1971 and 1972’, CAIN online: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch71.htm and http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch72.htm.
49 Holland and Phoenix, Phoenix, pp. 60–84.
50 See Appendix A.1.
51 Tony Geraghty, The Irish War (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), p. 56.
52 TNA, FCO 87/2, MOD assessment of current operational situation in Northern Ireland, 21 March 1972, pp. 2–5.
53 Operation Banner, point 226.
54 O’Doherty, The Volunteer, pp. 5, 23, 29–31, 38–9, 47, 70–7, 86–90.
55 Ó Dochartaigh, Civil Rights to Armalites, pp. 1–4, 137–56, 200–1, 248, 290–4; for Belfast, see Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 34–5, 41–8, 56–68, 103–5 and Hughes in Moloney, Voices, pp. 56–7, 65–7, 80–2, 93–5.
56 Operation Banner, points 502 and 514.
57 See reference number 351 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; Taylor, Brits, p. 130.
58 Taylor, Brits, pp. 130–1.
59 Cf. Operation Banner, points 225–6.
60 Charters, ‘Have a Go’, p. 206.
61 Hughes in Moloney, Voices, pp. 56–95.
62 Bradley with Feeney, Insider, pp. 34–68.
63 Taylor, Brits, pp. 39–50, 66–8, 88–108.
64 Ó Dochartaigh, Civil Rights to Armalites, pp. 1–4, 137–56, 200–1, 248, 290–4; Taylor, Provos, pp. 72–83, 93–109.
65 Omand, Securing the State, p. 265.
66 Omand, Securing the State, p. 261.
67 Foley, Countering Terrorism in Britain and France, p. 317.
68 Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 18 May 2011.
69 Operation Banner, points 219.
70 Charters, ‘Have a Go’, pp. 206–10.
71 Operation Banner, point 309.
72 Clarke, Border, p. 77.
73 Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, pp. 15, 29.
74 Operation Banner, points 308 and 502.
75 Clarke, Border, p. 77.
76 Charters, ‘Have a Go’, p. 207.
77 Charters, ‘Have a Go’, pp. 206–14, 228.
78 Clarke, Border, pp. 11–12, 125.
79 Interview with former British soldier 1, 26 May 2011.
80 Cf. Matchett, Secret Victory, pp. 174–6.
81 Charters, ‘Have a Go’, pp. 219–28.
82 Omand, Securing the State, pp. 13, 175–9, 191.
83 Patterson, Ireland’s Violent Frontier; Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border; Amy Grubb, ‘Microlevel Dynamics of Violence’, 460–87; Burke, An Army of Tribes; McCleery, Operation Demetrius, pp. 97–168.
84 Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 20 January 2014.
85 The term ‘rural IRA’ refers to units that operated in a predominately rural locality. These units included the south Down units operating in Newry, since they covered a predominately rural area. Furthermore, the numbers of IRA volunteers in smaller towns such as Strabane, Lurgan and Newry were far smaller than those involved in Belfast or Derry City. Rural units were recruited from a much smaller local population.
86 See Appendix A.1.
87 TNA, CAB 130/560, Minutes of a meeting held at 10 Downing Street, 21 March 1972, pp. 4–5.
88 TNA, FCO 87/2, MOD assessment of current operational situation in Northern Ireland, 21 March 1972, pp. 1–5.
89 Interview with Tommy McKearney, Monaghan, 23 May 2012.
90 Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border, pp. 87, 107–10, 160–1, 191.
91 Clarke, Border Crossing, pp. xi–xii, 62–76, 122–5.
92 Patterson, Ireland’s Violent Frontier, pp. 33–4.
93 Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border, p. 57.
94 Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 281–2, 473.
95 Clarke, Border Crossing, p. 123; and Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 305–10.
96 TNA, DEFE 24/837, Computer system for checking vehicles in Northern Ireland, 29 June 1973.
97 TNA, DEFE 24/837, Loose minute to Northern Ireland Office: Computer System for Checking Vehicles in Northern Ireland, 27 September 1973.
98 Operation Banner, points 507 and 707.
99 TNA, DEFE 24/837, D. J. Trevelyan note, 4 September 1972.
100 TNA, CJ 4/650, ‘The Use of Computers in Northern Ireland in a Security Situation’, undated document.
101 Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 468–9.
102 McKearney, Provisional IRA, p. 85.
103 Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 20 January 2014; interview with Tommy McKearney, Monaghan, 23 May 2012.
104 MacStiofáin, Memoirs, p.170.
105 McKearney, Provisional IRA, p. 85.
106 MacStiofáin, Memoirs, pp. 157–9.
107 Patterson, Ireland’s Violent Frontier, p. 19.
108 Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 49–52.
109 Harnden, ‘Bandit Co
untry’, pp. 74–5; for more information surrounding the on-the-runs in the Republic’s borderlands see Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border, pp. 104–5.
110 Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 20 January 2014; Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, p. 467.
111 Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 20 January 2014.
112 Patterson, Ireland’s Violent Frontier, pp. 1–15.
113 ‘Caraher Family Still Seeking Justice after 17 Years’, An Phoblacht, 10 January 2008: www.anphoblacht.com/contents/17986.
114 ‘“Life’’ Means 16 Months in Prison for IRA Killer’, The Guardian, 20 March 1999, www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/mar/20/johnmullin.
115 See ‘Sinn Fein Leader Gerry Adams’ Slur on Our Murdered boy’, Irish Independent, 26 October 2014, www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/sinn-fein-leader-gerry-adams-slur-on-our-murdered-boy-30693492.html; and ‘Fógraí Bháis’, An Phoblacht, 3 November 2011, www.anphoblacht.com/contents/1184.
116 Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’, pp. 44–5, 93–154.
117 Interview with Tommy McKearney, Monaghan, 18 April 2011.
118 Robert W. White, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006), p. 50.
119 Taylor, Provos, pp. 37–40.
120 Whyte, ‘How Much Discrimination Was There Under the Unionist Regime, 1921–1968?’
121 Taylor, Provos, p. 31.
122 Taylor estimates the crowd at 2,500. McKearney, Provisional IRA, pp. 20–1; Taylor, Provos, pp. 37–40.
123 For further examples of discriminatory practices in Northern Ireland before 1969 see Niall Ó Dochartaigh and Thomas Leahy, ‘Citizenship on the Ethnic Frontier: Nationality, Migration and Rights in Northern Ireland since 1920’, in Steven G. Ellis (ed.), Enfranchising Ireland? Identity, Citizenship and State (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2018), pp. 89–106.
124 Moloney, Secret History, pp. 102–3.
125 Operation Banner, point 413.
126 McKearney, Provisional IRA, p. 99; Catherine Nash, Bryonie Reid and Brian Graham, Partitioned Lives: The Irish Borderlands (Farnham: Routledge, 2016), pp. 12–13, 65–9, 88–94, 101; Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border, pp. 90–3.
127 However, this tolerance declined following IRA protests and activities in the Republic during the 1970s. See Mulroe, Bombs, Bullets and the Border.
128 TNA, FCO 87/2, MOD assessment of current operational situation in Northern Ireland, 21 March 1972, p. 3.
129 See reference 108 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives; MacStiofáin, Memoirs, pp. 193–4.
130 Clarke, Border, pp. 11–12.
131 McKearney, Provisional IRA, p.85.
132 Geraghty, Irish War, pp. 48–9.
3 The IRA’s Ceasefire: 26 June to 9 July 1972
1. Reference number 367 in McKittrick et al., Lost Lives.
2. MacStiofáin, Memoirs, pp. 257–59.
3. Marc Mulholland, ‘Irish Republican Politics and Violence before the Peace Process, 1968–1994’, European Review of History, 14.3 (2007), 402–3; White, Ó Brádaigh, pp. 165–85.
4. Keogh, Lynch, pp. 142–8, 196–7, 325.
5. MacStiofáin, Memoirs, pp. 260–1; Taylor, Provos, p. 136.
6. Michael Kerr, The Destructors: The Story of Northern Ireland’s Lost Peace Process (Essex: Irish Academic Press, 2011), pp. 48–9.
7. Catherine O’Donnell, Fianna Fáil, Irish Republicanism and the Northern Ireland Troubles 1968–2005 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007), pp. 23–46; Keogh, Lynch, pp. 139–48, 178, 211–12, 325.
8. TNA, PREM 15/1010, Secret and personal message to the Prime Minister, 7 July 1972, pp. 2–3.
9. Keogh, Lynch, pp. 135–48, 177–97, 204–12, 325–6.
10. White, Ó Brádaigh, p. 169.
11. McKearney, Provisional IRA, p. 108; MacStiofáin, Memoirs, pp. 209–10.
12. Mulholland, Politics and Violence, 402–4.
13. The National Library of Ireland (NLI) Dublin, Sean O’Mahony papers: Dáithí Ó Conaill section, MS44/160/3, An Phoblacht, March 1971, pp. 1–2.
14. White, Ó Brádaigh, pp. 173–4.
15. NLI, MS 44/165/6, Oration by Ó Conaill in Monaghan, 2 April 1972, pp. 1–3.
16. TNA, PREM 15/1009, Note of a meeting with Provisional IRA representatives, 20 June 1972, pp.4.
17. Anderson, Cahill, pp. 247–50.
18. NLI, Sean O’Mahony papers, MS 44/166/5, Answers: undated document by Dáithí Ó Conaill, pp. 1–4.
19. TNA, FCO 87/2, Interview with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, 17 March 1972, pp. 1–12.
20. Interview with Danny Morrison, Belfast, 18 May 2011.
21. Cf. M. L. R. Smith, Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 104–16; Bew et al., Talking to Terrorists, pp. 39–41.
22. Maria McGuire, To Take Arms: A Year in the Provisional IRA (London: Quartet Books Limited, 1973), pp. 33, 123–58.
23. Whitelaw, Memoirs, pp. 100.
24. BLOU, Harold Wilson papers, MS Wilson C.1037/23/2, ‘IRA Peace Proposals’, 10 March 1972.
25. Harold Wilson speech on Northern Ireland, House of Commons Debate, Hansard, 25 November 1971: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1971/nov/25/northern-ireland-1.
26. BLOU, Harold Wilson papers, MS Wilson C.908/23/2, Untitled document, 13 March 1972, pp. 1–7.
27. Cahill in Anderson, Cahill, pp. 248–55.
28. Taylor, Brits, pp. 120–4; see similar view in Whitelaw, Memoirs, p. 100.
29. Hughes in Moloney, Voices, pp. 100–1.
30. Andrew Mumford, ‘Covert Peacemaking: Clandestine Negotiations and Backchannels with the Provisional IRA during the Early “Troubles”, 1972–76’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 39.4 (2011), 637–8.
31. Cahill and Anderson, Cahill, pp. 249–50.
32. BLOU, Harold Wilson papers, MS Wilson C.908/23/2, Untitled document, March 13 1972, pp. 4–6.
33. McGuire, To Take Arms, pp. 28–30, 70–5, 126–44; Devlin, Straight Left, 176–9.
34. NLI, O’Mahony papers, MS 44/166/5, ‘Answers’, undated document, p. 4.
35. White, Ó Brádaigh, pp. 165–74.
36. TNA, PREM 15/1009, Note of a meeting with representatives of the Provisional IRA, 21 June 1972, pp. 1–6.
37. See Hughes in Moloney, Voices, pp. 99–101.
38. TNA, PREM 15/1009, Note of a meeting with representatives of the Provisional IRA, 21 June 1972, pp. 1–6.
39. See Cahill in Anderson, Cahill, pp. 241–8; McGuire, To Take Arms, p. 128.
40. TNA, PREM 15/1009, Note of a meeting with representatives of the Provisional IRA, 21 June 1972, pp. 1–6.
41. Mulholland, ‘Politics and Violence’, 403–4; Moloney, Secret History, p. 114.
42. TNA, CJ 4/1456, IRA truce 26 June to 10 July 1972, pp. 7–11.
43. TNA, CAB 130/560, Meeting at 10 Downing Street, 10 July 1972, pp. 1–4; TNA, CJ 4/1456, IRA truce 26 June to 10 July 1972, pp. 11–12.
44. Ó Dochartaigh, ‘The Longest Negotiation’, 2.
45. Cahill and Anderson, Cahill, p. 253 (italics mine).
46. BLOU, Harold Wilson papers, MS Wilson C.908/23/2, Untitled document, Dublin, 13 March 1972, pp. 1–6.
47. Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door, pp. 286–96.
48. Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door, pp. 307–28.
49. TNA, PREM 15/1010, Secret and personal message to the Prime Minister, 7 July 1972, pp. 1–4; Whitelaw, Memoirs, p. 101.
50. Moloney, Voices, p. 98.
51. TNA, CAB 130/560, Meeting at 10 Downing Street, 10 July 1972, pp. 1–4.
52. MacStiofáin, Memoirs, pp. 286–9.
53. TNA, CJ 4/1456, IRA truce 26 June to 10 July 1972, pp. 11–13.
54. Steele in Taylor, Provos, pp. 144–7.
55. Cahill and Anderson, Cahill, pp. 241–2.
56. Ó Dochartaigh, ‘The Longest Negotiation’, pp. 4, 16.