Ireland Since 1939

by Henry Patterson

  Within the Provisionals there were signs of a North–South divide on a ceasefire. The cutting edge of the armed campaign was being provided by young working-class Catholics in Belfast, whose republicanism was more a product of the conflict with Protestants and the security forces since 1969 than any ideological commitment to a united Ireland or identification with the martyrs of 1916. Here suspicion that a ceasefire would allow the security forces to reassert their control of the IRA's base areas in North and West Belfast was strong and reflected in the scepticism of the IRA's Belfast commander, the former bookmaker Seamus Twomey, and the up-and-coming Provo strategist Gerry Adams. However, for leading members of the largely southern leadership of the Provos, including Dáithi Ó Conaill and Ruairi Ó Brádaigh, the increasingly obvious sectarian effects of the bombing campaign, along with an exaggerated estimation of the British state's willingness to consider radical constitutional change, made a ceasefire attractive, and an indefinite one was declared on 22 June.

  The ceasefire was agreed in return for the granting of political status to their prisoners (some of whom were on hunger strike), the temporary release from detention of Gerry Adams and the promise of direct talks at a high level. A six-man delegation led by Seán MacStiofáin was secretly flown to London for talks with Whitelaw and senior officials. Its demands, which included a British declaration of intent to withdraw within three years, offered little to negotiate over. Whitelaw responded to MacStiofáin's shopping list by pointing out that the British government was constrained by the consent provisions of the Ireland Act.100 Within two weeks the Belfast IRA had brought the ceasefire to an end and launched an intensified campaign, culminating on 21 July in ‘Bloody Friday’, when it placed twenty-six bombs in Belfast, killing eleven people and injuring 130. Seven people were killed in the city's main bus station, and as the television cameras showed human remains being scooped up into black plastic bags, the Provisionals suffered a major blow to the moral credibility of their campaign. Whitelaw moved quickly to exploit popular revulsion, and the ‘no-go’ areas in Belfast and Derry were reoccupied with a massive display of military might in Operation Motorman. From this time on the Belfast IRA was subject to attrition, and by the end of 1973 the organization increasingly had to centre its operations in rural areas such as south Armagh and mid Ulster. In the South, Lynch's government closed Sinn Féin's headquarters, and a number of senior republicans were arrested. In November the government dismissed the entire governing body of the Republic's television service after the showing of an interview with MacStiofain.101

  The SDLP benefited significantly from the ceasefire and its violent aftermath. Republican willingness to halt their campaign and enter into discussions without an end to internment made it easier for the SDLP to resume negotiations with the British and the Unionists. The utter inflexibility of the republican negotiators when they got their chance to put their demands to Whitelaw allowed them to be politically outflanked by the SDLP. The government's Green Paper, published in October, with its support for power-sharing and an ‘Irish Dimension’, indicated that, while a united Ireland might not be on the immediate agenda, northern Catholics were being offered the possibility of political gains that would have been inconceivable even two years previously. That these possibilities would not be realized would be in large part a result of the increasingly tough bargaining position that the SDLP adopted and whose main architect was John Hume. Thus on 12 December 1972 Whitelaw met an SDLP delegation led by Fitt and including Hume, Devlin and Austin Currie. The SDLP warned Whitelaw that the government was adopting ‘short-term expedients’ in treating the province of Northern Ireland as the basis for a settlement: ‘A framework of reconciliation should be provided on the basis of absolute equality between the two communities. What was needed was the long-term certainty of political union by 1980 within the context of the European Community.’ Whitelaw pointed out that many of the SDLP's proposals would be ‘repugnant to the majority in Northern Ireland,’ but the SDLP impatiently brushed aside such warnings.102

  In local government elections in May 1973 the SDLP showed that it had emerged as a political force, with 13 per cent of the vote. For the first time since the death of Joe Devlin in the 1930s, a nationalist party could claim support in both the west and east of Northern Ireland as the influence of Fitt and Devlin ensured the party had a solid base in Belfast. Provisional Sinn Féin had urged a boycott of the elections, and some of its strategists were concerned that the support for both the SDLP and the Republican Clubs, the political wing of the Officials, came from Provo sympathizers who rejected abstentionist tactics. The republican dilemma was even more obvious in the election for a new Northern Ireland Assembly, held in June. In these the SDLP emerged as the second-largest party, with almost 160,000 votes, 22 per cent of the total and nineteen seats.103 Provisional unease over strategy was manifest in conflicting advice to their supporters, who were urged first to abstain and then to spoil ballot papers. A mere 1.2 per cent of ballots were spoiled, and it was clear that the majority of northern nationalists had put their hopes in radical reform rather than in armed struggle.

  Hume, with the support of most of the SDLP Assembly members from constituencies outside Belfast, was convinced that the political fragmentation of unionism and the British desire to build up the SDLP as a bulwark against the Provisionals meant that an ‘interim' settlement combining power-sharing with a powerful Council of Ireland should be the only acceptable outcome of any negotiations. When Liam Cosgrave, the Taoiseach in the new Fine Gael–Labour coalition government, told a Conservative meeting in London that any pressure for movement on the partition issue ‘would dangerously exacerbate tension and fears’,104 he provoked an angry response from the SDLP. Hume gave a tough speech in which he advised Cosgrave's government not to underestimate its strength or to surrender its position to ‘the false liberalism of placating the Unionists’.105 SDLP delegations arrived in Dublin to emphasize that they saw Cosgrave's position as less robust than Fianna Fáil's106 and as weakening their negotiating position with the British and the Unionists. Fearful of being portrayed as letting the ‘separated brethren’ down, the Irish government's official position soon shifted to one of uncritical support for Hume's analysis and prescriptions. By the autumn Garret FitzGerald was pressing the British hard on several fronts. He wanted: agreement on a Council of Ireland before the formation of an Executive in Northern Ireland; the proposed Sunningdale Conference to be co-chaired by an Irish minister or a ‘neutral’ chairman to be drawn from the European Union; and an all-Ireland police force under the supervision of the Council of Ireland. In the view of the British Ambassador in Dublin, the Irish government, with the exception of Conor Cruise O'Brien and Patrick Cooney, were ‘timorous’ and ‘narrow-minded… they cannot lift their eyes above their own domestic politics.’107

  Sunningdale and the Ulster Workers’ Council Strike

  As the intense and exhausting process of inter-party talks at Stormont Castle under Whitelaw's chairmanship continued through October and November 1973, the Unionist negotiators were aware that opposition within the Protestant community was growing. On 20 November the Ulster Unionist Council narrowly turned down a proposal to reject power-sharing by 379 votes to 369. Despite the obviously precarious position of Faulkner, Hume, described by one of the most liberal of Faulkner's supporters as ‘grim and unbending in negotiations’,108 remained implacable in his commitment to a Council of Ireland with substantial powers. An agreement on the formation of a power-sharing Executive was announced on 22 November. The Executive was to consist of eleven members: six Ulster Unionists, four SDLP and one from the Alliance Party. Brian Faulkner was Chief Executive and Gerry Fitt Deputy Chief Executive. It was the SDLP's insistence that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ that prevented the immediate devolution of power following the successful conclusion of the talks. Instead Faulkner and his Unionist ministers-in-waiting had to participate in a conference with the SDLP, the Alliance Party, and the Briti
sh and Irish governments to deal with the unresolved issue of the Council of Ireland.

  The conference, held at the civil service college at Sunningdale in Berkshire between 6 and 9 December, was an unmitigated disaster for Faulkner's standing in the unionist community. Heath had viewed the deepening of his government's involvement in Northern Ireland affairs after direct rule as a necessary but unfortunate diversion of the time and abilities of some of his most important ministers. With the formation of the Executive his immediate inclination was to reduce the quality of his commitment. This meant the recalling of Whitelaw to Westminster to deal with the pressing problem of industrial militancy, and his replacement by Francis Pym. If Whitelaw had been present at Sunningdale, his almost two years of experience in the North might have allowed him to make Heath more aware of the difficulties of Faulkner's position. As it was, the Unionist negotiators were confronted with an SDLP supported by a heavyweight Irish governmental team led by the Taoiseach; they also found themselves at loggerheads with Heath, who showed little patience with Unionist concerns that they were being asked to sign up to an agreement that would be unsellable at home.

  Hume brushed aside the nagging concerns of his party leader: that by pushing the role and powers of the Council of Ireland to the forefront of negotiations, the SDLP would make the position of Faulkner untenable. The only voice that was raised against Hume's agenda was that of Paddy Devlin, who, on seeing the full list of executive functions proposed for the Council of Ireland, exclaimed that it would result in his Unionist colleagues being hanged from the lamp-posts when they got back to Belfast.109 Heath's overwhelming desire for a deal and his impatience with Unionist concerns, which might have been checked by Whitelaw's knowledge of Ulster conditions, were unrestrained by Francis Pym. The result was disastrous for the new power-sharing government.

  Although the extent of Unionist/SDLP differences on the functions and powers of the Council of Ireland meant that these areas were set aside for further discussion, the final communiqué, by agreeing that the Council would be created, provided Faulkner's enemies with a focus for their attack, while the very lack of a clear definition of powers allowed the most extravagant claims to be made and believed. Faulkner had hoped for compensatory commitments from the Irish government on the removal of Articles 2 and 3 from the Irish Constitution and the extradition of terrorist offenders. He got neither, and even senior members of the Irish delegation feared that nationalism had been too successful at Sunningdale.110 Whitelaw confided in FitzGerald that in his acceptance of the Council of Ireland Faulkner was ‘perhaps further ahead of his party than was quite wise for him’.111

  On the day that the Sunningdale Conference began, 600 delegates from Unionist Party constituency associations, Vanguard, the DUP and the Orange Order agreed to form the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) to oppose power-sharing and the Council of Ireland, which was described as ‘so obvious a preparation for a united Ireland’.112 The Grand Lodge of the Orange Order had sent an unprecedented letter to all Orange delegates to a special meeting of the UUC on 20 November 1973, urging a vote against power-sharing. Martin Smyth, who was Grand Master of the Order as well as Vice-President of the UUP, along with the new MP for South Antrim, James Molyneaux, also a leading member of the Order, played a central role in the UUUC. Although the UUC meeting rejected the anti-power–sharing motion, it did so by a narrow margin of 379 to 369.113 The Sunningdale Agreement would ensure that Faulkner lost this remaining narrow margin of support. A special meeting of the UUC on 4 January 1974, just four days after the Executive took office, passed a resolution opposing any Council of Ireland by 427 to 374, and Faulkner resigned as leader of the party. Despite this further blow to the Unionist pillar of the new devolved structures, the SDLP continued to inflame Protestant fears with claims such as that of one Assembly member, Hugh Logue, that the Council of Ireland was ‘the vehicle that would trundle Unionists into a united Ireland’. Faulkner's earlier demands for constitutional recognition rebounded when on 16 January the High Court in Dublin ruled that the Irish government's recognition of the North in the agreement was ‘no more than a statement of policy’ with no constitutional significance.114

  Faulkner hoped that the effective and mundane working of the new institutions would dissipate the fears of many ordinary Unionists, but Heath's overriding concern with the challenge of industrial militancy in Britain impinged disastrously on Northern Ireland. Ignoring pleas from Faulkner, Gerry Fitt and Pym that an election could be fatal for the Executive, Heath called a general election for 28 February.

  The UUUC, mobilizing with the slogan ‘Dublin is only a Sunningdale away’, won eleven of Northern Ireland's twelve constituencies at Westminster. The power-sharing parties – Faulkner Unionists, the Alliance Party, the NILP and the SDLP – competed against one another. The result was that in South and East Belfast the victorious UUUC candidates got fewer votes than the combination of their power-sharing opponents. There was still a substantial Unionist power-sharing constituency in suburban Belfast and North Down, but it was drowned in the rejectionist tide that flowed through the rest of Northern Ireland.115 The Executive had lost all legitimacy with the bulk of the Unionist electorate, and this is the key to understanding the British government's reaction to the unprecedented industrial action by the Ulster Workers' Council (UWC), which was the occasion, but not the fundamental cause, of the Executive's collapse.

  The UWC had been created in November 1973 by groups of loyalist trade unionists who had been involved in the discredited Loyalist Association of Workers. They were convinced that it would be easier to mobilize support against an unpopular Executive and the spectre of creeping unification associated with the Council of Ireland than it had been to protest about the internment of loyalist paramilitaries. Distrustful of most of the Unionist politicians who were opposed to Faulkner, they were determined to maintain their independence and take action with or without the politicians' blessing. Although the UWC maintained a notional separation from the main paramilitary organizations, its ‘coordinating committee’ (headed by the impressive Derry trade unionist and Vanguard activist Glenn Barr) included UDA and UVF members. Its paramilitary links would be crucial in ensuring the withdrawal of labour in the first days of the strike that began on 15 May 1974. The possible role of intimidation and violence had been one of the factors that had made the main leaders of Unionist opposition to the Executive reluctant to consider industrial action when the UWC issued its first public statement on 23 March. This threatened widespread civil disobedience unless fresh Assembly elections were held. The UUUC's response was to ignore the UWC and to call for a boycott of southern goods by northern consumers instead.116

  The motley crew of industrial militants and paramilitaries had read the popular mood better than the politicians, although even they did not expect the stunning victory that was to come. The SDLP and some leading Labour and Conservative politicians were to explain the success of the strike in terms of intimidation and the failure of the authorities to act decisively and early to keep roads open and remove the barri-cades erected by strike supporters. This simply ignored the extent of support for the strike in the unionist community. Most unionists perceived the course of events from 1968 to 1973 as one of continued political retreat, if not defeat. It was unlikely that they would accept in government those whom they considered as instrumental in bringing down the Stormont regime, especially when members of the SDLP still talked as if a united Ireland were an imminent possibility through the Council of Ireland.117 By the end of the first week of the strike the UWC had shut down the North's main industries and through its control of the Ballylumford Power Station at Larne had a stranglehold on the electricity supply, which put it in a position to bring daily life to a standstill.

  The new Labour administration showed no desire to confront the strikers for the sake of a terminally divided Executive; moreover, the army's advice was that it would be disastrous to open up a second front against the Protestant paramilitaries
at a time when its resources needed to be fully committed against the Provisionals. Harold Wilson's main contribution to the dénouement of power-sharing was a crassly misjudged national television and radio broadcast in which he denounced the strikers as ‘thugs and bullies’ and their supporters as those who ‘spend their lives sponging on Westminster’. Ken Bloomfield judged the broadcast ‘catastrophically unhelpful’, and in the days that followed even moderate unionists sported pieces of sponge in their lapels.118 A plan devised by John Hume, the Minister of Commerce, to use the army to take over a number of petrol stations to break the UWC's control of fuel supplies was leaked in advance by a sympathetic official – an indication of the defection en masse of the Protestant middle class – and the UWC announced a total shutdown of services. Faced with the possibility of the closure of hospitals and the probability of raw sewage flooding Belfast streets, the Executive resigned.119