Irish history Synopsis:1970-1990 the Troubles to th Celtic Tiger

Irish History Synsopsis: 1970 -1990 The Troubles to the Celtic Tiger

As the north of Ireland decended into communal violence the American Irish had fianaly achieved a degree of acceptance, middle class respectability and conformity to American thought,speech and life styles.
The old ancestrial parish inner city neighborhood had been abandoned for suburban comforts and technology along with a diversified neighborhood rather than the close nit bronx style village life the Irish had known since arrival in Nortt America.

Consumerism vied with traditional - differences for neighbors were supressed.

A Career was an accepted goal. Religious tolerance although not racial tolerance was a watch world of the new and prosperious life.
The consept of church schooling lessened as a necessity where surburban public schools were new, well equiped, well staffed, served a nice lunch, had yearly bus service and charged no fees.
The American Irish thought of themselves as chick and cynical, knowledable rather than as backward and medieval.
They held jobs in politics, civil service, journalism, educated in the traditional professions of doctor and nurse and resting on their Hollywood laurals of such stars as Helen Hayes, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and the faboulous dancer Eugene Kelly of Pittsburg Pa.
John Ford had already made the award winning 'Quiet Man' with Mareen OHara and John Wayne in Irleand capturing some of the old customs of a rural community.
Spencer Tracy, James Cagney and Hal Roach along with such famous actors as Barbra O Neil who had played Scarlett O Haras mother in the 1939 production 'Gone With the Wind'.

They had acieved university fame in such institutions as Fordam,Villanova, HolyCross and Indiana's Notre Dame.
When pictures on their color TVs came in along with the Viet Nam war shots of black figures running the streets and bludgionings coming out of a place called North Ireland which they had forgotten existed- most being decendants of Famine Irish or unemployement emmigrants from the depressed south-
they had no idea of what theis was all about.
A few old line Bostonian and New Yorkers percieved that the oppression and represssion had finally exploded with a violent hysterical backlash and made arrangements to clue in their diversified contrymena that Ireland had onceagain 'struck for her Freedom'.

As the violence continued in '69 on a daily basis the Lynch government in theSouth made a conscious desion to keep the 26 county Republic free of the northern disruptions.

The Republicof Ireland all through the August crisis were absorbed in themselves.
Interested in their own economic progress and careful of the continuance of their own Free State Republic.
The north had again been forgotten and the government moved to keep it that way.

By August 1969 the new English Labour government sent in troops to quell the street fighting and snipers in the north where barracades had gone up in catholic estates to defend the homes from local prodistant mobs burning them out with the collusion of armed prodistant police form RUC and B Special forces.
Mobs and tanks once more ruled the major towns with the regiments.

The Catholic
Defence Associations at first welcomed the troops to relieve there outright distress but when the regiments began selectively raiding and distroying homes ,frisking people in the streets, shooting the young defenders and generally exibiting favoratism to there fellow prodistant coherts the nationalist catholic people turned on them and the northen command of the old IRA was revived.

This brought out an equal and opposite force in loyalist defence associations with para militarys joining these to defend the prodistant community from a 1641 percieved massacre drilled into their heads for 300 years.

The Lynch FF after a failed attempt by the Mininster for External Affaairs to bring in a UN peace keeping force issued an August 28 1969 statement ruling out force for the sothern government as a solution and calling for a federal Ireland.

Lynch however had stated that the Irish government could no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.
When Irish refugeees of women children and old burned out of their homes came over the border in late 69 the Lynch government did extend to refugees accomidation by setting up camps at Kilworth ,Cork ,Gormantown in Meath ,Kildare Barracks , Finner in Donegal and Collmoney in Wicklow.

In the north the giant lamberg drums of the Orange Order boomed day and night to inject fear into the enemy, the natives.

70 pg 2

In 1969 an election was called in the south to establish the Lynch government as he had acquired the Taoiseach in the 66 retirement of Sean Lemass from poiitics.
Some Ministers Haughey of Finance and Blaney of Agriculture are accused of improperly and illegally inporting arms with government money at their disposal.
These reports had surfaced at the reports o f Gardai and Army military intelligence.
This information was brought to Lynch's attention by Liam Cosgrave of Fine Gael the party in opposition to Fianna Fail.
The papers had lain in the open on the Minister of Justice O Morain' s desk. He had been ill and was not able to funtion at his job.
The three involved Mininsters were sacked in May of 1970.

Haughey was beaten up by annonymous opponants and had to be hospitalized with a fractured skull, broken eardrum and injured clavicale.

Papers were prepared and Captain James Kelly and a Belgium Albert Luykx were arrested on 27 May 1970.
Next day Blayney and Haughey joined them all charged with a conspiracy to import arms and ammunition into the State.

On July 2nd charges were dropped against Blaney by Dublin District Court and he was hand carried from thecourt on the shoulders of his supporters.

The conspiracy trials went on against the other 4.
This trial was dismissed when the jury was tainted and a new trial took place in October 6 lasting 14 days.
The jury found a not guilty verdict on October 23 causing mayhem in theCourt room.
The supporters sung' We are a Natrion Once Again' at the Four Courts Hotel.

Lynch was not in Ireland at the acquittal but was aappearing before the UN General Assembly on his request that a UN peace keeping force be sent into Northen Ireland.
There were calls for his resignation from his party.
On December 4, 1970 he restored internment in the south.

In the north NICRA continued its street protests for housing and voting rights.
The volitile Peoples Democracy founded at Queens University Belfast by student Bernadette Devlin marched and supported social reforms.

Sinn Fein backed the old physical force reform methods upheld by the IRA which had continued rebuilding its amrs supply and its recruiting.

In June 1970 the Conservative [Tory] Party replaced Harold Wilsons Labour government with Edward Heath at its head.
The new policy was to rely on military might in subduing the north.
Sir Ian Freeland Comanding the British forces.

In 1971 some 17,265 houses were searched by the Army.
Freeland imposed a Belfast curfew.
The policy of harsh law and order had alienated the nationalist population who suffered from it.
In August 71 Internment was reintroduced in the north now making the entire island a virtual police state of phsycial force government.

By January 1972 the First Parachute Regiment had shot 13 unarmed civil rights marchers.
This provoked the Dublin Trade Unions and others to march on the British Embassy in Dublin.
The building was fire bombed by PIRA representatives who directed traffic in their military uniforms and maintained crowd control with the helpless Gardai standing by.

In 1970 the IRA forces split over doctrine and proceedure into the old Official IRA and the smaller more directed PIRA formed from the northern command.

The Official IRA conducted some operations in the north until 1972 when it ordered a cease fire leaving PIRA in complete charge of the war against the British occupation forces.

By this time propaganda had been carefully laid encouraging the fray as a secular hatred between old Elizabethan purists prodistants and the Popery of catholics as being the insane pursuit of medieval values.

An American airline landing in Belfast even managed to announce the planes arrival with
'Welcome to the 16th Century'

70s pg 3


In America NORAD was founded to collect funds allegedly to help catholic displacement.
The US governemtn promptly and probably on behest of the British Intelligence put any Irish person they came across under FBI surveilance as suspected gun runners and terrorist sympathisers creating fear in the American Irish now cut loose from their fomer secure communities.
Many of them refused to admit their religion or their ethnicity as did the Jews of WW2 Europe and as today the Muslim populations and as the US did also as national policy in WW2 against thousands of Japanesse Americans who were intered with out suspicion and held for the duration with no compensation for the loss of property or family.
And so futher Old World tarnish slipped about the Statute of Liberty which called out 'give me your tired your weak your huddled masses'.

The nothern nationalists could expect no help from anyone in their statelessness being a people without a country.
There southern cousins had rejected them in favor of self progress by government and people.
Tthe American kin had no power to help them other than throwing money into the coffers.
The United Nations had rejected them as Britains problem and the Briths Army itself rejected them in the stereotype of the 17th Century plantation.
The settler population regected them and avenged itself by shooting and beating and harrassment and lack of necesssities encouraging them to pack up and leave.

Without PIRA these 1/2 million souls outnumbered and diserted would probably have fallen to the old obliteration ideas of Cromwell.
PIRA protected them as well as disaplining them and extorting them and became heros in this endgame of survival.

In retort to this the prodistant settlers fearing the IRA might suceed this time in distroying the total control mini state' A Prodistant State for a Prodistant People' had reformed the old UVF of Carson days and a new 1971 group called the UDA[Ulster Defence Association] with its malitia the very violent U FF
[UlsterFreedom Fighters] and several sub groups such as the Red Hand Defenders.

These two forces went at it constantly killing at will on both sides 'tit for tat ',civilian as well as malitia members and sometimes its own personell suspected of 'grassing', stealing or doing other activities not ordered by their commanders.

The malitias expressed a young wild enthusiasm for the new political cause.
On one side the upholding of the loyalist elders on the other the campaign to get rid of the colonial British army.

Of the sectarian killings and bombings over 3700 were finally accounted for by the press collaboration book 'Lost Lives',[Kitrick, Kelter, B Feeney, Thornton, Mainstream Press 1999] without pre prejustice of all the reported and documented killings in this mini province of 1 1/2 million souls.

In that book are the facts of this authors Uncle, sprayed at 11 Pm in his night cloths with some 34 bullets along with his wife and two year old son.

For God's sake the child survived.

When the news reached his sister my mother she simply stated:

'They shot my brother"

The eternal 'they'of the annonymous unknown enemy.



70s pg 4

In the early 70s Ireland was hard hit by the international oil crisis.
Companys not being able to operate began laying off workers.
Unelmployment rose.
Economic growth slowed. Demands for welfare assistance rose. There was no money in the state pocket. Public corporations began to stagnate.

In 1969 there was a maintainance strike in the Republic where social Democracy and Labour felt threated by FF's failure to support workers demands and self protection.
They asked for and got a 20% pay riase.

FF in an angry mood again passed a wage ceiling in 1970 under the Prices and Wages Bill.
Inflationw as higher than the 6% and ICTU objected.
The bill was withdrawn after a negociation between ICTU and FF and the employers came to a national Wage Agreement.
This restored the old social partnership idea of the 60's with committees to handle grievances and a monthly meeting of an Employer/Labor Conference to monitor and control wage demands.
The government continued to enact legislation in Dublin to enhance the security and stability of theRepublic.

A Prohibition of Forcable Entry Act was passed in 1971 to remove any labor 'squatting' or sit in take over of factory premisis to achieve demands.
This followed by legislation in allowing detention at the Curragh of rebellion prisoners.
Censorship of television under the Broadcasting Act under Section 31 forbidding any Republican access to the airwaves.
Non jury special courts were established.
The primary effects of these measures were thought to be in defence of the state, the old Free State mentality taking presidence over any other quest.

During the 60s and 70s Ireland continued on its discovery of itself and its conflicting integration of its past with new thought and ways.
Popular books and pamphlets on craftwork, national history, folklore, music and such raised the public awareness of itself and helped to integrate the national attempts to understand the past within the context of modern living conditions.
Ireland now had in addition to a mystic celtic history a half remembered cultural and material collection of contemporary literature and arts in her midst.

By January of 72 John McQuaid Arch Bishop of Dublin for 30 years and confidant of Eamon De Valera retired.
He died on August 29 1975.



In the north 1972 began in a pivoted way with the killing of 13 civilians protestors at Derry by a British Parachute Regiment, all faithfully captured by world press photographers including the pitifal shot of Fr Daly slowly crawling out into he street his white hankerchief afloat to get to a dying man in order to admininster last rites to his soul.

Outrage reigned throughout the entire north and its flames were wifed by atrocity upon atrocity descending the entire reigon into a state of anarchy and fear.
Fear of the British Army.Fear of the prodistant community.Fear of the malitias. Fear of the IRA gunmen and bombers and most distructive fear of itself.
An ailiment it still suffers from today.

During 1972 the old Stormont government in the north was brought down and direct rule was imposed from Westmininster. After 51 years of misrule the unionist total control had been dissamated.

This did not decrease the violence between the 2 opposing political opponents ,nationalism and loyalism Their respective physical force malitias continuing their campaigns against each other and any one esle who got in their way.

The Official IRA continued its campaign against British and Stormont officials killing the Stormont House speaker Ivan Neill in December;
On February 22 1972 bombing the Parachute Regiment responsible for the Bloody Sunday killings headquarters at Aldershot in Hampshire England.
The hard line Unionists MP John Taylor was shot 6 times on February 25 1972 at Armagh but he survived.

The Abercorn Restaurant in Belfast was targeted in March by the PIRA force and a no warning left 136 injured and 2 dead mostly women and children.

By Novemeber of 72 Sean McStiofain[Stephens] of PIRA was arrested and went on hunger strike.
He was convicted in a juryless court of army officer judges but gave up his hunger strike.
In December 72 2 bombs were exploded in Dublin injuring 127 and killing 2.

This provided Fine Gael and Labor who were standing
for elections in introduce an Offences Against the State Amendment bill allowing for conviction of a suspect on testimony of a senior police officer that he believed the suspect was a member of an illegal organization.
'
After the Dublin bombings the Bill was passed next day and signed by President De Valera the same day.

The Official IRA declared a cease fire.






70s pg 5

In 1973 a change of governemnt occured with FG/Labour coallition under Garrett Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald took power after 16 years for FF.
Both Ireland and Great Britain were admitted to theEEC [European Economic Community] supported by all parties but Sinn Fein.
The Long Kesh interneees were opposed.
A referendum had been held in May 72 amist the voilitile activities of that year with a 5-1 vote for entry, over 1 million voting for entry.

At the general election in the south a plebicite was held in the north as to whether they wished to remain part of the UK.
SDLP, a political party formed by John Hume in 1970 encouraged people to stay away from the polls.
In a 60% turnout the remain in the Uk poll won the plebicite.

Throughout 1974 violence continued unabated between the three forces the British Army, now sustaining a presence of over 30,000 soldiers,
the combined militia forces of several UDA and UVF prodistant forces and the PIRA forces of the IRA smattered with new malitia groups such as INLA and the Real IRA.

The people of the north tried to continue their normal daily lives of work, school, shopping and such under the ever present watchful eye of patrolling troops , instant searches and the eternal awareness that a bomb might explode at any time or place or that a gunman might appear in the street shooting down any one out there.
Children wer upset in their natural inclination to be free and to trust.
Most of them needed guarded protection to go to school and school was disrupted in its orderly progession of learning by anxiety and stress in the students mind always present.

In 1975 old Archbishop McQuaid died leaving his post to Fr Ryan, followed by his former pupil Eamon De Valera.

The secrtarian systematic killing in thenorth continued.

The Republic under thecoalition government continued to maintain its policy of detachement from the 'Troubles' arresting and prosecuting with tribunals those who showed up in its territory.

The PIRA forces declared a cease fire in 1975 for a short while but it was not honored by the opponents and soon ended.
The Armalite arrived surepticiously from its Illinios USA shops and beceme a favorite weapon fothe dissident group over the old Thomson sub machine gun.
This along with plastic explosives made the PIRA a formidable force.

The south during this period from 1970 to 2002 had a change in leadership 12 times with thier assorted Mininsters.

Eight Dials were convined.

Jack Lynch 66-73 FF
Liam Cosgrave 73-77 FG
Jack Lynch 77-79 FF Lynch retired in 79 and the Taniste George Colley served as Taoiseach till
Garrett Fiszgerald was reelected June 81-March 82
Charles Haughey served as Taoiseach from March 82- October 82 FF
Garrett Fitzgerald again for Dec 82-March 87 FG
Haughey March 87-July 89 FF
A second term Jan 89-92 FF
Albert Reynolds Jan 93- 94 FF
John Bruton 94-97 FG
The present Premier Bertie Ahern assumed Office in 1997

Under Liam Cosgraves FG/Labor coalition verdicts were brought back from the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg saying 'degrading and inhuman treatment practiced by the British Army interogation proceedures were used at Castlereagh Center in Down.

The suit had been brought by FF under the Lynch government.
Court had ruled that there was a role to play by the US President.
Its determination was not welcomed by London.
The people of Ireland, England or the US paid no attention.

In 1978 PIRA bombed the le Mons restaurant in
Down killing 16.
In November five bombs were detonated in Armagh and 13 other north Irish towns.
Bombing attacks in Belfast ,Armagh ,Dungannon, Enniskillen, Cookstown and Castlederg had been conducted in October 78.

Margaret Thatcher elected as English PM in 1979 had expressed an even stronger security pattern in the north than her predissors taking a typical Brisish stance of aggressive pursuit against percieved enemies.
This motive was never attached to prodistant para military associates whose outrages and attrocities were as great but were not direced at the British Army or theBritish Westminster administered civil structure.

In 1979 INLA[Irish National Liberation Association] killed Aire Neave the North Irish spokesman by placing a bomb under his car which exploded as he drove to the house of Commons.

Its leader Seamus Costello had been killed in September 1977 in Dublin.



70s pg 6

In the north there wes no petrol, no mail, very little affinity to shop for necessities and constant fly bys and patrols by British helicopters and tanks.

In the south when FF was returned to power under Jack Lynch there were 106,000 unemployed.

The Earl Mountbattan , his grandson and Lady Brabourne were killed by an explosion in their pleasure craft in August 1979 off the coast of Sligo.[Lord Louis Mountbatten christened Prince Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicolas Battenberg born in 1900 at Winsor Castle, mother Victoria of Hesse}

PIRA took credit for this killing and the same day killed 18 British soldiers stationed at Narrow Water Castle in County Down.

When Lynch attened the Mountbattan funeral - the Earl being a cousin of the Queen and former Vice Regal of the colony of India at the time of its release from colonial status under Nerhu and Gandi in 1948 - he granted greater cross border security to British forces in 'hot persuit'.

In September Pope JohnPaul II visited Ireland and was attended by a crowd of 2.5 million.
He was unable to attend St Patricks Cathederal in Armagh the Holy See of Irleand for both prodistant and catholic faiths due to death threats but did say Mass at nearby Drogheda where he pleaded on his knees for a return to peace by the north Irish saying:
'further violence will only drag you down to ruin the land you claim to love and the values you claim to cherish.'
The Church customerily excomunicated men who had taken up the gun and served in active service units, denying them the Sacraments.

The general Election of 1979 gave the reigns of government to Charles Haughey who did not change the previous governments military and containment policy towards the systematic never ending violence in the north under the direct rule of Westminster civil government and the presence of 70,000 British troops fully equiped, including the Queens Own Rifles, and Her Scottish Borderers.
Nothing but the best for an Irish cousin after 6 years of occupation.

In 1976 the British government had replaced the old Long Kesh air training camp for WW2 with a brand new state of the art prison with updated electronic equipment at a cost to the British taxpayer of several million pounds.
This facility was known as the Maze housing a special unit for 'terrorists' and locally known as the H block.
Most of the hard core IRA members had been intered there along with several political leaders such as Sinn Fein representatives.
A separate block was maintained for the nationalist prisoners and the loyalist prisoners.

During 1980-81 several prisoners went on a dirty protest refusing to wash or wear prison cloths or to empty their chamber pots.
This caused a rather unsanitary and smelly codition inthe republican H block sections necessitating the guards to periodically empty the cells and power spay wash them down.
But the protest was begun anew amist sanitary surrroundings .

In '81 8 prisoners decided to go on hunger strike.
As this progressed the world stood in shock at Margaret Thatchers absolute refusal to deal with the mundane demands they made of having their own cloths and being considered political prisoners not criminals.
One by one the men died all to no avail
.One being saved by his distraugh mother who committed his body to intravenous feeding after he had become unconsious from lack of nourishment.

Bobby Sands became a world figure when he was elected to the Westmininster Parliament by his south Tyrone constituancy.
When he died his spot was taken by his campaign manager Owen Carron
who in true keeping with republican philosophy refused to take his seat in the British Parliament.

By 1983 the program began by Brisih intelligence of 'grassing had taken its toll in both paramilitary forces.
Grassing meant telling locations and identities of fellow miltia men or their planned operations in exchange for a pardon.
This being similar to the system used by the US Federal police in getting evidence on mob figures and bosses.

Many UVF and IRA personell were picked up.
Internicene kiling dropped by 1/2 from 97 in 1982 to 50 in 1983.
The IRA bombed Harrods
Departmetn Store in London during the Christmas Season of 83 frightening shoppers.

In '84 Brighton Seaside Hotel was struck when Margaret Thather was there with several of the British Mininsters severl of whom weer killed but Margaret, the Iron Lady, was not injured.

The Republic ratified the European Convention of Terrorism providing for extradition of those charged.

Charles Haughey visited US President Ronald Reagan in 1982 but Reagan maintained a strict non involvement in the Irish Question.

On December 14 1982 a new Irish Forum was formed.
The Forum had several meetings of its base the north Ireland nationalists and the souther parties having attended.


In 1883 Fitzgerald had again come to power with Fine Gael/Labour coalition governement.

In 1985 the Anglo Irish Agreement was signed 15 November at Hillsborough Castle by Garret Fitzgerald and Margaret Thatcher providing a structure for London and Dublin on the problem of northern Ireland.

A Secretariat was set up near Belfast at Maryfield with both British and Irish staff altohough hotley opposed by the northen Unionists.

70s pg 7

During the 70's Ireland both north and south suffered economic recession as the World Oil Crisis stagnated many productions.fuels were unavailable and high priced.
Because of the early struggle to maintain the gains it had achieved in the 60s and 50's both political governments of the island had in place social programs, unemployment, welfare programs health programs and family allowances and with these were able to hold their economic heads above water.
Emigration picked up again but this time to England and Europe not to Canada and the US.
the Eu came into both Great Britain and the Republic with grant benefits for both building ,infistructures and farm programs.

In the 80's the earnings of the south remained stagnant while in the north the continual 'Troubles'
prevented any newly motivated companies coming inand those already in leaving the north and reland altogether.
Labor strikes had been contained in theRepublic by FF legilslation to control militant action.

The society began to seiously consider its laws and attitudes towards contraceptives.

A controvercial Bill allowed contraceptives to be sold through a chemist shop[pharmacy] with a doctors presciption for family planning.
The Bill did not define distribution to named couples .
Condoms
were included as a prescription appliance.
The Bill passed in 1979 when Charles Haughey was Mininster of Health under FF government.

the Church Encylical of 1971 had stated that any contraseptive means was immoral and they would decrease the quality of life in theRepublic and encourage promiscuity.

A great deal of emotiona soul and social serching was done to update this technical improvement to sex, in update capacity and in removing the subject from the Ciminal Law Code of 1935.
The Church held a nulity power regarding marriges in Cannon Law and social teching which was accepted by the Irish Courts.
However the proceedure nullified the marriage with no dispensation to remarry. The matter of creating a state divorce law was put to a referendum of the people in 1986 but failed to pass as no provision for property rights, welfare attitutes and provision for childen caught up by divorce were clearly defined.

A referendum on aboortion being submittd in 1983 to remove the question from article 44 of the Irish Constitution.
This amendment was put to referendum and passed in 1986 but the Irish High Court held in ' 88 that it was unlawful to provide counseling or abortion information to Irish women in Britain or elsewhere. [i e US or say Germany]
The Irish Supreme Court in 1989 restricted that phone numbers or and address' of British abortion clinics be given to students.
These major social changes although not brougt in line with thinking and legislative acts of other countries did begin an enlightened discussion of these national issues between Chruch State and People.

As the south tarried on in this 20 year discussion of its self and its relationship to past politics and past culture while integrating with modern Europeanism, the north equally ' carried on' the amost the now accepted systematic almost daily expression of sectarian atrocitys.

Althought groups and efforts continued to find a way forward to peace the bombs and the gunmen ruled the society.
No great effort was made by any world powers to resolve this open wound.
The south Ireland 26 county Republic considered itself a separate nation entirely as it had during the Free State era.

The international Press like hugh hawks scencing a story continued to permiate its editions with proaganda relative to the outrageous hatreds of catholics and prodistants toward each other- thereby enflaming their co religionists elsewhere -to the defence of the faith.

The Church within Ireland ajusted itself to the agitated state.

The Church revived its policy in censorship promoting unintelligent blind peasant faith in a educated middle class society.
It was aware that a new social cultural ethos was developing in the land questioning basic medieval catholic theology and pracice.
It addressed the self interest problem of obtaining new priests and breathern from the dwindling poor. Recruits dwinding between 1966 and 1978 some 8,000.
Rejection of celabicy and the loss of secular comfort and consumerism allianating youth from a religious life.

It was predicted that the religious vocation in Ireland would decresed by 1/3 over 25 years.
This drop in religious orders particulary affected the education system and gave a increase of lay teachers in the Order schools.
A survey of Religious practicioners and belivers found in 1973 that 25,000 singele young men and women 18-30 no longer went to weekly mass.

A Dublin University Study in 76 also indicted that the well educated young were less endowed to faith.
The Church no longer held supernaturalist status to them and they compartmentalazed religion not letting it penetrate the rest of their daily life.

Because the Catholic Church still insisted that mixed marriage children should be raised Catholic many places were left open in prodistant schools which were eagerly taken up by catholic parents,
causing a grass roots school integration inthe south whereas in the volitile north a rigid segregation by force separted not only the fearful school children but also the housing estates ,now ,for safety if nothing else ,being all catholic or all prodistant.

Whole areas of the towns and cities of the north became' no go' areas for the 'other' and in the north whole towns were either catholic towns or prodistant towns.

In 1983 2 million people were on welfare in Ireland.


70s pg 8

Following the deaths of 10 H Block hunger strikers, Sinn Fein, which had formerly declined electorial participation began standing for electoral positions int he north and winning.

In October 1981 this party Ard Feis held in Dublin abondoned its obstructionist policy saying it would contest local elections and occupy those seats.
Seats in the Dial, Stormont and Westminster would be contested but not occuppied if won.
Their national publicity director Danny Morrison made the now famous remark:
'with the paper ballot in this hand and the armalite in this hand we take power in Ireland.'.

The SDLP , the traditional non violent nationalist party in the north ,would suffer from this decision.

Sinn Fein new desire to participate also invalidated the 50 year old stability of the Republic established between DeValera's FF and Cosgrave's FG coalition.

The general election in the north in June 83 with Sinn Fein standing candidates won 13% of the north natiolaist vote to SDLPs 17.

Gerry Adams won a west Belfast seat.

The new Ireland Forum met in 1983 with FF, FG, Labour, and SDLP participating.
Unionist parties were invited but refused to participate.
Sinn Fein was not invited.

In 11 months the Forum made its report and proposed a Federal State, a Unity State or a Joint Authority but did not deal with Unionist no acceptance of any of these solutions.

The Forum report acknowledged the great suffering and disruption of the people of the north.

Mrs Thatcher in November of '84 however curtly rejected all the recomendations with her 'OUT OUT OUT' speech as unaceptable to the British government again expressing the covoutous attitude Great Britain had always expressed to her sister Island.


Following the Forum
Sinn Fein agreed to take any seat it won in the Dial in 1986.

During the 80s new endevors were made in the north to create a new thinking in Irleand.

A Derry Theater offered a play called 'Transitions' and later Field Day Theater under the direction of Brian Friel.
Seamus Deane continued his critique of society and its culture.
A more modern music sound found its way into the culture through groups like U 2.

In the late 80s Ireland had again secumbed to pockets of grinding poverty.
This time in the urban areas not the countryside.

The national debt stood at 22 billion pounds.
Public works were cut, hospital servics were cut, public servant jobs wer made redundant.

Explotation, political corruption drug addiction and abandoned ideals became fixed in Republic life.

In the north the institutionalised disruption and violence continued unabated with no vision of an ending as though this would contiinue on forever.

Emigration continued.

Judi Donnelly
copyright October 19 2007

sourses: Twentieth Century Ireland, Dermot Keogh with Andrew McCarthy, Gill MacMillan,2005
Fianna Fail and Irish Labour, Kieran Allan,Pluto Press, 1997
Ireland a Social and Cultural History, Terrance Brown,Harper Perennial, 2004
The World Today Series Western Europe,Wayne Thompson,Stryker-Post Publications, Harpers F Ferry WV, 2003
Internet: Google Search Engine, &Yahoo Search Engine




.