David McKittrick
and David McVea

 

MAKING SENSE OF THE TROUBLES

A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict

MAKING SENSE OF THE TROUBLES

David McKittrick has reported on the Northern Ireland troubles since the 1970s. After working for the Irish Times and BBC he has been Ireland correspondent of the London Independent since 1985. Awards include the Orwell Prize, Correspondent of the Year and Belfast Journalist of the Year.

David McVea graduated in politics and modern history from Queen’s University, Belfast, and has an MA from Sussex University. He was head of the politics department of a Belfast grammar school where he taught both history and political studies.

They were among the authors of the landmark million-word book Lost Lives, detailing all those who died in the troubles, which received the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize for the promotion of peace and understanding in Ireland.

Introduction

This book is a fully updated version of our original work published in 2000 at a time of much uncertainty in Northern Ireland. The years that followed have been both highly eventful and mostly positive, witnessing a decline in violence and much political progress, producing a more stable political settlement than most had dared to hope for. While that settlement certainly has its critics, practically everyone regards it as preferable to what went before. There are still occasional crises but most of these tend to be political rather than violent, and are generally settled by negotiation. Politics has become the order of the day: and who would have guessed that, by 2012, one of the grumbles about the Stormont administration was that its proceedings had come to seem dull.

People did not celebrate in the streets in 2007 when two of the principal warriors of the troubles, loyalist Ian Paisley and republican Martin McGuinness, became joint heads of a new cross-community administration amid affirmations that the war was over and that a new era of cooperation was at hand. It flew in the face of history, experience and intuition to think of Paisley and McGuinness promising to run Northern Ireland together for the benefit of all. Paisley, as Northern Ireland’s new First Minister, spoke of ‘a time when hate will no longer rule’. McGuinness, the ex-IRA commander, spoke of peace and reconciliation. Almost four decades of death, destruction and distrust had left Northern Ireland such a tight, closed and wary society that the event brought few spontaneous eruptions of joy or celebration.

And yet there was a near-universal sense – not quite a certainty, but much more than a hope – that Northern Ireland’s long nightmare was finally coming to an end after more than 3,700 deaths and after generations of discord. It felt over. The general desire for peace was so strong that it would be easy to be complacent and to assert that Northern Ireland would never experience war again. That error has certainly been made in the past: an eminent historian had airily written in the 1930s, for example, that while political and religious difficulties had left their marks on Ireland ‘they have been dissolved in the light of modern reasonableness’. This serves as a warning that it is dangerous to declare that peace has broken out in Ireland, especially Northern Ireland. The earlier history, and above all the troubles, left so many scars and so many divisions that the future is hardly likely to be a tranquil one. Yet the 2007 surge of ‘modern reasonableness’, together with the predominant feeling that decades of conflict had demonstrated that no one element was going to achieve victory over the others, seemed to indicate that a return to full-scale violence was scarcely imaginable. There will certainly be conflict ahead, but the betting is that it will for the most part be confined to the political arena rather than the streets of Belfast and the border lanes of south Armagh. That is probably as much as can be hoped for: Northern Ireland is never going to be a utopia, but nor is it fated to continue in violence.

For very many people the troubles were a terrible time in which a generation grew up not knowing peace or stability. They represented a lethal but fascinating time in Northern Ireland’s history, witnessing as they did not only death, injury and destruction but also huge political and social change. While some might argue that it may be too early for a full account of these years, there is so much material available, and so many memories are so fresh, that we believe a proper attempt can be made to make some sense of the troubles.

Many secrets doubtless remain to be revealed, and there is important information which may not emerge for many years, if ever. Some events and interpretations are destined to be disputed for decades, yet much of the course of the troubles is already reasonably clear. The main political events are there for all to see, as are the main characters. So too, tragically, are the more than 3,700 deaths of the troubles, deaths whose consequences are all too evident to the relatives and friends affected.

Both of the authors are acutely aware of this last, since we were among the five authors of Lost Lives, the book which gives an account of every troubles death. In writing this book it was always at the forefront of our minds that the troubles should not be regarded simply as a period of political upheaval but also as a time when so many lives were lost and so many people injured or bereaved. For this reason the reader will find here a greater than usual emphasis on the deaths as well as the major political events.

Hundreds of books and millions of words have been written on the troubles: Lost Lives alone, for example, contains almost a million of them. The aim of this book is to provide an overview, excising a great many details. When the choice was between giving intricate detail or a broad-brush overview, we almost always opted for the latter. There were many points where we were tempted to pause and indulge in lengthier analysis but for the most part we aimed instead for maintaining narrative momentum. To complement this approach, the substantial chronology gives greater detail on many events.

Our research involved consulting many of the hundreds of books on various aspects of this period, as well as going through primary source material in newspaper libraries and at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. We also consulted a vast collection of clippings and notes in addition to having journalistic access to many of the participants, ranging from those responsible for governing in London, Belfast and Dublin to those responsible for carrying out killings, covering the spectrum from politicians and officials to republicans and loyalists and all points in between. Our original brief was for ‘a clear, concise, authoritative history’ and we have adhered as closely as possible to that. This book was published first by Blackstaff of Belfast in 2000, in the following year by Penguin and in 2002 in the US by Ivan R. Dee of Chicago. Two new chapters bring the story up to 2012 while fresh analysis is presented of the major events. In addition to this we have also made various modifications, mostly minor, to the original text. For this version we have provided an updated chronology and statistical tables.

In the first edition we concluded: ‘There is a widespread sense that a corner has been decisively turned. It can be forecast with some confidence that the future will bring much improvement on the last three turbulent decades.’ Much of this has been borne out with the virtual, though not complete, ending of troubles-related deaths. The political scene has improved beyond recognition, making advances which no one predicted and few dared to hope for.

A new political dispensation has emerged while British–Irish relations have entered a golden age. Soldiers have all but disappeared from the streets. The IRA has departed and Sinn Féin endorses new policing arrangements. Loyalist paramilitary activity has plummeted while unionist leaders have developed constructive new relations with the Irish Republic. This settlement has received overwhelming endorsement in a number of elections. The world, and almost everyone in Northern Ireland, now simply wants the new political axis to provide stable government, to secure the peace, and to consign the troubles to the past.