From the start it was a one-party state. ibid.
The face of that resistance was Ian Paisley. ibid.
Paisley had been jailed briefly for riotous assembly, but O’Neill’s government suspected he was doing more than just rabble-rousing. ibid.
The pictures of police violence were seen across the world. The attention transformed the civil rights movement. ibid.
As 1968 turned into 1969 battle lines were being drawn on traditional terms. ibid.
‘The dying kicks of O’Neillism.’ ibid. Paisley
Electrical and water installations were targeted: the prime suspects were the IRA. ibid.
The spring and early summer of 1969 … It became known as the Battle of the Bogside. The rioting lasted three days … On the 14th August guns came out … Police opened fire with a heavy machine-gun. ibid.
There would be few ground rules in this new offensive. ibid.
Death and mayhem had become routine. ibid.
‘I have therefore decided after consultation with Her Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom to exercise where necessary the powers of detention and internment vested in me for the minister of home affairs.’ ibid. Brian Faulkner
On the first day of internment 342 people were arrested, all of them regarded as suspected republican terrorists. No Loyalists were detained. ibid.
‘We were regarded as the enemy.’ ibid. army dude
A future prime minister of Ireland warned that the army were helping the IRA realise their plans. ibid.
‘1 Para had behaved very badly … He described them as hooligans in uniform.’ ibid. army dude
256 total deaths: 30 January 1972. ibid.
‘They seemed to fire in all directions … Utterly disgraceful … That little boy was shot when he was running away … I would say about 15 [years].’ ibid. blood-soaked white-flag carrying priest
In Dublin the British embassy was set alight. ibid.
Stormont would be stripped of security powers. Faulkner and his whole cabinet resigned. ibid.
A surge of killings by Loyalist groups like the UDV. ibid.
Northern Ireland’s Troubles raged for more than a century. And still the secrets of the conflict continue to emerge. How the IRA leaders sustained their fight that lasted a generation. For the IRA 1972 began with the prospect of victory. The Troubles: A Secret History II
The Secret Army: an American documentary that has never been broadcast. ibid.
One of the smartest of a new generation: 23-year-old Gerry Adams. He had been interned without trial by the British. But the IRA demanded that he be specially released to take part in talks. ibid.
The IRA went into the talks confident and defiant. Their chief demand was a British commitment to withdraw … The talks went nowhere. ibid.
The Army had been uneasy about the truce with the IRA. Yet Bloody Friday presented the opportunity for the British army to counter with its own show of strength, codenamed Operation Motorman. ibid.
A million Protestants opposed to a united Ireland. At one extreme an estimated 20,000 joined the Ulster Defence Association. ibid.
1,135 total deaths: 25 May 1974. ibid.
‘Who do these people think they are?’ ibid. Harold Wilson
Power-sharing was dead. The strikers had won. ibid.
The IRA was considering another ceasefire. ibid.
For the IRA the prize was British withdrawal. ibid.
The secret history of the ceasefire … The British had agreed to discuss withdrawal. ibid.
Sectarian slaughter came to the fore. ibid.
James Hardiman’ papers: One name stands out: Martin McGuinness. ibid.
Did the IRA fall for British trickery? Republicans are still divided over whether the ceasefire is a mistake. ibid.
Martin McGuinness was no longer the young Derry gunman. By early 1976 he was on the IRA’s ruling army council. The new leadership prepared for a protracted and grinding campaign: what they termed ‘the Long War’. The British could also see the coming war of attrition. ibid.
However, numerous sources state he [Gerry Adams] was a longstanding member of the IRA’s ruling army council and briefly its chief of staff. ibid.
The IRA that confronted Margaret Thatcher was fighting a Long War to wear down Britain under a new generation of leaders like Gerry Adams. The Troubles: A Secret History III
The IRA sought a political future in the shadow of the Long War. This is the story of the gun and the ballot box. ibid.
The burning of Catholic houses in Belfast in 1969 when residents were driven from the homes by Loyalists: it was a seminal moment at the outbreak of violence. ibid.
DC3: the model of aircraft used by the IRA to fly a consignment of arms from Tripoli to Ireland in November 1972 … 25 RPG rocket launchers and over 400 warheads. ibid.
In 1973 the IRA sent Ryan [priest and intermediary for arms smuggling from Libya) on a mission to Rome … ‘We ended up in Tripoli …’ ibid.
The Claudia arms’ shipment was intercepted off the south-east coast of Ireland. But Ryan returned to Libya and would spend the next ten years crossing Europe and north Africa maintaining a network of arms and money for the IRA. Paris was at the centre of Ryan’s network. ibid.
What no-one foresaw was how a protest within the H Blocks of the Maze prison would ignite the Republican political project. The government had stopped treating jailed Republicans like prisoners of war. In protest, cells were covered in excrement, blankets replace prison uniform, and prisoners began to go on hunger strike. ibid.
Sands was put forward as an independent candidate in the by-election in Fermanagh, South Tyrone … and died on Day 66 of his strike. ibid.
Ten men had starved to death before the protest ended. ibid.
The IRA’s number one man in America was George Harrison. ibid.
April 1987: for three days police and Republicans clashed on the streets of Belfast over an IRA funeral. But the battle-lines weren’t as clear as they seemed. Not everyone working for the security forces was in uniform. The Troubles: A Secret History IV
The IRA’s problem with spies and security breaches was about to deepen. ibid.
In a two-year period beginning May 1980, more IRA members were killed by the IRA’s own internal security than by the police and army. ibid.
Hundreds of suspects were arrested and effectively interned. ibid.
Was a British agent allowed to murder other agents of the state in order to protect his standing and reputation within the IRA? ibid.
2,979 total deaths: 20 August 1988. ibid.
As the congregation sang, three masked gunmen arrived. The gunmen killed three worshippers and wounded seven others at the Mountain Lodge Pentecostal church in Darkley. The attack was carried out by a Republican faction known as the Irish National Liberation Army. The Troubles: A Secret History V
By the early 1980s the government had reduced the role of the regular army and pushed the UDR and the Royal Ulster Constabulary further on to the front line. ibid.
Many of these loyalist atrocities were carried out by the UDA, a Loyalist group that claimed thousands of members. ibid.
Nelson was at the heart of an extensive network of Loyalist agents run by all branches of the security forces including the arm. ibid.
A serial killer returns to the scene of his crimes. And he reveals astonishing new details about a Loyalist murder campaign in the early 1990s. Along the road to mid-Ulster the Ulster Volunteer Force brought terror. The Troubles: A Secret History VI
As the Troubles entered their third decade, Northern Ireland seemed to be embroiled in a conflict without end … Everybody was a target. ibid.
Although they claimed to be fighting the IRA, few of their victims in the 1970s had any known Republican connection … Most Loyalists were simply targeting a anyone perceived to be Catholic, and by doing so were terrorising a whole community. ibid.
The killings left the families paralysed with fear. ibid.
There is clear evidence police and soldiers were passing intelligence to the largest Loyalist group, the UDA. ibid.
At the end of August 1994 a motorcade wound its way across Belfast. For several hours that day the long trail of cars, full of Republican supporters, toured Catholic areas of the city, celebrating the announcement of an IRA ceasefire. The announcement was treated as a victory, but for all the noise it was difficult to know exactly what was being celebrated. Because after twenty-five years of fighting, the IRA had not achieved any of its war aims. The Troubles: A Secret History VII