WI after the 1984 Brighton bombing Thatcher decides to finish off the IRA once & for all?
She resolves enough Airey Neaves, Lord Mountbattens, Ross McWhirters, Norman Tebbit's wife etc.
Could she get away with it?
Massive UK security, infiltration of the Irish community, ID cards, shoot to kill policy, expulsion to Eire of unregistered UK Irish, Sinn Fein politicians & Ulster Catholics who resist (this being before the term "ethnic cleansing" existed) deported to Eire, internment, door to door searches, an iron border from Dundalk to Londonderry, restoration of hanging for terrorism? Threats of military action against Eire, Libya, Palestinians & even Czechs who supply arms & semtex to the IRA etc
With UK public support and an Anglophile Reagan, Maggie might just manage it. The cost: 1000 British soldiers, 1000 UK civilians and 10000 Ulster & Eire civilians dead.
But the IRA erased from history, & any talk of Irish reunion buried for 50 years.