Haughey reflected. The last week had gone by so quickly, he had fulminated at Lynch for his weakness in not sending troops across the border and had flinched when he saw RTE reporting on the nationalists being treated like scum by the British and the B Specials.
Operation Banner began to do exactly what Exercise Armageddon was asserted to have as it's aim. Quoting from Wikipedia (apologies)
'While the riots continued, the introduction of British Army troops in the Falls area of Belfast, and around the Bogside part of Derry from mid-August under Operation Banner protected Catholic areas from further mass loyalist attacks.'
When such issues are discussed in AH there is a flurry of comments upon the UK responses (NATO is not going to be invoked nor needed by the UK) but little attention is given to the ensuing civil war in Ulster if the Irish version of the USM succeeded.
If you add together the arms and numbers available to the Loyalists, assorted parts of the RUC and TA in Ulster they alone can put up an effective stand against ROI forces and certainly maintain an ongoing civil war. This is exactly the reality that resulted in the original partition of the island. Neither the British nor ROI governments had the desire nor means to suppress such a civil war and the proximity of Ulster to Scotland would make illicit arms supplies to maintain the conflict far easier than PIRAs reliance on the USA for terrorist arms supplies ever was. It would be a very different scale to OTL Troubles where the ramshackle leaky PIRA membership was hard put to get active support in hundreds whereas, in this scenario, Loyalist active support would be in thousands.
For those who are not of a generation to actually remember the Troubles, both Westminster and Dublin had always neglected dealing with internal NI matters to avoid short term
embarrassments. The perceived and actual bias of the NI Police, local government and Judiciary was actually brought to the fore and changes inspired by major civil disobedience and not by PIRA terrorism which was finally recognised by their own leadership who now are respectable politicians. A close relative of mine was in the British Army in Operation Banner at the beginning and his memory is one of being offered cups of tea by the gallon by the Catholics and being shot at by the Protestants. A successful Armageddon would be giving Dublin a Syria/Iraq problem to cope with. The circle that always wants squaring in NI is that a liberation of the Republicans is an invasion of the Loyalists.
Personally I doubt if Irish Army officers or troops would carry out Armageddon even if Dublin ordered it. If they did then they would be unlikely to use armed force against British troops any more than the British Army and the commanders on the ground on both sides would arrange matters to avoid conflict. If one pushes AH to a shooting war I give the Irish Army until nightfall and the British Army staying within NI borders. What would they gain from crossing into ROI? Their objective would be to make the problem go away. Irish Army captured. Problem solved. Home for tea and medals.
Edit. I am not naysaying the OP. Just to mention a dimension that is frequently ignored when this area is touched upon.