In May 1970 Liam Cosgrave, the leader of the opposition Fine Gael Party, brought information to the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, that members of the cabinet were implicated in supplying weapons to the Provisional IRA. The pretext allowing the arms acquisition was the government's authorization of support during the communal strife of the previous summer for the besieged Catholic nationalists. Support could be interpreted as anything from providing refugee quarters to supplying arms. Two ministers, Charles J. Haughey, for finance, and Neil Blaney, for agriculture and fisheries, were dismissed and charged with illegal purchase of arms using government money. Kevin Boland, minister for Social Welfare, resigned in protest at the dismissal of the others. Charges against Blaney were soon dropped and Haughey and other defendants were acquitted in a celebrated trial despite the contradictory testimony of the defendants. However, Lynch survived a challenge to his leadership by the more nationalist elements in the Fianna Fail Party. Boland, the last member of a celebrated republican and Fianna Fail family, formed his own party, Aontacht fiireann, which failed to win electoral support. Blaney, labeling himself Independent Fianna Fail, continued to win reelection as TD for Donegal North until his death in 1995. Haughey withdrew to the backbenches of the party, biding his time.
The restraint of the more militant elements in Fianna Fail and the formation of two new political parties in Northern Ireland that same year gave indications of creative political activity other than irredentism. In April, middle-class Protestants and Catholics formed the Alliance Party, which was committed to achieving civil rights for all but not to the ending of the union with Britain. In August, Catholics and some Protestants, such as Gerry Fitt and John Hume, formed the Social Democratic and Labour Party, or SDLP. The next provincial election confirmed the party as the political spokesperson for the Catholic minority of the province, replacing the old Nationalist Party. The SDLP, while not rejecting the nationalist dream of Irish unity, at first de-emphasized that goal and concentrated on addressing issues of civil rights and social justice. The political wing of the IRA, Sinn Fein, did not take part in elections in the province. However, in June 1970 the Conservative Party in Britain returned to power with Edward Heath as prime minister and was inclined to follow the traditional disposition to take its cue on Northern Ireland matters from the Unionist Party.
Unfortunately, early in the following year, the first killing of a British soldier by the IRA occurred. It was not long before the army's role would change from
That of a peacekeeper between hostile communities to a combatant against IRA terrorism. The assumption of increased control over security by the British military from local authorities also irritated Unionists. Northern Ireland prime minister James Chichester-Clark resigned and was replaced by Brian Faulkner. The situation worsened further when the SDLP withdrew from the Northern Ireland parliament in July in protest over the lack of an inquiry into the shooting of two men by the army in Derry.
In August Faulkner secured the British government's acceptance of internment without trial to confront increased IRA activism. The device had worked effectively as late as the 1950s in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This time the tactic backfired as considerable rioting developed in protest at the apprehension of hundreds. Furthermore, the lists that were consulted in selecting those to be interned were outdated and inaccurate. As a result, many of the leading IRA figures escaped the net and many innocents were incarcerated and would subsequently become willing applicants to the "recruitment campaigns" of the IRA in the internment camps. Internment scarcely curbed, and probably encouraged, the intensification of the campaign of violence by the IRA, as well as the reprisals by loyalist terrorist groups that were emerging, as the death toll from political violence climbed in 1971 to almost 200 and in the following year to 500.
Civil rights, nationalist, and republican groups, along with the leaders of the SDLP, began to hold marches and meetings protesting internment. The military sought to ban certain of these. In January 1972, restrictions were placed on a
Undated photo shows a member of the Irish Republican Army posing with a weapon. (Reuters/Landov)
March in Derry. Organizers complied with the authorities in turning their march away from its intended path, but some disturbances took place, and soon, the military, allegedly coming under fire from one side of the crowd, opened fire. Thirteen civilians were killed, who were all ultimately proved to be innocent. The days that followed saw protests all over Northern Ireland, Ireland, and, even in the United States. The British embassy in Dublin was burned. An official inquiry into the incident by Lord Widgery, which exonerated the military, was generally looked upon as a whitewash.13
With the situation in the province continuing to deteriorate, the British government enacted legislation that suspended the parliament of Northern Ireland after more than 50 years in existence and imposed direct rule of the province by a member of the British cabinet, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, the first of whom was William Whitelaw. The central concern for most in Britain, Northern Ireland, and Ireland ever since has been to find a way to restore provincial government to the area, but in a way that would be satisfactory to both communities.
Even before direct rule, the province-wide government had taken over many of the powers of elected local government bodies in an effort to end the glaring sectarianism that had been practiced by them. However, the people directly elected the provincial government. Now, under direct rule, a British cabinet member had control over all of these government functions, which were originally local. That minister was responsible, not to the Northern Irish electorate, but to a parliament in Westminster of whom only 12 of over 600 members were elected from Northern Ireland. Paradoxically, after most of the far-flung British Empire had attained its independence, six counties on the neighboring island, which had boasted of their "home rule," were now in the position of having become a virtual crown colony.
Despite general public outrage at the "Bloody Sunday" incident, public opinion in the Republic of Ireland was not drawn to the cause of the IRA. Indications of the changed temper of the times included the decision of the Catholic hierarchy in 1970 to withdraw the prohibition on Catholic attendance at the historically Protestant Trinity College Dublin, the simultaneous decision in 1971 of the British and Irish governments to make their interchangeably used currencies decimal, and the January 1972 entry of both states into the European Economic Community. The last decision was endorsed in a May 1972 referendum in Ireland by a vote of 5 to 1. Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael favored entry, which Labour opposed. Some interpreted the vote more as one against Sinn Fein, which also opposed entry, rather than for entry. In the same month, the Irish government invoked the 1939 Offences against the State legislation to allow both special categories of accused, primarily IRA members, and charges to be tried in juryless courts before three judges. The following month Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw gave special prisoner status to interned prisoners, which extended opportunities for wearing nonprison attire, for holding meetings among themselves, and for socializing. Soon after, the IRA proclaimed a cease-fire and secret talks took place between several IRA leaders and Whitelaw.
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