Making Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict

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Whitelaw was as unimpressed with the republicans as they were with him. He recorded in his memoirs: ‘The meeting was a non-event. The IRA leaders simply made impossible demands which I told them the British government would never concede. They were in fact still in a mood of defiance and determination to carry on until their absurd ultimatums were met.’ The very fact that the meeting took place, however, was of great psychological importance in both political and paramilitary circles, being regularly cited in support of the argument that Britain might someday not rule out doing a deal with violent groupings.

On the nationalist side the SDLP dominated, having taken 22 per cent of the overall vote and representing in one party virtually all of constitutional nationalism. Nationalism had by this stage regrouped into two very distinct and opposing positions, most Catholics voting for the SDLP. Republicans were not, however, represented, having boycotted the elections: in the 1980s they would build a significant vote but during the 1970s they did not contest elections. Most of those who opted for a violent path came together in the IRA, known in those days as the Provisional IRA, which believed in an eventual republican victory achieved through force. Only a few individuals and organisations, such as Bernadette Devlin, the rump of the Civil Rights Association, and the Official IRA, did not align themselves with either of the two large nationalist groupings. The election result was yet another illustration of Unionist divisions. Thirty-nine of the Unionist party candidates gave their allegiance to the Faulkner approach but, in an echo of O’Neill’s 1969 crossroads election, ten others refused to do so. Unionist rejectionists won 27 of the 78 assembly seats with 235,000 votes, while Unionists supporting the initiative won 22 seats with 211,000 votes. Faulkner thus emerged from the election leading a bitterly divided party and without a majority among Unionist voters. His best hope was that, if a working system of government could be set up, its successful functioning would gradually attract more Unionist popular support.Making Sense stays true to its objective, to tell ‘a straightforward and gripping story … in an accessible way’. It is a straightforward read. The prisoners were refused any clothing if they refused to wear the uniforms. They were given a blanket and a mattress. By 1978 there were 300 such prisoners “on the blanket”. It was a classic battle of male egos. The problem for the prisoners was that no one much cared if they were naked. Their campaign went on for 18 months and got nowhere. So they hit on the idea of refusing to wash. Thus began the next phase, the dirty protest. They refused to leave their cells at all, either for food or to have a shower or, crucially, to empty their chamber pots: The Sunningdale conference was something of a cultural clash: the Unionist delegation decided not to use the drinks cabinet provided in their room in case their judgement should be affected. Other delegations laboured under no such inhibitions, first exhausting their own supplies and then gladly accepting the Unionist supplies. Faulkner’s team instead sent out for Polo mints. However, the hours of intense negotiations engendered growing understanding and respect. Faulkner would later write: ‘There was a feeling of comradeship and trust between those of us who had been through hundreds of hours of negotiations, and a sense almost of moral purpose.’ Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2022-02-11 06:12:09 Associated-names McVea, David Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA40362214 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

leaving prison officers to empty the chamber pots. The clashes this led to meant that excrement and urine literally became weapons in the war between prisoners and prison officers. … Soon the protest was escalated again, prisoners spreading their excrement on the walls. As conditions reached dangerous levels, with maggot infestations and threat of disease, the prison authorities forcibly removed prisoners to allow their cells to be steam-cleaned with special equipment, (and) forcible baths, shaves and haircuts of protesting prisoners. However, if you know some Irish history and/or can appreciate the ethno-nationalist competition in Northern Ireland, then you may very well be let down.I suppose my only real complaint is that the book spends a lot more time and effort on describing the coming of peace than it does on the coming of violence. I suppose the peace process is more recent and better documented, but i was really hoping for a better understanding of how communal tensions and unease descended into bloody murder. The gruesome story of the Troubles never became boring because each side had a flair for original or striking twists. The hunger strikes were really something. For politicians, it was like being trapped in a horror film, only it was real. Here’s how it got to be that way. Imagine this. I grew up with the Troubles on the TV news and as a child never really understood what the Troubles were all about. So when I saw this book I thought I'd buy it and educate myself. I'm glad that I did. All parties had difficulties with Whitelaw’s proposals. For many Unionists, powersharing with nationalists and a Council of Ireland were objectionable, for all Whitelaw’s stress on Northern Ireland’s guaranteed status within the UK. For the SDLP the initiative was in most aspects a huge advance, even though it fell well short of the London-Dublin joint authority the party had advocated. The continuing use of internment also posed a major problem for the SDLP. The powersharing project that was to follow was based on the idea of combining the more moderate parties in a new coalition which would run Northern Ireland on a partnership basis. Both republican and Unionist extremes were to be excluded from this centrist idea - in fact they excluded themselves by refusing to take part in it - but as time went by, the theory ran, support for the extremes would dwindle.

Then things went up another gear. A Nationalist MP died in Northern Ireland, and the IRA had the brilliant idea of putting up Bobby Sands as the candidate for the by-election. On 9 April 1981, when he was already losing his sight and was very ill, he was elected as Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. This book is a chronological summary of more than 100 years of the troubles of Northern Ireland. In essence, "This is what happened in the 1920s, this is what happened in the 1960s, etc." Republicans meanwhile set off bombs which killed large numbers of people. Nine died in Belfast on what came to be known as Bloody Friday, as the IRA detonated twenty devices in just over an hour, injuring 130 others and producing widespread confusion and fear in many parts of the city. According to one account: ‘In many places there was panic and pandemonium as shoppers and others heard bombs going off all over the city. The carnage, with some people blown to pieces, was such that the number of dead was unclear for some time, newspapers at first reporting that eleven people had been killed.’ A police officer who went to a bomb scene in Oxford Street said: ‘You could hear people screaming and crying and moaning. The first thing that caught my eye was a torso of a human being lying in the middle of the street. It was recognisable as a torso because the clothes had been blown off and you could actually see parts of the human anatomy.’ In his memoirs Brian Faulkner wrote: ‘Few Ulster people will forget seeing on television young policemen shovelling human remains into plastic bags in Oxford Street.’

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There could have been no more definitive display of political motivation than the spectacle of ten men giving their lives in an awesome display of self-sacrifice and dedication. It was possible to view this as outlandish fanaticism, and many did; but it was not possible to claim that there were indistinguishable from ordinary criminals. Making Sense Of The Troubles is a very good place to start if your knowledge of the events in Northern Ireland is poor or scattered like mine was. The text is easy to understand and follow. Essential reading at the moment when tensions are once again on the rise in NI. It was exactly what I was looking for to help me understand what took place. The authors also I thought managed to provide a very fair and neutral picture of the events.

One of the few points of substance on which the memoirs of Heath and Faulkner differ is on the prospect of direct rule. Faulkner accused the British prime minister of misleading him, writing: ‘The rug was pulled out from under my feet, and it came to me personally as a bitter blow. I was shaken and horrified and felt completely betrayed.’ Heath by contrast wrote that he had specifically made it clear to Faulkner when he became Stormont prime minister ‘that if significant progress was not made in the next year or so, we would have to introduce direct rule. He did not like the prospect and later claimed he had been duped by us. This is not so. He was aware, from the day he took office, that his premiership was Stormont’s last chance.’ A last-minute breakthrough was achieved with the aid of the ingenious device of creating a new category of extra ministers. Faulkner would have a majority within the eleven-strong executive, which was to be made up of six Unionists, four SDLP and one Alliance. But four extra non-voting ministers were to be appointed, so that the full executive would consist of seven Unionists, six SDLP and two Alliance members. This piece of sleight-of-hand meant that Faulkner could claim he had a Unionist majority while non-Unionists could simultaneously claim he had not.

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He associated with some loyalist paramilitary organisations such as the UDA. Advocating a semi-independent Northern Ireland he staged a series of Oswald Mosley-style ‘monster rallies’, arriving complete with motorcycle outriders to inspect thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands, of men drawn up in military-style formation. What Craig said at the rallies and elsewhere was even more alarming. In a series of what became known as the ‘shoot-to-kill’ speeches he openly threatened the use of force, declaring: ‘We must build up dossiers on those men and women in this country who are a menace to this country because one of these days, if and when the politicians fail us, it may be our job to liquidate the enemy.’ Really, as civil wars go, it was not much to write home about. The United Nations estimated casualties of the Sri Lankan civil war as somewhere between 80 and 100,000 killed between 1982 and 2009. Now that’s what you call a civil war. I was looking for a clear, concise and easy-to-read history of the Northern Ireland Troubles, and Making Sense of the Troubles definitely delivered on that point. The book is as unconvoluted as a history of such a turbulent, eventful period can be. It covers a timespan of roughly 90 years, describing how the conflict came about and how decades of tension eventually escalated into a civil war that lasted for the better part of a century. Very informative for someone who only has a layman's knowledge of the conflict. The image of prisoners naked in their cells with nothing for company but their own filth is undeniably potent, and it was being trumpeted round the world. But despite the adverse publicity I couldn’t give in. To do so would give the IRA its biggest victory in years. It would mean the abandonment of…the rule of law.