ANALYSIS:By 1979, the IRA was grimly aware that the British were not going to leave the North in the near future, writes JONATHAN BARDON
“WE ARE squeezing the terrorists like rolling up a toothpaste tube,” secretary of state for Northern Ireland Roy Mason had claimed in 1978. The year 1979 demonstrated that there was still plenty of paste in the tube.
The Provisional IRA was becoming grimly aware that the British were not going to get out of Northern Ireland in the near future. Volunteers were told to expect a “long war”. The supply of guns from America was being steadily constricted but the republican militants still had an ample arsenal of weapons, including M-60 US army heavy machine guns smuggled in the previous year, and Libya would continue an intermittent supply.
Certainly there was no shortage of explosives. The IRA detonated bombs throughout Northern Ireland to greet the new year. And they made a fresh attempt to widen the conflict beyond the Irish Sea. In The Hague on March 22nd – the same day that they set off 24 explosions across Northern Ireland – the IRA shot dead Sir Richard Sykes, the British ambassador to the Netherlands. It was an INLA bomb on March 30th which killed Airey Neave, the Conservative Northern Ireland spokesman, as he was driving his car out of the House of Commons car park.
On March 28th a vote of censure brought down Jim Callaghan’s Labour government. The main feature of the election campaign in Northern Ireland was the struggle for dominance between the Ulster Unionists and the DUP. Militant republicans simply continued killing: on April 17th the IRA detonated a 1,000lb bomb at Bessbrook, Co Armagh, killing four officers.
Led by Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives emerged victorious on May 3rd. In Northern Ireland the Ulster Unionists lost ground. Papers at the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland include this analysis by one permanent secretary: “Certainly Paisley has claimed the unexpected victories in North and East Belfast as a major boost to his party . . . in East Belfast, a recount gave a surprise victory to Peter Robinson, the young DUP secretary.”
He put down the Ulster Unionist reverses to the refusal of its leader, Harry West, to respond to an Apprentice Boys’ appeal “to avoid a split unionist vote”.
He thought it most likely that West would romp home in the first election for the European Assembly on June 7th. Afterwards he was forced to report that the election “was a major blow to the confidence of the UUP” and “a massive boost for Paisley” who had “put himself forward as the only defender of the Protestant cause in a Catholic Europe”. John Hume, soon to lead the SDLP, got the second seat; West failed to get elected (“a humiliating personal defeat”); and the election of the other UUP candidate, John Taylor, “on the sixth count . . . was hardly a victory”.
“Humphrey Who?” asked a headline in the Sunday News – Humphrey Atkins had been chosen to fill the Northern secretary post Margaret Thatcher intended for Airey Neave. Indeed, Atkins was comparatively unknown and so, too, were the policies he would pursue. The head of the Northern Ireland civil service, Sir John Kidd, wanted to be certain his permanent secretaries would be ready for the arrival of the new minister who “should get the best possible initial impression of the efficiency, grasp and political sensitivity of the whole service . . . The briefs should be written in a clear, taut and arresting style”. George Quigley agreed to compile a comprehensive book list covering the history of Northern Ireland from 1921 to bring the minister up to speed. Kidd’s advice was waiting when Atkins arrived: “The first crucial decision you will need to take . . . is whether or not to continue with the bipartisan policy (followed by successive governments since 1972) of seeking a form of devolved government that would be widely acceptable in both sides of the community. Any move from this position,” he concluded, “would be very dangerous.”
Atkins took this advice, though it was October before he felt able to announce that he was inviting the main parties to a Stormont conference to discuss a possible political settlement. This invitation was immediately rejected by the UUP. While the SDLP refusal was not as instant as the UUP’s, it did refuse to go to the conference – this caused Gerry Fitt to resign. Later the SDLP relented and went to the conference. This initiative soon ran into the sands.
During the year deaths resulting from loyalist violence fell sharply – the sentencing of 11 members of the notorious Shankill Butchers gang to life imprisonment on February 20th may have had a chastening effect.
After a decade of unrest and bloodshed, the prison service was experiencing acute strain. Its manpower was severely stretched. Because the prison service “has mushroomed from 300 officers to some 2,200 members”, the Northern Ireland Office concluded, “the leaven of officers with the desirable degree of experience and expertise is too small . . . New entrants are quickly contaminated by the laissez-faire attitude of older hands”.
Within the Maze prison convicted republican prisoners – seeking the restoration of political status – were now testing the whole system to its limits. Prison governors reported “a series of wilful actions taken by the protesters acting in concert” and a Northern Ireland Office paper summarised: “They heaped waste food in the corners of their cells, urinated on it, left it to rot and smeared the remnants on the walls of their cells. They urinated and defecated in the foot-wear which had been left in their cells as part of their prison clothing . . . They smashed the observation panels in their cell doors, and poured out urine, using religious magazines as funnels . . . They smeared excrement on internal cell surfaces.” The “dirty protest” was approaching its climax.
Meanwhile, beyond the perimeters of the Maze, militant republicans were fast becoming the most seasoned terrorists in Europe. The IRA south Armagh commando unit carried out two operations on Monday, August 27th, making it the bloodiest day of 1979. That morning at Mullaghmore in Co Sligo, a boat which had just cleared the harbour entrance was blown to pieces by a radio-triggered bomb. Earl Mountbatten, the viceroy who had supervised the end of British rule in India; his grandson Nicholas; and a 15-year-old crew member from Enniskillen, Paul Maxwell, died almost immediately. Dowager Lady Brabourne died the following day.
On the same day another unit prepared a trap near Warrenpoint. Six paratroopers were killed by the first bomb and the survivors took shelter by the stone gateway to Narrow Water Castle. The Provisionals had expected the soldiers to take refuge here and had planted explosives beforehand under the granite archway. Another 12 died.
“Come along! Let’s get on with this,” Margaret Thatcher said at brigade headquarters in Portadown, cutting short officers’ small talk. On August 29th the prime minister had flown in to view the situation for herself. It was widely expected that she would accede to army demands for enhanced military control, but instead she gave her backing to more “ulsterisation” – that is, the further reduction of troops and the augmentation of the RUC.
The events of August 27th ensured that Pope John Paul II would not be accepting an invitation to Armagh. At Drogheda on September 29th the pope addressed “all men and women engaged in violence” and said: “On my knees I beg of you to turn away from the paths of violence and return to the ways of peace.” The appeal was promptly rejected by the IRA. On November 24th they unleashed a bombing blitz across Northern Ireland, detonating 24 devices in Belfast alone and, on December 16th, their explosives in Tyrone and Armagh killed five soldiers.