- Part time B specials that were entirely Protestant and biased were abolished and new police were brought under army control.
- Fairer housing system, so Catholics had the same housing privileges as Protestants.
- Gerrymandering and fixed elections were abandoned-fairer voting system for Catholics in which they could now vote.
- The British government giving grants tackled unemployment, which favoured those Catholics who were previously deprived of work.
This still didn’t help, the reforms failed to overtake violence and fighting. Also the IRA resented the presence of the British troops and the fact they had come into Ireland and taken over and began talking of driving them out. Arguments developed within the IRA and they were split into a younger and more militant group called the Provisional IRA, and this became more powerful than the older group known as the Official IRA. But in 1971 the Stormont government brought in a new rule, which caused another uproar within the Catholics. They started Interment; this allowed suspected ‘terrorists’ to be imprisoned without trial. They were kept in harsh conditions, like enemy prisoners in wartime. Although interment was not aimed at just Catholics it couldn’t help being noticed that it was mainly Catholics that were being arrested.
The internees were ill treated and subjected to cruel treatment, this is an extract from an official British government report in 1971,
“Hooding-detainees were kept fully hooded except when interrogated or in rooms by themselves.
Noise-when detainees were held together they were subjected to a continuous hissing noise. It was also the general policy to deprive men of sleep during the early days of the operation.”
“BLOODY SUNDAY”
The Catholics resented this and resulted in more young men joining the IRA. On the 30th of January 1972 a large civil rights march took place, people were marching against internment in Londonderry. All of a sudden the march was grounded to a halt, shots were fired at the demonstrators and thirteen civilians were killed. The troops claimed that they were fired at first by terrorists, although people knew that the troops had open fire without thinking first and then panicked. The event became a festering wound and for the Catholics and became known as “Bloody Sunday.” What happened that day is still being investigated and looked into today. There was bewilderment and people were furious. The situation became worse after the atrocity. One IRA man quoted,
“Our military orders after Bloody Sunday were to kill every British soldier we could.”
This was the amount of tension that was present. The Stormont government were unable to calm the situation, so the British government only had one option and that was to close Stormont rule in Northern Ireland and rule it directly from Britain. This then led to the British government in 1974 to try a political solution to the problems. A power sharing government was set up. This gave both Catholics and Protestants a say in running the government and for the first time Catholics were included too. But the Protestants opposed this and a general strike was called, after two weeks power sharing was abolished.
The events of Bloody Sunday became a festering wound, which the government tried to cover up, and each time they did, they failed.
QUESTION 2
WITH WHAT SUCCESS HAS THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TRIED TO RESOLVE THE IRISH ‘TROUBLES’ IN THE YEARS SINCE 1972?
After the 1972 crisis of “Bloody Sunday” the government were in panic and tried to calm the situation, but there was so much opposition towards the British troops from Catholics that it led to the army being pulled out of Ireland and it was directly ruled from England.
The government tried to set up a new system of power, which would be shared by Catholics and Protestants. In 1974, they set up power sharing. The leader was Brian Faulkner a Protestant. It was agreed to set up a council with representatives from the North and South, but before Faulkner came into power they were widely condemned by groups of the Protestant community. This was Ian Paisley’s an extreme unionists attitude to power sharing,
“Catholics don’t want a share in the government. They want Northern Ireland to be destroyed and be united. If they were to join a government they will destroy the government and state.”
Things weren’t going well and Protestants oppose the idea of power sharing, there came a stage that the more militant Protestants classed the catholic community with the IRA.
Then in May 1974 a group of Protestants known as the Ulster worker’s council called a general strike. This was to break power sharing. They thought it would be called off soon, as one reporter of The Times wrote, “It seems likely that Belfast will suffer no more than a slight loss of power, during the day time hours.”
But this wasn’t the case; within days the strike was very serious, roads were blocked, petrol and electricity was a major shortage. On May 28th Faulkner had no choice but to resign, and the power sharing system came to an end.
Then in 1981 the IRA prisoners reached a climax of being in prisons for several years. They began a hunger strike. The Catholics insisted that they should not be treated like criminals because they weren’t. They starved themselves to death in attempt to be given political status, many Catholics supported this, but not only had 10 men died but Margaret Thatcher didn’t give in her reaction was,
“There is no such thing as political murder political bombing or political violence, we will not compromise on this. There will be no political status.”
The strike failed and that was called off.
In 1985 the British government signed the ‘Anglo-Irish agreement’ with the Irish republic one of the main reasons was the increasing support for the IRA. It consisted of a joint committee in which the British and Irish government discussed matters of Ireland, and it would make the Catholics more secure. They hope to find ways of persuading Catholics and Protestants to respect each other. However not everyone agreed with this, the protestants were against an agreement that was designed to get rid of the IRA because it could lead to a United Ireland.
A ‘day of action’ took place against the agreement by the Protestants, however this had no affect. It led to an increase in Protestant paramilitary groups and heightened tension between Catholics and Protestants. But it did lead to a better border security and more success against the IRA, particularly weapons being found. It resulted in a decrease of support for Sinn Fein and gave a Catholic moderate, peaceful party the SDLP power.
One of the recent reforms was the Good Friday agreement in 1997. The main aims were:
- To inform people of any changes.
- Changes can only happen with consent of majority of people.
- The right of people to hold British and Irish citizenship.
- New bodies are to be set, selected by the community.
- A new agreement will establish a new British Irish conference.
A referendum was held to decide on the agreement. It was held in the republic and the result was overwhelming 94% were in favour of it. In Northern Ireland over 71% of voters approved the agreement.
The decommissioning of weapons is to be overseen by an International Commission On Arms.