The London Blasts: Media Review

DAY 23: Saturday 30 July 2005

THE IRA AND AL QAEDA: Bringing The War To An End - Part 2

THE IRA AND AL QAEDA: BRINGING THE WAR TO AN END - Part 2

IRELAND: LEARNING THE LESSONS?

We seek, but we do not find. The end of the IRA's campaign has almost disappeared from media attention, and there is no trace of the kind of comparative analysis that Britain needs. The IRA campaign of violence has ended - without defeat for the IRA, and with considerable potential advantages for the community that it is based in. Is there any possible parallel with the al Qaeda phenomenon?

Yesterday we looked at the roots of the conflict in Northern Ireland. One way of summarising those crucial years when the IRA was reborn as a military organisation after turning decisively to nonviolent means, and then moved from defending the Catholic community from loyalists (in and out of uniform) to offensive operations against the British armed forces, is to look at the chronology of precedents.

The first person to die from political violence in the current round of 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland was an elderly Protestant woman called Mrs Gould, who died on 7 May 1966 as the result of a petrol bomb attack on the Catholic pub next door to her in Belfast. The attack was carried out by the Protestant/loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, which had been firebombing Catholic areas since February. (Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State, 1980, page 235)

The first person to be fatally shot in a 'political' (sectarian) attack was John Scullion, a Catholic man who was shot by the Ulster Volunteer Force in the Falls area of Belfast on 27 May 1966. Mr Scullion died on 11 June. ((Steve Bruce, The Red Hand: Protestant Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, 1992, page 14)

The first bombing in Northern Ireland in the current cycle of violence came on 30 March 1969, when £2 million worth of damage was done to an electricity station outside Belfast - the start of a series of bombings of water pipes and other public utilities. These bombings were not claimed, and were widely blamed (not least by Ian Paisley) on the IRA. It then emerged that they were the work of members of the unionist Ulster Protestant Volunteers (a group inspired by Ian Paisley) and the Ulster Volunteer Force. (Farrell, page 255; Bruce, page 30)]

The first person to die in a street protest was Catholic Francis McCloskey, killed in a baton charge by the Northern Ireland police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, on 13 July 1969. He was 66 years old. The RUC were protecting a Protestant/loyalist Orange parade at the time. (Farrell, page 259)

The first child and the first British soldier to die lost their lives in the same incident, which was also the first use of a machine gun: on 14 August 1969, riots around the Falls area in Belfast (an anti-Catholic pogrom by loyalists including armed 'B Special' police officers was driven off ) led to the Northern Ireland police deploying armoured cars fitted with Browning heavy machine guns. The machine guns were fired into the massive Divis Flats complex, a Catholic housing estate, killing Patrick Rooney (nine years old) and Herbert McCabe, a young British soldier home on leave. (Patrick Bishop and Eamonn Mallie, The Provisional IRA, 1989, page 110; Farrell, page 262)

The first Northern Ireland police officer to be killed, and the first fatal shootings by the British army also came in the same incident: RUC Constable Arbuckle was shot dead by loyalist gunmen trying to attack the Catholic Unity Flats. The RUC and the British Army were defending Unity Flats. The Army's return fire against the loyalists killed two Protestants. (Farrell, page 266)

This was the period when the IRA was re-born, and this list of 'firsts' indicates the nature of the times. A fearful element of the Protestant unionist majority (in and out of uniform) tried to crush or discredit or simply attack a Catholic nationalist minority that was demanding equal rights through nonviolent protest.

This history is essential to understanding the deep roots of the present IRA within the Catholic nationalist minority in Northern Ireland, and the support that it has in southern Ireland.

It is a history that the British people are not aware of.

It may be that one of the factors driving young Catholics towards the IRA in these early years was the knowledge that the suffering of their people was either ignored or, if known about, passed over with indifference by a great majority of the British people.

Does this sound familiar?

[Discussion of the origins of al Qaeda to follow]

JNV welcomes feedback.