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

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By November the talks had achieved agreement on most of the major issues but were stalled on the composition of the eleven-man executive (no women were in line for office) and had yet to settle the form of the Irish dimension. Faulkner insisted that his party should have a majority in the executive while the SDLP and Alliance pointed out that he did not command a majority within Unionism and certainly not within the assembly. Whitelaw told Edward Heath that he expected the talks to fail and made plans to return to London to make a statement in the Commons on 22 November. On the day before, however, he piled the pressure on the parties to reach agreement by having his helicopter land, visibly and very noisily, on the lawn outside Stormont Castle where the talks were taking place. This is a well written book that I was able to follow and understand despite having only a rather sketchy idea of the problems in Northern Ireland.

While this scheme was politically coherent, two sets of statistics, concerning electoral support and the level of violence, help show just how formidable were the forces ranged against it. A majority of Unionist voters were against the proposition, while perhaps 30,000 or more of them were so opposed to accommodation that they joined loyalist paramilitary groups prepared to use force to resist what they saw as any further erosion of Protestant rights. There was a certain overlap of the political and paramilitary within the assembly itself, where half a dozen or more anti-deal Unionists had connections with shadowy loyalist groups. In the political centre only a small number of voters supported cross-community parties, the non-sectarian Alliance party being the most prominent, with 9 per cent of the vote. Instead, the book opens with this clunker of paragraph: "The observation that nothing is more remote than the recent past is particularly applicable to the Northern Ireland troubles, since the understandable instinct of many people has been to shy away from them. For very many people it was a terrible period, in which a generation grew up not knowing peace or stability." Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2013-09-11 00:13:00 Bookplateleaf 0010 Boxid IA1162814 City Chicago Donor Thus, I was disappointed that Making Sense didn’t try harder to place the Troubles in an all-Ireland context. This would require more history, but would help explain some unionist perspective as well as the sometimes variable relationship between the Irish Republican government and Northern nationalists.I'm not convinced it was as even handed as it advertised itself to be, or as some people regard it, but I do believe a genuine effort was made to exam the facts fairly. 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.

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. The Troubles have left behind a terrible legacy, of dead and wounded on all sides, scarring people it affected both directly and indirectly, not only in Northern Ireland but also across the British Isles, in a way that may take generations to heal. At one time many people thought the conflict was simply insoluble." or redistribute changed versions of this for other than your personal use without express written permission. Redistribution for commercial purposes is not permitted. Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland [Premium Leather Bound] 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.’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. In parallel, the British and Irish governments “came to see the Northern Ireland question as a common problem which was best managed jointly.” Another important political figure, Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald later commented that “In the 1970s London and Dublin were thought to be pursuing different policies with different attitudes, because the focus of attention in people’s minds was on Irish unity versus Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK. It was therefore thought to be a conflict of interest. But the reality, because of the IRA, has been that that long term divergence of interest has been subordinated to the common concern, the restoration of peace. That change from a position of polarised attitudes to one of common purpose has been the fundamental change of Anglo-Irish relations in the last twenty years.” 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. 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.

There are some amazing quotes in this book. Here are two about the IRA. The first is from the Rev Dr Ian Paisley, who recently died. A very remarkable man. He was always good for a soundbite. This is him in 1994 : But is it a good read? Yes, if you don’t want to be bogged down with pre-Troubles history (too simplistically outlined in the book) or don’t need to understand the ideologies of unionism and nationalism per se. In this way, Making Sense feels written for a general English/benign foreign audience. This book filled the vastly empty hole of my own history, culture and perception. I finally found answers to what happened in my nation’s past, my people’s problems. I’m so great full for resources like this as the mere mention of cross-community can be taboo and off-putting. It doesn’t help that my legally required education contained none of this. The discussion document laid down that unfettered majority rule was a thing of the past and that future devolution would be on a basis of partnership. New institutions, it stipulated, must ‘seek a much wider consensus than has hitherto existed. As a minimum it would mean assuring minority groups of an effective voice and a real influence; but there are strong arguments that the objective of real participation should be achieved by giving minority interests a share in the exercise of executive power.’ In putting the concepts of powersharing and an Irish dimension on the table as the pillars of a future settlement, London had defined what were to be the main constitutional battlegrounds for the next three decades. 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: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. Five journalists spent seven years writing “Lost Lives”, a chronicle of the deaths of some 3,500 people killed in the Northern Ireland conflict. Entries include interviews with witnesses to their deaths and with the victims’ families, some conducted decades later. The book is out of print. But a film released in 2020 includes extracts, read aloud and set to music. (It is available via the BBC in some countries.) The film’s depiction of shootings, abductions and bombings, accompanied by photographs and archive footage of families and funerals, many of them for children, is a harrowing and heartbreaking reminder of the trauma experienced by two communities. ■ 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. Republican prisoners were determined to fight to maintain their special political status. So they decided to refuse to wear prison uniform. Prison officers would beat these guys, and in retaliation, the IRA began systematically killing off-duty prison officers (ten in 1979 alone).

This is a great sober account of a little war in a little place. Really nothing much to bother about. Just a little normal sorrow, just some ordinary pity. Only 3,739 dead people. There’s probably more than that in two days in Syria or the Congo.

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The Troubles in Northern Ireland rolled grimly on for almost thirty years from the late 1960s until the onset of the current shaky peace process. In that time, the conflict never strayed far off the news schedules of the world’s media. Thousands of books, articles and theses were published, dissecting every possible aspect of the problem and making it the most researched civil conflict in history. 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.