How has the PIRA attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland since 1972?

Adam Wilson

History G.C.S.E

Ireland Question 2 –

How has the PIRA attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland since 1972?

The IRA underwent a split after the troops were sent into Belfast in 1969.At an IRA convention in December 1969 a clash of opinions occurred. It was thought that the IRA was not doing its job properly because Catholics were still getting targeted in sectarian violence so therefore the view that a return to an armed strategy arose. This view did not go down too well with certain members of the IRA so the ones who agreed on violence split to form the PIRA. The PIRA’s aim was to achieve unification by using enough force to scare the British government into giving into their aims. This of course was not going to be an easy task. Throughout this essay I am going to show how the PIRA has attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland by both violent tactics and peaceful tactics.

The PIRA made a number of demands to the governments of England and Ulster. These were:

The withdrawal of the British army from Ulster.
The abolition of Stormont.
Free elections.
The unification of Ulster with the Irish Republic.
The release of all political prisoners.

The PIRA put pressure on the government through terrorist activities such as bombings and shootings.

Increased violence between 1969 and 1971 from the PIRA in the form of bombings and shootings of soldiers and buildings in Ulster connected with the army led to a change of policy by the government. The new prime-ministers of England and Ulster decided to take terrorists off the streets. This new rule, where terrorists could be detained in a prison indefinitely without trial was called internment. The fact that most people who were arrested under the new internment laws were Catholic led to more violence as it was seen that the government was targeting Catholics.

The views against internment culminated in a civil rights march in Derry. On the 30th January 1972 some 10 000 people turned out to march from the Creggan Estate in Derry to the Guildhall. The authorities had banned the march and so the army had erected banners to stop the march reaching the centre of Derry and the Guildhall. The army was also ordered to send in ‘snatch squads’ of soldiers to round up and arrest troublemakers. In the havoc which followed, 13 civilians were killed. The army maintain that they were fired upon but Catholic leaders maintain that no shots were fired at the army. Subsequent evidence suggests that a van back firing was mistaken by the army as gunfire.

Bloody Sunday provided a recruitment boost for the IRA who stepped up their bombing campaign. By March the newly formed Ulster Vanguard Movement assembled 60,000 supporters at a rally in Belfast and heard their leader, William Craig, state that if the politicians failed to deal with the IRA "it may be our job to liquidate the enemy".

Adam Wilson

History G.C.S.E

Ireland Question 2 –

How has the PIRA attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland since 1972?

After the events of Bloody Sunday as it now known the IRA increased its violent attacks against protestant targets. ...

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Bloody Sunday provided a recruitment boost for the IRA who stepped up their bombing campaign. By March the newly formed Ulster Vanguard Movement assembled 60,000 supporters at a rally in Belfast and heard their leader, William Craig, state that if the politicians failed to deal with the IRA "it may be our job to liquidate the enemy".

Adam Wilson

History G.C.S.E

Ireland Question 2 –

How has the PIRA attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland since 1972?

After the events of Bloody Sunday as it now known the IRA increased its violent attacks against protestant targets. The Ulster parliament was finding it very difficult to manage under the pressure and so Direct Rule was implemented from Westminster by the English prime-minister Edward Heath.

As soon as the rule of Ulster was transferred to London, the British government tried to get Catholics into sharing power with Protestants in Ulster. It was found that there were common areas where Catholics and Protestants could agree, e.g gas, water, electricity, tourism and transport. A ‘council of Ireland’ met with representatives from the British government, Republic of Ireland Government and politicians from Ulster at Sunningdale in Berkshire. As a result of these talks, a power-sharing executive at Stormont replaced direct rule in January 1974. Brian Falkner became the new Chief Executive. This gave new hope for peace.

Power-sharing, however, was not successful. This was because the Worker’s Council called a General Strike by Protestants in Ulster. Its aim was to bring the province of Ulster to a standstill in order to break the power-sharing executive. Protestants blocked roads making electricity and petrol supplies severely restricted. Ulster was being crippled economically. Faced with this dilemma, Brian Falkner resigned on May 28th 1974 and the power-sharing executive came to an end.

Due to the move of power back to Westminster, the PIRA began to attack targets on the British mainland.

In October 1974, the IRA bombed two Guilford pubs, killing four people and injuring seventy.
In December 1978, the IRA bombed London, Bristol, Manchester and Southampton.
In March 1979, the INLA murdered Airey Neave, the Shadow Secretary for Northern Ireland.

The reasons for the PIRA turning to violence in the 1970s are quite straightforward.

First of all, the bombing and shooting achieved publicity for their cause. They wanted to achieve their aims of unification and independence. They also wanted to weaken the will of the British government to fight them.

After 1984, the PIRA decided to change tactics. There are a number of reasons as to why they did this.

Mrs Thatcher, Conservative prime-minister came to power in 1979 and refused to give into the pressure of the PIRA.
The hunger strikes by some members of the PIRA had achieved nothing. Bobby Sands was the first person to die from hunger strikes.
15 years of violence, bombing and death had achieved nothing for the PIRA.

Regular bombing in England had cost the British government increasing amounts of money.

Adam Wilson

History G.C.S.E

Ireland Question 2 –

How has the PIRA attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland since 1972?

In October 1984, the IRA bombed the Conservative Party conference at Brighton killing members of the Conservative Party and nearly killing Mrs Thatcher. Soon afterwards, secret meeting were held between the British and Irish governments and a year later, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed by Mrs Thatcher, and Garret Fitzgerald, the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland at Hillsborough Castle in November 1985.

The agreement said:

The British Government recognised the Republics right to make proposals on matters relating to Northern Ireland.
The Republic recognised that a United Ireland was a long-term aim that would only come about with the approval of the majority of Northern Ireland.
Both governments agreed to trey and make Northern Ireland a place where everyone could live in peace, free from discrimination and intolerance.
Both governments agreed on an inter-government conference, which would meet regularly to discuss political, legal, and security matters.
The agreement was to be reviewed after three years or earlier if either government requested it.

The Protestant and Catholic government did not like the new agreement but ordinary people wanted to give it a chance. This seemed like a new chance for peace in Northern Ireland but despite the new agreement, the paramilitaries continued their campaign of violence, striking at a range of targets.

Here are some examples of the continued violence.

Just before 11.00am on 8 November 1987 a Provisional IRA bomb exploded without warning at a Remembrance Day memorial service at Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. The bomb, which knocked down a three-story wall crushing people, killed eleven and injured sixty-three. The PIRA claimed responsibility and expressed ‘deep regret’. The Enniskillen bombing shocked the world and weakened the credibility of the PIRA’s cause.

A fortnight after the bombing, Mrs Thatcher and the Prince and Princess of Wales joined 7,000 others for another Remembrance Day Service at the Enniskillen war memorial.

1993 – The IRA kills two young boys in Warrington with a bomb placed in a rubbish bin.

This level of violence could not continue so in the late 1980’s there were attempts to meet both Catholics and Protestants to renew the Anglo-Irish Agreement but there was little progress. However secret talks between Gerry Adams and John Hume (a moderate Catholic leader) led to the signing of the Downing Street Declaration.

Adam Wilson

History G.C.S.E

Ireland Question 2 –

How has the PIRA attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland since 1972?

The four main outcomes of the Downing Street Declaration were as follows:

Talks were to be set up to decide on a new from of government for Northern Ireland.
Only parties which rejected violence would be allowed a say in the talks.
The British government accepted that Irish Unity was an issue for Irish people, but said that it could only happen with the consent of those in the North.
The Irish government also accepted that it might have to drop the parts of its constitution which claimed the North as part of its territory.

The initial response to the Downing Street Declaration was mixed. Ian Paislet, leader of the D.U.P stated that, “…You have sold Ulster to buy off this fiendish Republican scum.”

The reaction of Sinn Fein was, “…already the general reaction among nationalists was one of disappointment.”

The Alliance Party, however, stated “…This was a balanced document which gives words of comfort and sensitivity to Nationalists and very real structural guarantees to the Unionists.”

With a stoppage in the violence, Northern Ireland’s unemployment rate went down and its tourist industry started to recover. The British Army no longer patrolled the streets of major towns in Ulster.

However, the IRA still retained some of their weapons which left them with the capability of causing violence, which they did in February 1996 when they bombed the Canary Wharf building in London Docklands area. The bomb, which killed two people, is estimated to have caused up to £1 billion worth of damage.

The work by John Major for peace was continued by Tony Blair and the Labour Party in 1997. The talks with all sections of Irish society and the Irish Republic culminated in the Good Friday Agreement signed on April 10th 1998.

A referendum was held to ratify the agreement on May 22nd 1998. 71.12% in Northern Ireland and 94.4% in the Republic created an all-Ireland majority of 85.4% in favour.

For the first time since 1973, Ulster was to have its own government or assembly.

There were six main points of the new assembly, these were:

An assembly of 108 MP’s was to exist, elected by Proportional Representation.
The assembly was to have power over the six counties of Ulster.
A North/South Ministerial Council involving both ministers from Ulster and Eire was to meet to consult issues affecting all of Ireland.
The European Convention on Human Rights was to be fully incorporated into the laws of Ulster.

Adam Wilson

History G.C.S.E

Ireland Question 2 –

How has the PIRA attempted to re-unite Eire and Northern Ireland since 1972?

All prisoners, whose organisations had given up violence, were to be released on license within two years.
The decommissioning of terrorist weapons was to begin at an agrred point in the future.

In January 2000, the Northern Ireland assembly began with David Trimble as First Minister.

The Northern Ireland assembly consisted of both Protestant and Catholic ministers, e.g. Martin McGuinnes as Minister for Education.

The matter of decommissioning terrorist weapons still hampers the peace process in Northern Ireland. After the attacks on the World Trade Centre building in New York on September 11th 2001, huge pressure was put on the PIRA to decommission its weapons and on October 23rd, they announced that they had begun a process of putting arms out of use. The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning verified this. Not all unionists are satisfied and therefore it will be quite a while before we see a full end to the conflict in Northern Ireland.