1972: Much bigger Derry massacre

[Proctol]

In January 1972, British Red Berets blew away 20 Catholic Hooligans and Colleens in Derry, N.Ireland, with many ramifications. WI the Paras had really lost it and gone medieval and shot dead 200, with liberal use of FN SLR bayonet-work on the wounded? UN sanctions and troops? Brits pull out in toto? Prots go on the rampage? Heath resigns? Ethnic cleansing of Catholics to the Republic? IRA & Provos get really vicious on the Mainland? Orangemen flee to Australia?

 

[robertp6165]

In January 1972, British Red Berets blew away 20 Catholic Hooligans and Colleens in Derry, N.Ireland, with many ramifications. WI the Paras had really lost it and gone medieval and shot dead 200, with liberal use of FN SLR bayonet work on the wounded? UN sanctions and troops? Brits pull out in toto? Prots go on the rampage? Ethnic cleansing of Catholics to the Republic? IRA & Provos get really vicious? Orangemen flee to Australia?

The most immediate impact is that the IRA is going to be flooded with money and arms from Irish Americans. I would say that the Provos are going to be able to re-arm much quicker, and the toll of IRA terror is going to be much, much higher, much, much earlier as a result. Instead of 3,000 people in 20 years, you probably have closer to 5,000. The hatred is much deeper, and there is still no end in sight to the violence today.

I don't see the Brits pulling out, nor allowing ethnic cleansing of the Catholics from Ulster. The Protestant gangs might well raise the level of their killings in response to Provo terror, but I seriously doubt the Protestants would "go on the rampage."

There probably would be condemnation in the United Nations, but no sanctions or troops (Britain sits on the Security Council and would veto any such move).

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

For the same reason, I once heard that civilian security firms don't like employing ex-paratroops.

 

[Sean Swaby]

Hmmm...PODs being constantly recycled. I did a TL about this on the Old Board, you can check for it (can't remember what the title of the thread was, mark you, it was so long ago), but here is a link to the finished product on the Changing the Times website (well, at least the internet archive link to it, since the original site seems to be down):


http://web.archive.org/web/20040224022326/www.changingthetimes.co.uk/samples/15june/anglo.htm

The TL is about a 1974 Anglo-Irish conflict, but the timeline starts from 1972 and ends in 1975.

 

[Alayta]

A nice page, Sean.

Can anybody tell me why the british stay in northern ireland? It is not that the englilsh would have to leave or that they would find themselves in some banana-courtry. I keep asking this for years and nobody could tell me.

 

[Duncan]

Can anybody tell me why the british stay in northern ireland? It is not that the englilsh would have to leave or that they would find themselves in some banana-courtry. I keep asking this for years and nobody could tell me.

The official line is "democracy". From the text of the Anglo-Irish Agreement:

The two Governments [those of the UK and the Irish Republic]:
...
(iii) acknowledge that while a substantial section of the people in Northern Ireland share the legitimate wish of a majority of the people of the island of Ireland for a united Ireland, the present wish of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, freely exercised and legitimate, is to maintain the Union and accordingly, that Northern Ireland’s status as part of the United Kingdom reflects and relies upon that wish; and that it would be wrong to make any change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people

The British governent has long maintained that, as long as the majority in NI wishes to remain British subjects as part of the UK, then they can do so.

Whether this is the real reason or not, I don't know. Being a bit of cynic I don't think that governments, even British ones, often do things for pure and noble democratic reasons. I suspect part of the reason is that the British government is well aware that the government of the Republic doesn't really want the problem of the North any more than they do.

As to what the British people want, who knows; no-one's asked us.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

For one thing, there is absolutely no reason to imagine the Prods being more amenable to reason and compromise than the Catholics. The only change would be the Protestant extremists would convince themselves that their survival as a society and culture was at stake, which no Catholic can possibly imagine. After all, the Catholics have managed to survive for centuries there and generally under conditions much harsher than currently.

So the Brits withdraw and Dublin comes in. Where the Catholics were outnumbered 100 to 1 by the UK, the Protestants are outnumbered less than 5 to 1.

Where the Catholics generally avoid military and police service, the Protestants flock to it. I believe the Protestants can field 100,000 men who have served in the British armed forces, which puts them at an advantage over Ireland's regular military, let alone the Provisional IRA.

Needless to say, Ireland's wealth and economy are a fraction of the UK's.

We quickly see the Protestants expel not only Ireland's authorities but the Catholic population. The only question is whether we then see international intervention, either before or after the carnage is underway.

An added difficulty is that the minimum concessions to give even the impression of appeasing the Protestants are more than sufficient to cause a SECOND civil conflict in the Irish Republic.

 

[Brilliantlight]

There probably would be condemnation in the United Nations, but no sanctions or troops (Britain sits on the Security Council and would veto any such move).

Nor would its biggest ally, the US allow it either.

 

[carlton_bach]

A nice page, Sean.

Can anybody tell me why the british stay in northern ireland? It is not that the englilsh would have to leave or that they would find themselves in some banana-courtry. I keep asking this for years and nobody could tell me.

The British government, I think, won't do it for three reasons

- it would be an unpopular move with a large part of their electorate (even Labour couldn't afford it without clear democratic legitimacy, and the Tories depend on the Ulster Unionist MPs)

- it would be a precedent that other UK areas might wish to exploit (not so pressing an issue any more now that they have devolution, but a going concern in the 80s and 90s)

- it would go against the wishes and interests of many Ulstermen (and they ARE British, which means that has to matter for a self-respecting government).

THere's also the matter of throwing good money after bad, but I think the Troubles are far enough behind for the average Brit not to have too deep an emotional investment in the streets of Belfast.

However, many Ulster Protestants are convinced that any integration of the North with Eire would result in an end to their culture and faith - and not without good reason. Ireland is a Republic, but it has only lately begun to achieve the separation of state and church Western democracies cherish (well, except Germany grumblegrumble). Its constitution is prefaced by a text written not by its framers, but by St Thomas Aquinas. Until recently, Catholic instruction in school was mandatory. EVERY school. Most civic bodies and many sports clubs, even the boy scouts, had Catholic connections and practised Catholic prayer. This is now changing, but let me tell you - I lived in Dublin for about a year (1996-97), and in spite of running with a very progressive and multidenominational crowd (I went to Trinity, not UCD), it was Christian all the way and Catholic most of it. If I were a Protestant faced with living like that, I would fight to stay British. Not that the Ulster Proddies have any business mouthing off about persecution on religious grounds, but still - I can see their point.

The econiomc argument also carried a lot of weight for a long time. Until the 90s, Eire was pretty much dirt poor. Ulster would have turned from a poor region of a rich nation to a rich region of a poor nation, and from a net recipient to a net giver of aid. Of course, unification now would probably trigger a wave of FDI and be a boon to Ulster's economy, but that's not been true for most of its history.

Finally, you have to take into account the memories. The unofficial motto of the IRA, RIRA, PIRA, UDF, UVF and their ilk has long been 'Proudly Keeping the Hatred Alive'. Almost everyone in Ulster has painful memories, and the guilty parties are usually the 'others' (I got nearly blown up myself - ironically, in London, not Ireland - and Irish Catholic 'liberty' has been a very touchy subject for me ever since in spite of the fact that I wasn't seriously hurt). Every time someone gets hurt or killed, every time a Proddie mob pelts Catholic schoolchildren with stones and abuse or a Catholic hooligan firebombs a Protestant business or chapel, more people remember what 'they' did to 'us'. Would you really want to be alone with 'them'? And more to the point, would you allow the two into the same room alone?

So I'd say the current British policy is the best we can salvage - make them work it out under supervision and THEN let the people decide. It's a bit like marriage counselling, only without the option of divorce.

BTW: I'm not sure this is a funny story, but it illustrates the point nicely. Where I lived in Dublin, there was a place called 'Grange Lodge' that took in tourists. They invested in a new sign, dark blue, with gold lettering and lots of curlicues. Unfortunately, one of those curclicues made the capital 'G' look like an 'O'...

That weekend, the front garden was vandalised and the garage firebombed. and that was the suburbs of newly prosperous, cosmopolitan Dublin. We have a LONG way to go till either side can trust the other.

 

[MerryPrankster]

"many Ulster Protestants are convinced that any integration of the North with Eire would result in an end to their culture and faith - and not without good reason. Ireland is a Republic, but it has only lately begun to achieve the separation of state and church Western democracies cherish (well, except Germany grumblegrumble). Its constitution is prefaced by a text written not by its framers, but by St Thomas Aquinas. Until recently, Catholic instruction in school was mandatory. EVERY school. Most civic bodies and many sports clubs, even the boy scouts, had Catholic connections and practised Catholic prayer."

Let's not forget the Magdalene Sisters business. Every old anti-Catholic horror story come to life, and (unfortunately) largely true (the movie was made by a flamingly anti-Catholic Marxist, but each charater in it is based on a real person abused by the Church).

At the www.amazon.com "Viewer Comments" list for the movie, there's a fight going between the Unionist types who said that "no wonder the Protestants in the North don't want to be put under Catholic rule" and a Republican type who compares the Unionists to the white Zimbabwean landowners and blames the British oppression for making the Catholics zealous.