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Showing posts with label Bleakley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bleakley. Show all posts
Bleakley✍ looks at unionist parties attitudes to power-sharing after Sunningdale.

There is no way that we can have power sharing with republicans, who are subversives because they don't accept the existence of the state... There's nothing wrong with majority rule, Catholics have nothing to fear from Protestantism because Protestantism means liberty for everyone. - Fermanagh DUP councillor, 1981

The fall of the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974 marked the end of power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. The concept would not be successfully revived until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Since then it has firmly embedded itself as the only viable governing structure for the Six Counties despite virtually routine collapses and walkouts.

The Sunningdale Agreement emerged from the British government’s desire after the plug was pulled on the unionist regime at Stormont to stabilise the state by creating buy-in from the Catholic minority and undercutting support for the IRA. This meant guaranteeing a place in a new devolved administration for the SDLP, by then the largest nationalist party,

Today, Sunningdale is seen wistfully as the lost opportunity for a power-sharing resolution to the Northern Ireland conflict. SDLP deputy leader Séamus Mallon famously described the 1998 Agreement as 'Sunningdale for slow learners'. Many have noted the irony of Sinn Féin, once dedicated to overthrowing the state, leading an arrangement similar to Sunningdale.

What’s rarely acknowledged is unionist attitudes to power-sharing in the long interval between the first failed power-sharing experiment and the more durable arrangement established in 1998. Indeed, this omission is especially odd in that it was unionists who brought down Sunningdale in 1974.

Sunningdale

Infamously it was the Council of Ireland part of the Sunningdale package which helped galvanise ordinary unionists, but total opposition to power-sharing with nationalists was an integral part of anti-Sunningdale unionism. The bitter battle in late 1973 within the Official Unionist Party (OUP) between leader Brian Faulkner and malcontents led by Harry West was fought explicitly over power-sharing with nationalists.

Faulkner split from the OUP in early 1974 but his pro power-sharing Unionist Party of Northern Ireland saw little electoral success and by 1981 had formally dissolved. From the outside Sunningdale was assailed by the DUP and Bill Craig’s Vanguard, who joined with the OUP (now led by West) to oppose power-sharing under the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) umbrella.

Post-Sunningdale the British government attempted to chart a new political settlement by announcing elections to a constitutional convention to be held in May 1975. Anti power-sharing candidates under the umbrella of the UUUC won a majority of seats.

Surprisingly, not long after the Convention began Craig reached out to the SDLP to probe the possibility of a “voluntary coalition” but his maverick move led to a bitter split in Vanguard and he was left nearly totally isolated. The remnants of Craig’s Vanguard merged into the OUP in 1978 and the following year Craig lost his East Belfast Westminster seat to the DUP’s Peter Robinson. Robinson, backed by the UDA, anchored his campaign on being the only candidate who had always totally rejected power-sharing with nationalists.

The Constitutional Convention Report, issued in November 1975, made it clear that power-sharing, not cross-border institutions, was the primary unionist objection to Sunningdale. The Report’s conclusion would be cited by both the OUP and DUP for years to come:

Accordingly this Convention concludes... That no country ought to be forced to have in its Cabinet any person whose political philosophy and attitudes have revealed his opposition to the very existence of that State.

This line was significant in that it excluded any nationalist politician, no matter how moderate, from a cabinet role in devolved government in Northern Ireland.

In Spring 1976 a final attempt was made by the British to reach a political agreement. In February, a meeting between the UUUC and SDLP lasted only an hour. The unionist delegation would not permit the SDLP in a cabinet under any circumstances. A further meeting in March ended in acrimony as the unionists called for the return to a unionist-dominated Stormont government.

Three days later, Merlyn Rees, then Secretary of State, announced the Convention was over.

Despair

Merlyn Rees was replaced as Secretary of State in August 1976 by Roy Mason, a former coalminer from Yorkshire who had no time for political initiatives and much preferred to get stuck into the IRA. The late 1970s under Direct Rule was a time of growing confidence for unionism with the IRA under pressure, the threat of British withdrawal fading and power-sharing with nationalists a dead issue. The shock and humiliation of the loss of Stormont in 1972 had also faded somewhat and structural Protestant supremacy in Northern Ireland was more or less intact in Northern Ireland under British Direct Rule.

In 1980 Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins attempted to restart talks between Northern Ireland’s political parties. The OUP didn’t even show up, and it quickly became clear that the DUP had no interest in sharing power with the SDLP.

Atkins was replaced by Tory “wet” Jim Prior who immediately set about trying to coax a political initiative to life. In 1982 Prior introduced his “rolling devolution” plan where powers would gradually be granted to to an executive, contingent on support from both unionists and nationalists.

The OUP were reticent, restrained by divisions between devolutionists and integrationists. Many within the OUP still instinctively supported a return to majority rule at Stormont but spearheaded by Enoch Powell integrationist (i.e. integrating with Britain) thought grew more influential especially when Jim Molyneaux became leader in 1979.

The party seemed to have decided that the best way to fend off the DUP threat was to out-Paisley the big man himself. An OUP devolutionist, Edgar Graham, said Unionists were opposed to power-sharing or any “Irish dimension”. Furthermore, beyond just principle, the SDLP couldn’t be trusted with cabinet responsibility.(1)

The OUP’s manifesto for the October Assembly election was a staid retreading of unionist orthodoxy. The tagline was “Into the Future In True Tradition” and the cover had a photo of Jim Molyneaux framed as the successor to Lord Brookeborough and James Craig:

...we have been equally consistent in refusing to enter into power-sharing with republicans and any Irish Dimension designed to facilitate Irish unification or the annexation of this part of the United Kingdom by the Irish Republic. And once again we will oppose any attempt to foist such options on the Ulster people.

The DUP’s manifesto stressed the party’s consistency in opposing power-sharing; “there will be no power-sharing nor Irish Dimension if the Assembly is controlled by those resolved to oppose these twin evils".

That 1982 election is now mostly remembered as the first electoral breakthrough for Provisional Sinn Féin as a party. The party’s manifesto urged voters to “Smash Stormont” and was full of withering attacks on the SDLP, dismissed power-sharing as impossible and claimed loyalists had rejected all attempts to achieve reform, justice, or a united Ireland, and since 1912 had resorted to force.[2] Election literature frequently referenced the previous year’s republican hunger strikers.

The SDLP opted to partake in the election but, against the instincts of some representatives, boycott the Assembly. Having participated in a slew of political ventures in the preceding decade and now unionists were again stating their refusal to share power, the SDLP felt it would be a waste of time.

The SDLP boycott was buttressed when following the October election OUP deputy leader Harold McCusker had his SDLP counterpart Seamus Mallon stripped of his Assembly seat as a result of legal proceedings over dual membership of the Irish Senate. Mallon described his disqualification as the “symbolic disbarment” of the SDLP from political life in Northern Ireland.

The months following the election were the SDLP’s lowest point so far. The unionist position was unassailable and the British government seemingly disinterested in the fate of constitutional nationalism. The SDLP began to seriously consider a kamikaze move where they would resign from all their Assembly seats, and the possibility of Sinn Féin taking them in by-elections didn’t seem to phase them.

At the end of the year the unionist Belfast Telegraph published an editorial pleading with Catholics “even in their black despair” not to abandon “constitutional nationalism in favour of militant republicanism”.[3]

No Surrender

Meanwhile, the tone of the new Assembly was set in a controversy where Harold McCusker was alleged to have rejected Alliance’s John Cushnahan as chairman of the education committee because he was a Catholic.[4] John Hume commented:

The revelation that the Official Unionist Party through its allegedly most liberal spokesman will not have a Catholic, even one who accepts the Union, as the powerless chairman of a powerless education committee, of the powerless assembly, comes as no surprise to the SDLP.

In May the Alliance Party put forward an amendment conditioning a devolved government on power-sharing between unionists and nationalists; the OUP and DUP united to vote it down. Appearing before the assembly the following month Prior insisted that any proposal for devolution must have substantial support from both sides of the community. In response, DUP Chief Whip Jim Allister gave a robust speech:

if the choice is between having a power sharing government with the SDLP and republicans and no government, then we have no difficulty in saying we would rather have no internal government. [5]

That following month opening an Orange Arch in Ballymena, Ian Paisley:

We must say to the Westminster Parliament, and to Jim Prior, that we will not tolerate John Hume and the SDLP governing us or telling us how to be governed.[6]

In March 1984 a European Parliament committee published the Haagerup Report on Northern Ireland. Alliance embraced the report, which favoured power-sharing, while unionists bitterly attacked its authors. Speaking shortly before its publication to an American audience, Alliance leader Oliver Napier said:

Unionist leaders... should also recognise that continued intransigence serves only to further increase alienation of the traditional minority in Northern Ireland.
"Power-sharing within Northern Ireland is not a proposal which would involve a sacrifice of principle on their part. The refusal to contemplate any solution on these lines has been one of the major factors which has resulted in the growth of Provisional Sinn Fein. [7]

But the two largest unionist parties were unbending. In April the OUP published its policy document on devolution, “The Way Forward”. The distaste for devolution amongst some senior members was evident. The report opened by quoting the crucial anti-power sharing line from the 1975 Convention report, before then re-envisioning Stormont as a glorified county council without a cabinet or legislative powers. A prominent young member of the OUP, Jeffrey Donaldson, came out in support of the blueprint describing it as “positive, realistic and constructive.”[8]

In September the DUP released their devolution policy document which similarly paraphrased the 1975 Convention report conclusion and made the novel argument that as anti power-sharing loyalists would be excluded from power-sharing, power-sharing could never be truly inclusive and was thus unworkable.

Meanwhile, the SDLP had ignored the Assembly and were instead investing their energies into Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald’s New Ireland Forum. FitzGerald was alarmed at the SDLP’s slump following the Assembly election and (more urgently for him) Sinn Féin’s rise. Action needed to be taken to stabilise the SDLP.

Intensified dialogue between the British and Irish governments aiming to resolve the Northern Ireland problem unnerved unionists but a blunt public rejection of the findings of the report in late 1984 by Margaret Thatcher reassured them. By October 1985 it was evident that something was afoot and with a whiff of desperation Paisley and Molyneaux sent a letter to the Prime Minister signalling their readiness to talk about any “reasonable” proposal for a role for nationalists at Stormont short of actual minister jobs in a cabinet, meaning no power-sharing.

All changed, changed utterly

The Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in November 1985 and for the first time institutionalised a consultative role for the Irish government in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland. The shock and anger of the unionist community was beyond even Thatcher’s own predictions.

For the first time since Stormont fell the British government had defied unionists and continued to do so by ignoring months of protests (and violence). Every previous political initiative in Ireland of the past century unionists had exercised a veto over. No more.

Kenneth Bloomfield, head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, commented privately:

Unionists are now beginning to realise that the choice facing them is whether to preserve the union or preserve their ascendancy.

Senior members of the DUP, like Peter Robinson and Jim Allister, began to float the idea of unilaterally declaring Northern Ireland independent from the United Kingdom, following the example of Rhodesia. This thinking coincided with a spate of DUP militancy; invading the Monaghan town of Clontribret and establishing a new paramilitary grouping, Ulster Resistance.

However, by 1987 with the Anglo-Irish Agreement firmly in place, for the first time since Sunningdale there was creeping evidence of some unionist politicians, gingerly, starting to broach the power-sharing taboo.

In January the UDA’s political wing under John McMichael published the policy document “Common Sense” which called for a power-sharing administration with nationalists. It had been drafted with oversight from McMicahel’s unionist law lecturer ally David Trimble.

In July a joint OUP-DUP Taskforce established to consider alternatives to the Anglo-Irish Agreement published its findings. The reported, entitled an “An End to Drift” called for dialogue with Thatcher’s government and unionist leaders should indicate that “no matter” (the phrase was printed in bolt type) should be excluded from the agenda, a concession that opened up the possibility of power-sharing with nationalists and some sort of Irish dimension.

“An End to Drift” was highly controversial, with both unionist leaders distancing themselves from its contents. Later that month the Belfast Young Unionists put out a letter signed by their chairman Ian Paisley Jr. insisting that “both leaders have made it quite clear that power sharing is not an option.” [9] Paisley Sr. told gathered Independent Orangemen at Portlgenone that his party would never agree to power-sharing with the SDLP and that the likes of Seamus Mallon and John Hume in government in Northern Ireland was unacceptable.[10]

Yet, Peter Robinson continued to send signals about his willingness to talk about power-sharing and an Irish dimension through 1988. In October all of Northern Ireland’s major political parties secretly met at Duisburg in Germany. Sinn Féin were unofficially represented by priest Alec Reid.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement had catalysed a remarkable thawing in unionist politics. Before November 1985 the position of every unionist party and politician (discounting Alliance) had been total rejection of power-sharing with nationalists of any stripe. Merely eighteen months later prominent unionist figures were now doing a historic volte face.

Acceptance

At the beginning of 1990 yet another Secretary of State, Peter Brooke, made yet another attempt to kickstart a talks process. OUP MP John Taylor, tipped as the next OUP leader, was profiled by a Dublin newspaper where he declared himself amenable to power-sharing and an Irish dimension, even praising then Taoiseach Charles Haughey, a long-time unionist bogeyman.[11]

The maverick nature of this offer was highlighted when days earlier Jim Molyneaux received a standing ovation at an OUP Association meeting for totally repudiating any power-sharing administration.

The new political realities hadn’t fully filtered down to the grass roots; former senior SDLP man Paddy O’Hanlon privately told the Irish government that he believed a “sea change in unionist psychology” would take another decade at least. It would become evident in the ensuing talks that Molyneaux personally had little interest in a power-sharing devolved government.

The Brooke Talks followed in 1991 and 1992 and although unsuccessful broke new ground; nearly all major unionist and nationalist parties for the first time (officially) shared a room and unionists (including the DUP) talked to Dublin. No longer were unionist parties calling for the Anglo-Irish Agreement to be abolished ahead of talks, only suspended. The presence of the Irish government at talks was also accepted.

The missing piece was Sinn Féin, still isolated by IRA violence. This was resolved by the IRA declaring a ceasefire in 1994.

Eventually following a second IRA ceasefire the Good Friday Agreement emerged in 1998 helmed by David Trimble’s OUP and the SDLP. The content of the deal was broadly familiar; power-sharing between unionists and nationalists with an Irish dimension.

Turnabout

David Trimble came under siege from within and without. Externally, the DUP and the smaller UKUP splinter party. Internally, Trimble’s own MPs turned against the deal, including hardliner Willie Ross, vocally opposed to power-sharing. They were joined by younger figures like Jeffrey Donaldson and young hardliners nicknamed the “Baby Barristers”.

Critics of the Agreement focused on emotive issues like Sinn Féin’s inclusion and the release of paramilitary prisoners but power-sharing with nationalists wasn’t off the radar. Ian Paisley said during the referendum campaign:

[I am] opposed to power-sharing with nationalists because nationalists are only power-sharing to destroy Northern Ireland.

Peter Weir, a high-profile “Baby Barrister” who later defected to the DUP defended his opposition to the Agreement in a Twitter exchange with John Taylor in 2019:

Power sharing John was never the problem it was the early release of terrorists, the lack of certainty on decommissioning and the vulnerable position it placed the RUC in.

It’s hard to square his declaration that power-sharing was “never the problem” with an editorial written by Weir for the journal of the Ulster Young Unionist Council in 1993 following the council elections:

We in the Ulster Unionist Party are fundamentally opposed to "power-sharing", in large part, because it is a complete contradiction of democracy... we must remember that to share power with Nationalists is an abrogation of our Unionist and democratic principles.
We must never forget that these people represent everything that we are are opposed to. If they held power in Northern Ireland they would destroy everything we believe in, and everything that we stand for. They are our enemies, and we simply cannot give them positions or platforms of power and influence.[12]

In that same magazine a future unionist leader and First Minister, Arlene Kelly, set out her opposition to power-sharing with the SDLP:

It should not be forgotten that the SDLP is a nationalist party, which wishes to see the demise of the state of Northern Ireland. They have no desire to be full citizens of the United Kingdom, and should therefore be denied the perks of this citizenship. They cannot have their cake and eat it, although they invariably do, often with the help of so-called unionists.[12]

It’s certainly possible for someone to undergo a political transformation. Four, five years is not a trivial length of time especially when you’re young. But it’s curious that two unionist figures who were railing against power-sharing with the SDLP in the early 1990s who then went on to oppose a power-sharing deal with the SDLP that same decade, would later assert that power-sharing was a non-factor in their opposition.

The ultimate irony of course is that those who had spent the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s professing a principled stand against power-sharing with even the moderate SDLP would then jump into power-sharing with political wing of the Provisional IRA. What was it all for?

Slow learners indeed.

References:

[1] Belfast Telegraph, 17 February 1982.

[2] Derry Journal, 08 October 1982.

[3] Belfast Telegraph, 31 December 1982.

[4] Belfast Telegraph, 2 December 1982.

[5] Belfast Newsletter, 30 June 1983.

[6] Ballymena Observer, 7 July 1983.

[7] Belfast Newsletter, 17 March 1983.

[8] Belfast Newsletter, 1 May 1984)

[9] Belfast Newsletter, 27 July 1987.

[10] Belfast Newsletter, 13 August 1987.

[11] Irish Independent, 13 February 1990.

[12] Ulster Review, Issue 11.

⏩Bleakley is currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history.

Unionism And Powersharing

Brandon Sullivan & Bleakley ✍ continue their examionation of the IRA war making capacity in the 1990s.

Republican Movement Thinking at the Beginning of 1992

Before starting this piece, we did two things. The first was watched Pop Goes Northern Ireland 1992. We cannot recommend this documentary series highly enough, and urge all those interested in the conflict to watch it. The second was reading the first edition of the Irish People – We had hoped to find a copy of the IRA’s traditional new year statement, but were unable to do so. But we did find some other articles that give an idea of where the IRA was at in 1992. The War News section detailed a number of standard IRA operations: blowing up security force bases, shooting soldiers, and also causing over £50m of damage in England. This total would be dwarfed in 1992. But the issue was fascinating for what else it contained.

Two of three cartoons were against the Free State – one seemingly condemning Garda harassment, and the other, rather cleverly it has to be said, showing the “empty suits” of Fine Gael members, with one saying “as in all the other sectarian murders of Irish nationalists the real culprits are the IRA, of course!” Later on in the issue, there’s an interview with an IRA spokesperson about the Provo’s decision to dramatically cutdown on punishment shootings/beatings. And there was also an article celebrating a “spectacular Sinn Fein election victory” and details of an IPLO murder headlined “Sinn Fein Call for IPLO to Disband.” Criticism of the Southern political establishment; a tentative move towards a form of “normalisation” of crime and punishment; political success; and calls for republican dissidents to disband. This is all a far cry from one of the IRA’s “Year of Victory” statements in the 1970s.


The IRA in the North - killing

As with 1991, the first IRA killing of the year was hard to justify. On the 13th January, 22 year old nationalist, Michael “Mickey” Logue was killed with an under-car-bomb, and died in hospital of his terrible injuries. This happened in Coalisland, and the IRA apologised for the murder, saying they had been acted on “erroneous information.” A neighbour of the dead man helped get him out of the badly damaged car, later saying he'd heard “in general conversation” that "Mickey was one of the boys working on the barracks in the town." The IRA in Tyrone were still dedicated to killing those they believed were repairing the security force bases they repeatedly bombed and mortared.

Four days after Mickey Logue’s unjustifiable killing, the IRA carried out an attack that was described as “the worst attack on Protestant workers since Kingsmill.” In one sense, this is true. But the targets were not Protestants, they were those working on security force installations. In this case, the base was Lisnakelly, and the IRA believed they were targeting employees of the Henry Brothers, a company the IRA detested, and which lost a number of men. In fact, the IRA had “erroneous information again” – the eight men killed and six injured at Teebane worked for Karl Construction. But, in the IRA’s eyes, they were as legitimate a target as Henry Brothers. The firm they worked for was Karl Construction – named after an RUC member, Karl Blackbourne (aged only 19), who, with two colleagues, was shot dead by the IRA in Newry. Karl’s father, Cedric, owned the firm. Three of the casualties were part-time members of the security forces.

Was Teebane indicative of an IRA in decline? Jonathan Trigg in his book Death in the Fields: The IRA and East Tyrone quoted someone saying that Teebane was done at the behest of the East Tyrone Brigade’s OC, who decided not to tell most of his brigade “let alone Belfast.” The IRA in Tyrone had experienced losses at the hands of the security forces. Their families and the wider nationalist community had been targeted by resurgent loyalist paramilitaries. Perhaps Tyrone IRA were keen to “return the serve” or perhaps it was simply the continuation of a brutal but effective campaign against security force contractors. Cedric Blackbourne told an American journalist that “at least 30” of his workers quit in the aftermath of Teebane, but he also said the company kept on doing security force work.

On Good Friday, the IRA killed a member of the nationalist community, Brandon McWilliams. He was employed as a storeman at a UDR barracks, and was himself a former member of the Royal Ulster Rifles, and the Territorial Army. The IRA claimed he had “passed on intelligence” to the security forces, and that he had ignored repeated warnings to stop working for the UDR. Republicans killed four RUC officers, four British soldiers, and three members of the UDR. This was a significant drop in terms of security force “kills” since 1991 (19). The IRA did kill a significant loyalist figure, but the IRA were extremely active in another area: bombing.

The IRA in the North – bombing

The numbers can be interpreted in a number of ways. Had the IRA reduced the number of lethal attacks being initiated on the security forces? Or were the security forces just getting better at not being killed? Or a bit of both? One side of the IRA’s campaign which seemed most assuredly not to be in decline was bombing commercial, economic, or security force targets.

This included the biggest bomb to be exploded by the IRA in the North. Toby Harnden’s essential book on the South Armagh, Bandit Country, described the operation:

On 23rd September ... the South Armagh Brigade hijacked a van near Newry, packed it with 3,500 of explosives, drove it to Belfast and abandoned it outside the Forensic Science Laboratory in Newtownbreda ... after a coded warning had been issued, the device exploded, almost demolishing the laboratory and damaging 1,002 homes in the area, most of them on the loyalist Belvoir estate.

The target had been the forensic laboratory – specifically, items of evidence being analysed which were to be used against two South Armagh volunteers. The evidence had been locked in a vault elsewhere and was not damaged in the attack. One of the homes badly damaged belonged to hapless UVF bomber Martin Snodden. He received no compensation, on account of his murder conviction. Alongside IRA evidence would have been numerous items relating to forthcoming loyalist trials. The Knockbreda attack suggests that the IRA were as unperturbed at destroying evidence that could lead to loyalists being imprisoned as they were at damaging and/or destroying hundreds of PUL houses, and the resulting fury/backlash.
The IRA carried out scores of incendiary bombings during 1992, sometimes causing millions of pounds worth of damage. They also detonated huge car bombs, often in the heart of majority Protestant towns and villages, as well as the centre of Belfast. In their book about the UDA’s Belfast Brigade C Company, Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company', Jordan & Lister described some of these bombings and the loyalist reaction:

In November, the UFF issued a statement responding to an IRA bomb blitz that had damaged hundreds of Protestant homes in Northern Ireland. Two months earlier, as the Provisionals stepped up their campaign in Britain with a firebomb attack on the Hyde Park Hilton Hotel, a 1,000 Ib bomb had destroyed the Northern Ireland Forensic Science Laboratory in Belfast’s loyalist Belvoir estate, wrecking 1,000 homes. In October, as IRA bombs continued to explode in central London, a 200 Ib device ripped through the commercial heart of Bangor, Co. Down, while at least 100 homes were damaged when a car bomb exploded outside a police station in another Protestant town, Glengormley. In a telephoned statement to the BBC, the UFF warned that, as of midnight on 6 November, any further bombs in Protestant areas would be responded to with attacks against ‘the republican community as a whole’. Its riposte, it said, would be similar to its action after the massacre at Teebane, a grim reference to the carnage at the Ormeau Road.

The UFF “response” was murdering three politically uninvolved nationalists in a bookies, one of them a WW2 British army veteran and former prisoner-of-war. The IRA shot and killed a UFF member, Norman Truesdale, in 1993 alleging he was involved in the triple murder.

The IRA in the North – the IPLO

The IRA effected the single most complete wipeout of a paramilitary group in the whole conflict on Halloween 1992, an event which became known as The Night of the Long Knives. According to McDonald & Holland’s book INLA: Deadly Divisions, around 100 IRA volunteers were involved in a series of operations across the city which left one man, Sammy Ward, dead, and many others wounded, sometimes with devasting “kneecapping” injuries (IRA man Gerry Bradley wrote that “over 60” volunteers took part). That the IPLO ceased to exist following the assault isn’t in doubt. But interesting questions emerge about the timing of the IRA’s operation. Three key IPLO figures had died violently in the year leading up to Halloween 1992: Martin “Rook” O’Prey and Conor Maguire were killed by the UVF (Aug 91, April 92), and former French Foreign Legionnaire Patrick Sullivan was stabbed to death by criminal elements in the lower Falls (Feb 92). Sullivan’s killing has been investigated by the Police Ombudsman. Would the IRA have risked a republican feud if these three key figures were still active? It’s hard to say. But the IRA still had the personnel and equipment to launch city-wide attacks against an ostensibly armed enemy. The Night of the Long Knives was perhaps the final large scale operation the Belfast Brigade undertook.

The IRA in England

The day after (10th April) John Major’s surprise Conservative Party general election win, the IRA detonated the biggest bomb in England since World War 2 at The Baltic Exchange. It killed three civilians, wounded 91, and cost £800m (£1.73bn in today’s money) – 25% more than the cost of all of the bombs the IRA exploded in the North up until that point. A few hours later, also on 11th April, the IRA detonated a huge bomb elsewhere in London, but fortunately nobody was killed.

There were other IRA (and INLA) bombings in London in 1992. However, none were of the magnitude of the Baltic Exchange bombing. The effects of this bomb:

destabilised the market for terrorism insurance on commercial properties. Given both the potentially very high costs associated with terrorist attacks on commercial property and the high degree of uncertainty associated with predicting the frequency and severity of those attacks, many insurers had withdrawn from the terrorism insurance market. Given the damaging impact on the wider economy should commercial properties become uninsurable, government intervention was deemed necessary.

In other words, UKG was forced to become an insurer, or risk losing investment and jobs in London, because of the IRA threat.

Conclusion

It is arguable that the IRA in 1992 were less successful on their own terms than in 1991. That being said, the political and financial fallout of the bombs in London was immense.

The Chairman of the Police Federation said, in the December 1992 issue of Police Beat that “The past year has been difficult; the IRA have never been more destructive or the loyalists more murderous.” He was partially inaccurate – the IRA had never been as destructive, but loyalists had been more murderous during most of the 1970s. I couldn’t however find any calls for internment to be reintroduced. Perhaps it can be argued that the IRA was in decline in the North, but not in England.

Debate may continue as to whether that was managed decline, the result of attrition, or both.

1991 discussed here.

⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.

⏩Bleakley is an IT consultant currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history. 

Was The IRA In Decline By The 1990s? Part 3 ◆ 1992 – A Case Study

Bleakley and Brandon Sullivan ✍  examine whether the loss of the arms ship Eksund in 1987 really doomed the IRA to a stalemate . . . 

Continued from Part I

Capabilities

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s sympathy for Irish republicans was made tangible in four separate shipments of machine guns, explosives, and rocket launchers to Ireland in the 1980s. However, two remaining items of heavy ordinance on the Provisional IRA’s shopping list were lost forever with the Eksund: 82 mm mortars and 106mm M40 recoilless rifles.

In A Secret History of the IRA Ed Moloney writes:

On board [the Eksund] had been military mortars that could have devastated British barracks and RUC bases throughout the North, enabling the IRA to launch damaging attacks from safe distances.

This is a problematic line for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it’s unlikely that 82 mm mortar rounds could have “devastated” British barracks and RUC bases. A typical 82mm mortar high-explosive round contains 0.42 kg of TNT. The 82mm mortar tube is intended to be transported by infantry. For comparison the IRA’s notorious “Barrack Buster” a 320 mm calibre home-made mortar projectile that debuted in 1992 could have upwards of 100 kg of explosive. Barrack Buster batteries mounted on lorries often counted several individual tubes.

Since the disaster at Newry in 1985 (when nine RUC officers were killed by IRA mortar bombs) and other attacks the British government had undertaken a costly campaign to reinforce and rebuild security installations. British Army outposts were fortified with concrete bunkers and new RUC stations were built with spaced false roofs to protect against mortar rounds.

Secondly, that phrase “throughout the North”. Twelve mortars is not a substantial quantity. There were many British Army and RUC barracks, bases, permanent checkpoints and watchtowers across Northern Ireland. It’s difficult to conceptualise how a handful of light mortars could form the backbone of a hypothetical “Tet Offensive”, especially with the inevitable attrition through combat or captured arms dumps.

Former IRA John Crawley offered his perspective on the infantry mortars:

I firmly believed that, provided the right men were professionally trained and secrecy maintained, the IRA could have attack any barracks in the North...adjacent IRA units could have used 81-millimetre mortars to destroy enemy Quick Reaction Forces and their helicopter transport on the ground. Potential helicopter landing zones in the vicinity of an IRA withdrawal could have been pre-registered for rapid mortar and machine-gun fire...

Moloney correctly notes that the range of the factory-made mortars far exceeded the IRA’s own models. A typical 82mm mortar round has a range of over 3,000 m versus a mere 250 m for the “Barrack Buster”. A trained crew could also aim a military mortar with a fair degree of accuracy, while for the IRA’s mortars hitting their intended target was usually a matter of luck.

Whether any IRA members received training on the 82 mm mortars (or M40 recoilless rifles) is unclear but they were an adaptable group; certainly there were a lot more people in Ireland familiar with the operation of infantry mortars than surface-to-air missile launchers.

As discussed in Part I, if the Eksund was unloaded in Ireland as planned it’s unlikely it would have been the catalyst for an earth-shattering redefinition of the conflict; that would have necessitated a different Provisional IRA. But if the IRA that did exist in reality got its hands on a dozen 82 mm mortars, what impact would they have had?

As irreplaceable weapons it’s almost certain their use would have been mostly confined to border areas. The cumbersome DShK heavy machine gun, another Libyan prestige weapon, was on only a handful of occasions used deep inside Northern Ireland. It was otherwise exclusively a border asset. According to long time IRA member Gerry Bradley, three separate “ops” in Belfast involving the DShK were cancelled, apparently for fear of civilian casualties.

The IRA’s engineering department weren’t going to run out of pipes or gas cylinders to convert to destructive devices. These home-made mortars were intended to be single-use weapons, detonating on a timer long after the IRA Volunteers involved had vacated the area. This suited the IRA.

An 82 mm mortar would require its crew to be at the launch site aiming and loading them. Afterwards they would need to pack up the mortar and return it to an arms hide. This is mitigated somewhat by the Volunteers being kilometres, rather than meters, away from the target.

The military mortars in the context of the IRA’s campaign should be thought of as a precision weapon rather than a tool of large-scale destruction. They could plausibly impose tactical dilemmas on the British Army in border areas. For example, permanent vehicle checkpoints might need to be built several kilometres “inland” to counter the new threat. Another response would be to dismantle checkpoints and replacement them with more flexible infantry patrols, as the British Army did with Derryard and Boa Island in Fermanagh in 1991. The ubiquitous watchtowers in South Armagh would be in danger. Theoretically the IRA could lob 82 mm mortar bombs at Crossmaglen’s helipad without even setting foot in Northern Ireland.

The other new capability promised by the Eksund was the American-made 106 mm M40 recoiless rifle. The M40 is a direct-fire anti-tank cannon firing a hefty shell out to a maximum range of seven kilometres, effective range depending on the munition type but usually falling within a mile.

The recoilless principle operates by allowing gasses from the propellant charge to be expelled from the back of the gun, resulting in a forward recoil force that counteracts the recoil from the muzzle and the projectile. This means that you have an artillery piece far lighter (and simpler) than a conventional model with felt recoil so mild it can be fired from a jeep.

These are obvious advantages for an underground guerrilla group like the IRA. No readily available source says how many they were given by Libya but a dozen seems like a good guess.

The 106 mm gun would have been a priceless asset for the IRA. Like the DShK heavy machine guns they would probably be used near the border. At over 200 kg and eleven feet in length transporting and hiding it would not be trivial, although the IRA had always shown an ability to move mortar-lorries and large bombs.

The 106 mm gun, like the 82 mm mortar, would have presented a new threat to observation towers in South Armagh and other border outposts. It could also have been used in its intended anti-armour role against RUC and British Army vehicles.

One potential target raised by both Moloney and Crawley is the British patrol vessel in Carlingford Lough. The South Armagh IRA had taken potshots at Royal Navy boats in the Lough, most recently in December 1993 when they fired two rounds from a Barret .50 rifle at Bird-class patrol vessel HMS Cygnet. Armed with a more potent direct-fire weapon they could have dealt a lot more damage, no doubt a propaganda coup for republicans.

Moloney raises another maritime scenario for the 106 mm gun: Sinking a ship (or ships) in Belfast harbour, blocking access to the sea. Sinking a single ship, let alone ships, large enough to obstruct passage into Belfast harbour, in the heart of the city, would be a significant undertaking. The loss of the 106 mm recoilless rifle involved seems a given. Had the operation succeeded it would have made great television and embarrassed the British government, but in a historical context IRA attacks on commercial and naval shipping were hardly unknown. In 1990 an IRA bomb crippled the 31,565 ton British naval vessel RFA Fort Victoria at dock, three months post-christening; she narrowly avoiding sinking after listing at 45 degrees and was stuck in Belfast harbour for two years.

In 1994 the IRA in South Armagh shot down two low-flying British Army helicopters using mortars. It’s possible the 106 mm cannon could be co-opted for a similar role, especially considering its accuracy and flat trajectory relative to the IRA’s home-made mortars.

Precedents

This is ultimately all speculation, but there are two new capabilities that the IRA introduced in the early 1990s that provide a potential blueprint of the strategic and tactical impact the 82 mm mortars and 106 mm recoilless rifles might have had.

The high-powered Barret .50 rifle, which can penetrate body armour with ease, was first fired at the British Army in Northern Ireland in early 1990. However it wasn’t until August 1992 that the sniping campaign began in earnest. From late 1992 until the end of 1993 the IRA killed six British soldiers and three RUC officers in single-shot sniper attacks, all bar one in South Armagh.

The campaign imposed difficulties on the operational manoeuvrability of British security forces in South Armagh, not to mention the effect on morale. A British Army intelligence officer, Patrick Mercer, recounted a meeting discussing the sniper threat:

We’re all sat around talking then suddenly the Major-General, Commander Land Forces, said “I can’t believe it. I’m sitting here with a bunch of highly-paid and clearly bright, able people talking as if I was a Second-Lieutenant, dealing with a sniper. What have we come to?” And everybody sort of had a nervous laugh. “But this is the point isn’t it? Two or three expert gunmen can hold the British Army, the RUC, and the British government to ransom, by every so often killing or wounding a small number of men but in a particular style.”

The sniper campaign coincided with a significant escalation in the IRA’s mortar campaign via the introduction of the new “Barrack Buster”. Specifications varied, but broadly mortars in this class contained upwards of 100 kg explosives per projectile, effectively a flying car bomb.

IRA mortar attacks in Northern Ireland in the years leading up to 1993 were largely ineffective, compared to the series of devastating attacks in the mid-1980s. However the introduction of the Barrack Buster at the end of 1992 signalled the beginning of more destructive and injurious mortar attacks.

In January the IRA carried out a mortar attack on Clogher RUC barracks, landing in the car park and leaving several police officers with minor injuries. In February the IRA mortared XMG Crossmaglen, damaging the base and hospitalising a civilian worker. In March there was a mortar attack on Bessbrook base, damaging over thirty houses in the village. That same month the IRA struck at Keady RUC base, killing a civilian contractor operating a crane and seriously injuring three others. In April the IRA lobbed a mortar bomb at Crossmaglen again, injuring three British soldiers.

As mentioned previously, in 1994 the IRA in South Armagh used these mortars to shoot down two low-flying British Army helicopters.

This is far from an exhaustive list but should give a flavour. The IRA’s pride in their new artillery was evidenced by a live-fire demonstration for journalists in a border Sitka forest in March 1993.

The menacing sniper and mortar campaigns along the border, particularly in South Armagh, made the IRA a more dangerous factor in the region than they had been for some time. Author Chris Harnden described this period as the “zenith” of the South Armagh Brigade.

However viewed in a broader context this did not alter the military-political trajectory of the IRA. The British government were no closer to acceding to the IRA’s public demand of withdrawal. The road to the 1994 ceasefire was well advanced. The extent to which equipment as much as expertise played a role can be debated; three of the lethal sniper attacks in South Armagh in 1993 involved a regular 7.62mm rifle rather than a .50 weapon.

Had the IRA gotten its hands on the 82 mm mortars and 106 mm recoilless guns there could well have been more “spectaculars”, more pressure on the British Army in border areas, and more morale boosts for the republican movement. Conversely, surface-to-air missiles and flamethrowers from Libya were used once or twice before being relegated to bunkers in the South and that may have been the fate of the Eksund weapons.

Either way a greatly changed high-level strategic calculus for both sides was unlikely to emerge.

Conclusion

The Eksund, following the earlier Libyan shipments, would have presented a significant further boost to the IRA’s arsenal and enabled it to carry out some new kinds of operations, and provided a greater pool of arms for regular actions.

The idea, however, that receiving the Eksund’s weapons would have somehow had a transformative effect on the IRA’s training, tactics, and organisational structure, or changed the nature of the conflict altogether is hard to substantiate. Perhaps republicans would have had bigger arms dumps to use as leverage during the unending peace process-era decommissioning crises. Maybe dissident republicans would be better armed because there was more materiel floating around to fall into their hands.

The organisation would have been on the same path it was in our timeline, with a leadership who had long decided on a political strategy steering the movement to the 1994 ceasefire followed by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and an end to the campaign on the terms of constitutional nationalism, rather than traditional republicanism. 

⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.

⏩Bleakley is an IT consultant currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history. 

The Eksund And The IRA's War-Making Capacity Part 2

Brandon Sullivan & Bleakley ✍ In IRA terms, it can be argued that 1991 was a successful year, and forms part of an evidence base which challenges the notion that the IRA was in decline in the 1990s.

Looking at the first two months of 1991 in terms of IRA operations gives a flavour of the capabilities and capacity of the IRA. I picked January and February pretty much at random, though I was aware of the unusual nature of the Downing Street mortar attack.

Two Months in 1991

The first IRA killing of 1991 was squalid. On the 21st January, five men in combat fatigues surrounded a car containing a 63 year old creamery worker named Thomas Edward Cullen Stephenson. One of the men opened fire, and Stephenson was killed. He had left the RUC two years previously, having served for 14 years. His wife took her own life a year after being made a widow. Former DUP First Minister Arlene Foster knew Mr Stephenson and described the “shockwaves through the community” following the shooting. The IRA claimed Mr Stephenson had been seen operating an RUC checkpoint, and that both he, and another man in the car who managed to escape, had been identified as RUC members.

Shortly after Cullen Stephenson’s killing, on the 7th February, an IRA unit drove a van into central London. The rear windows had duct tape which, when lined up with landmarks, created a crude yet accurate aiming mechanism for the mortars contained within it. Senior Met Police officer Peter Gurney is quoted in Toby Harnden’s excellent book Bandit Country as saying:

that the range and angle of firing had been worked out using scale maps and photographs before a reconnaissance run had been carried out. If the van had been just five degrees out then the Prime Minister might well have been killed.

That same day there was a bomb attack on an army barracks in Belfast. A few days previous, a UDR base had been severely damaged in a bomb attack.

There were three attacks on British army aircraft in the first two months of year. The first, at the end of January, was a helicopter being struck by an IRA bullet. The most serious attack resulted in a Lynx helicopter being shot down on the 15th February, with an internal MOD report saying it was "by a stroke of luck" that there weren’t fatalities. Another attack, two days afterwards, resulted in the helicopter’s mission being aborted.

Bombing London

As well as the Downing Street mortar attack, there were at least three other IRA attacks in England, including a bomb attack on an army base. The IRA decided to attack London’s transport system for the first time since 1976. The plan seems to have been one bomb to go off several hours before rush-hour to act as a statement of intent and capability, and then with real bombs and hoaxes to paralyse the city. A bomb at Paddington station went of with no casualties around 4am. At 7am, an IRA member stated in a telephone warning that “We are the Irish Republican Army. Bombs to go off in all mainline stations in 45 minutes.” The security forces did not evacuate all stations, which was the IRA’s intention. An IRA bomb at Victoria station resulted in one man being killed, and 38 injured. This, along with hoax warnings, caused chaos and terror across London. The IRA released the following statement:

The cynical decision of senior security personnel not to evacuate railway stations named in secondary warnings, even three hours after the warning device had exploded at Paddington (Station) in the early hours of the morning was directly responsible for the casualties at Victoria. All future warnings should be acted upon.

There were at least 85 IRA operations in January and February 1991, with targets ranging from the British Prime Minister John Major to a retired judge. Commercial targets were bombed, as were law courts, and indeed train stations in the North. Interestingly, at least two businesses publicly declared that they would no longer provide goods/services to the security forces as a result of IRA threats and/or actions.

Across the Barricades: The IRA & Loyalist Paramilitaries

The IRA relentlessly attacked those they claimed were involved in loyalist paramilitary attacks against nationalist/republicans in 1991. Ten men were killed, whilst others escaped the attacks, sometimes with serious injuries. On the very day that the Combined Loyalist Military Command announced a ceasefire, an IRA unit raked a garage with machine-gun fire. The garage, the IRA said, was being used by the Mid-Ulster UVF. This is possible. Two IRA targets, Leslie Dallas (shot dead in 1990) and Keith Martin (wounded in 1991) were Hot Rod racers, and frequented garages in that particular area: Dallas owned the garage where he was shot dead.

On the 9th of April, the IRA shot Derek Ferguson dead. Ferguson worked for Henry Brothers, a construction firm that specialised in renovating and repairing security force bases, but the reason that the IRA gave for his killing was his alleged membership of the UVF. The IRA said they had spotted Ferguson in a car that was used in a loyalist attack. Ferguson was a cousin of the wretched DUP MP Willie McCrea, and was an associate of Leslie Dallas. Contemporaneous media reports named Dallas as a leading UVF member.

Another attack was on former UDR member, David Jameson. Jameson’s brother Richard, a “UVF Brigadier”, would infamously be shot dead in a loyalist feud. David Jameson had convictions for arms offences, and was deeply involved in repairing and building security force bases. He survived the attack, though he lost a leg.

There were at least 20 attacks on named members of the PUL community, who the IRA said they had under surveillance and whom they planned to kill. These were not random assassinations, although that is not to say all of those targeted were responsible for what they IRA said they were.

Meanwhile, the War News section of Republican News continued to publish the details of businesses which had publicly said were now no longer supplying goods and services to the security forces.

Conclusion

None of this means that the IRA were anywhere close to victory. But neither were they in significant operational decline. Twice in 1991, the RUC police federation via their magazine Police Beat called for internment to be, at the very least, seriously considered. Others in the security establishment were even more pessimistic about the IRA’s decline. A “senior security source” had this to say about the IRA at the end of 1991 (Fortnight magazine):

The IRA terrorists are better equipped, better resourced, better led, bolder, and more secure against our penetration than ever before. They are absolutely a formidable enemy. The essential attributes of their leaders are better than ever before. Some of their operations are brilliant, in terrorist terms.

⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.

⏩Bleakley is an IT consultant currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history. 

Was The IRA in Decline by the 1990s? Part Two ◆ 1991 – A Case Study

Bleakley and Brandon Sullivan ✍examine whether the loss of the arms ship Eksund in 1987 really doomed the IRA to a stalemate . . . 

Fate

1 November 1987.

Somewhere above the Hurd Deep, off the coast of Brittany, France.

The former grain hauler Eksund. Fifty years old and showing her age. Onboard: 150 tonnes of arms destined for the Irish Republican Army, courtesy of the ever-generous Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. A weight of weaponry equal to all the IRA had received from Libya in four earlier shipments of the preceding two years.

When French customs officials boarded the stricken vessel they discovered that the IRA men had tried to scuttle the ship and its deadly cargo. For them, secrecy was paramount. The British government couldn’t be allowed to discover that that IRA now had a large arsenal of modern military hardware.

According to journalist Ed Moloney in his seminal work A Secret History of the IRA the paramilitary group were planning to launch a massive offensive inspired by the Viet Cong’s famous “Tet Offensive” of 1968. In strict military terms Tet was a failure yet is credited with shifting US public opinion towards demanding a withdrawal from Vietnam.

In Moloney’s telling, the success of this offensive relied on the Eksund and its precious cargo arriving in Ireland undetected. The arms aboard the Eksund and the element of surprise were supposedly the two the key ingredients if the IRA hoped to pull off a startling escalation of a conflict that had by then settled into something resembling routine.

Moloney’s central hypothesis is that the dominant personalities within the IRA, conniving with the British, scuppered the Eksund venture to avert an escalation of the conflict many IRA members hoped for, thus saving the Peace Process and setting the stage for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Is this possible?

Variants of this account have been circulated by different authors. Were the IRA prepared for a large-scale military offensive that would have totally changed the dynamic of the conflict? Could the arms carried by the Eksund really have made that a reality? What capabilities could this weaponry have offered to the IRA, in any case?

Revolutionary Toolkit

Firstly it’s important to ask, what was the Eksund actually carrying on that fateful journey in late 1987?

The answer isn’t as straightforward as it seems. Virtually every source gives a different inventory. Media illiteracy on the subject further muddles the picture e.g. claiming one-hundred and twenty missile launchers were seized when they really meant their ammunition. However after combing through various books and newspaper articles here’s a preliminary list:


  • x 1,000 AK-47 type rifles.
  • x 10 7.62mm general-purpose machine guns
  • x 10 12.7mm DshK heavy machine guns
  • x 1,000,0000 rounds of 7.62mm and 12.7mm ammuntion
  • x 430 Soviet-type grenades
  • x 10 RPG-7 rocket launchers
  • x 120 RPG-7 warheads
  • x 2,000 electric detonators
  • x 4,700 fuses
  • 9 K32 Strela-2 surface-to-air missile launchers
  • 9 K32 Strela-2 missiles
  • 2 tonnes of Semtex plastic explosive.
  • x 12 82mm infantry mortars
  • x 106mm M40 recoilless rifles
  • LPO-50 flamethrowers
  • Submachine guns

An impressive catalogue. These were the arms that the IRA’s offensive supposedly hinged on. They can broadly be separated into two categories we’ll label Quantities and Capabilities.

Quantities

There’s an old saying in the military world: Quantity has a Quality of its Own.

However in the case of the IRA circa 1987, this arguably had ceased to be the case. Four Libyan deliveries in 1985-1986 had left the IRA with upwards of 1,300 AK-47 type rifles, forty 7.62mm general-purpose machine guns, twenty-six DShK heavy machine guns, and five tons of Semtex, amongst a swathe of other munitions. The only weapons systems not previously delivered to Ireland in some number that were aboard the Eksund were the 82 mm mortars and 106 mm recoilless rifles.

Were formations of IRA members sitting in camps in Donegal and Monaghan, trained in small-unit tactics and large-scale offensive action, waiting with bated breathe for the extra 1,000 AK-47s on the Eksund? Did the IRA’s fortunes really rest on having fifty general-purpose machine guns rather than forty, or thirty-six DShK heavy machine guns rather twenty-six? Before the Libyan donations the IRA had perhaps two heavy machine guns and a handful of general-purpose machine guns.

The IRA by the time of the Eksund’s loss had vastly more guns than they ever had before or indeed would ever need for the tempo of their campaign. Dumping more AK-47s into the organisation would not have transformed the IRA into an army capable of carrying out large-scale, synchronised operations, as former IRA Volunteer John Crawley in his book The Yank explained:

It’s a crude mechanistic view of war to believe that equipment alone is the answer. Training would have to reach a hitherto unimagined level, not just in terms of weapons and tactics but also advanced operational planning. We’d have to change our organisational culture.

Crawley knew what he was talking about. A former member of the US Marines most elite unit, Force Recon, in his compelling memoir The Yank he recounts that he personally drew up the list of types of weapons in 1984 that the IRA would later receive from Libya.

Frankly, there’s no evidence that the IRA was undertaking this sort of far-reaching transformation at the time of the Eksund’s seizure. A handful of Volunteers were sent to Libya for training on specific weapons but that’s a far cry from what would have been needed. The challenges in retraining and building a new knowledge base in an armed formation were exemplified in 2023 by the Ukraine’s failure to form new army units capable of acting in concert to breach layered Russian defenses.

Having seven ton of Semtex rather than five tons, along with the detonators and fuses, would have no doubt been a boost to the IRA’s engineering department. But it’s a stretch to hypothesise that those extra two tons of plastic explosive were the war winning special sauce the IRA needed.

Flamethrowers: The IRA received ten Soviet-made LPO-50 flamethrowers from Libya. One was seized in Belfast in 1988, another in Derry in 1989. The first outing of the IRA’s flamethrowers was in a famous assault on a border base near Rosslea in Fermanagh in December 1989. That attack was probably the one occasion where Libyan weapons were used near as envisioned by IRA men like John Crawley. It was also the flamethrower’s last outing and they were relegated to arms dumps through the IRA’s final 1997 ceasefire (one was found by Gardaí in County Meath in 1994).

RPGs. Again, the IRA would certainly have appreciated an extra dozen RPG-7 launchers but that surely wouldn’t have enabled the group to prosecute a very different sort of armed campaign then they had up to then. The 430 hand grenades likewise would have been helpful but the IRA improvised and continued to develop their own line of homemade grenades, culminating in the coffee jar bomb.

Soviet-made Strela-2 surface-to-air missiles. Popularly known as “SAM-7.”These were the great hope for republicans in the 1980s and in theory could have been a game changer in border areas, where the British Army was almost totally dependent on helicopters to resupply outlying outposts. However, in actual fact the Strela-2 turned out to be a damp squib for the IRA. It wasn’t until July 1991 that the IRA actually tried taking down a helicopter. In what was either a technical or training issue the missile failed to lock on and landed harmlessly on the ground. The attempt was not repeated; the IRA tried to pass it off as an RPG-7 attack. Gardaí found a Strela-2 thermal battery and grip stock in the same County Meath bunker as the flamethrower in 1994.

It’s been suggested that the capture of the Eksund alerted the British Army that the IRA was in possession of heat-seeking missiles and led to the installation of countermeasures on helicopters. This should be weighed against the famous leaked British intelligence document Northern Ireland: Future Terrorist Trends raising the possibility as far back as 1978. Indeed, a British pilot interviewed in 1979 in the wake of the leak said counter-measures had been available for “six or seven years”. Even if the IRA had the element of surprise, and successfully used a Strela-2 missile to shoot down a helicopter, surely there was no reason the British military couldn’t add flare dispensers to their helicopters at short notice.

Point is, all of these portions of the Eksund cargo simply added to the quantity of weapons the IRA had already received from Libya and were unlikely to represent a game changer.

According to Moloney, the earlier Libyan shipments were placed in dumps to be held in reserve, and it was the Eksund delivery that was to fuel the “Tet offensive.” However if the IRA was truly prepared for a large ground incursion it seems plausible that organisation would have been able to improvise and use the large stocks of Libyan arms already in Ireland.

The surprise factor of losing the Eksund is also perhaps overstated. The IRA already had a close shave when informant-driven intel saw Gardaí uncover a large hide of Libyan weapons in 1986. In January 1988 a huge dump of Libyan arms were found hastily buried on a Donegal beach.

The IRA’s so-called “Tet Offensive” was unlikely to materialise, at least in the spectacular fashion popularly imagined. The reasons were multi-faceted and would probably justify a few articles in their own right. What did emerge in the summer of 1988 was still politically impactful but not at the level of, say, IRA units across Northern Ireland overrunning British bases. The Eksund arms should be examined in that context.

In part II we’ll examine the Capabilities lost aboard the Eksund and whether they really could have changed the course of history . . . 

⏩Bleakley is an IT consultant currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history. 

⏩Brandon Sullivan is a middle-aged West Belfast émigré. He juggles fatherhood & marriage with working in a policy environment and writing for TPQ about the conflict, films, books, and politics.

The Eksund And The IRA's War-Making Capacity

Bleakley ✍ looks at how the senior Provisional IRA Gerry Adams was perceived through the eyes of the press in the first five years of the Northern conflict.

Belfast News Letter 26 March 1969: Sympathy Sit-In For 'Homeless'

A protest "sit-in" by members of Belfast Housing Action Committee will take place at Belfast Corporation Housing Estates office at No. 10. Linen Hall Street. at 11-45 a.m. today. Mr. Gerry Adams, a member of the committee, said last night that the protest would be in support of the Campbell and Sherlock families, of Colin Street, who had been on the Corporation housing list for years, and who had so far not been given houses.

"Both these families are living in condemned houses damaged in a fire two weeks ago." Mr. Adams said. "The houses have no roofs… The Sherlock family of nine are living in a two-bedroomed house, and they are not allowed to light a fire, in spite of the cold weather. Mr. Sherlock is now in hospital because of the conditions in which he has been living, for the past two weeks. "The Campbell family of eight are also in a two-bedroomed house," Mr. Adams said.

Belfast Telegraph 17 April 1969: Eviction order for 'squat' family

A Belfast family continues to occupy a Housing Trust flat despite an eviction order given to them today. Mrs. Rosaleen Campbell aged 40, her family of six and six members of the Belfast Housing Action Committee, say they will continue their protest "siting at the two-bedroom ground floor flat at Whitehall Path. off Divis Street, until the family is rehoused… A deputation of two from the Housing Action Committee. Mr. Anthony Doran and Gerry Adams handed in a letter to the Trust calling on them to find accommodation immediately for the Campbell family.

Irish Independent 19 July 1971: Brutality accusation

British troops in Belfast yesterday heard speakers at a Sinn Fein meeting accuse them of brutality. The troops, in landrovers and an armoured personnel carrier. stood by while the open-air meeting took place in the Andersonstown Estate. Special Branch detectives were among the audience of about 400 people.

The meeting was organised by the Cathal Brugha Cumann of Sinn Fein. A Fianna colour party carried the Tricolour, the Starry Plough and the Fianna flag. One speaker, Mr. Gerry Adams, from the Ballymurphy Estate, said many youths had been brutally beaten by soldiers stationed at the Henry Taggart Hall on the Springfield Road.

Belfast Telegraph March 15 1972 Detained Trio Named

The Three Top Provisional IRA suspects detained during raids in Belfast on Monday night, were still being questioned today. They have been named as Gerry Adams, said to be the commander of the second (Ballymurphy) battalion and "one of the most wanted men in Belfast"; Brendan McNamee, said to be commander of A Company of the second battalion; and Joseph Conlan, described as an explosives officer with the Ardoyne company of the third battalion.

Belfast News Letter 16 March 1972: Captures strike fierce blow at Provisionals

The capture on Monday of three leading members of the Provisional IRA has struck another fierce blow at the already decimated command structure of the organisation in Belfast. The detention of one of the men, Gerard Adams, was of particular value to the security forces. He had been the commander of the Provisionals' second battalion based in Ballymurphy for the past year and was the most wanted man in the city next to the overall Belfast commander, Seamus Twomey . . . Monday's swoop by the Army, which culminated in the arrest of the three officers and IRA a number of volunteers, has given the authorities great satisfaction. "It was a top class capture," The men are now being questioned by Special Branch officers.

Belfast Telegraph July 17 1972: IRA man in truce talks was detainee

One Of the top IRA men who met Secretary of State Mr. Whitelaw before the ceasefire was scrapped had been released from Long Kesh internment camp four weeks earlier. Gerry Adams, commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion (Ballymurphy) Provisional IRA, had been detained during raids in Belfast in mid-March. He was released by Mr. Whitelaw around the beginning of June and a short time later was part of the controversial delegation from the Provos which met the Secretary of State in a stately Chelsea mansion. At the time of his capture along with two other top IRA men Adams was high on the wanted list of the Security Forces.

Cambridge Evening News September 5: Speculation on end to bombings

There is increasing speculation in Republican circles, particularly in Belfast, that the Provisionals are considering ending their bombing campaign in the very near future… The speculation is being heightened by continuing reports that Seamus Twomey, officer commanding the Belfast brigade has, or is about to be, ousted by Gerry Adams, a former internee. Although this has been strongly denied by the Provisional IRA it is known that Adams, a leading member of the Belfast brigade staff, is well favoured by the army council.

Daily Mirror 28 November 1972: The Most Wanted Man In Ulster

Former barman Gerry Adams last night became the most wanted man in Ulster. He was appointed leader of the Provisional IRA's 1,500 armed men in Belfast. In just eighteen months, 24 year old Adams has rocketed through the IRA ranks and has spent time in Long Kesh detention . . .  Adams takes over the Belfast command from 54-year-old Seamus Twomey, who is needed to stand in for the Provisionals chief-of-staff, Sean MacStiofain, now held in Eire . . . The Provisionals' top brass probably want him to halt the terror bombing in Ulster and concentrate on a political offensive. But the sniping war against British troops is likely to go on.

His other main task will be to heal the breach between the breakaway Provos and the IRA's official wing In Ulster. Members of the Official IRA are known to trust him. An Army spokesman said in Belfast last night: “We know that the Provisional IRA command is being reorganised. Intelligence now indicate that Adams is the most important IRA man in Ulster."


Belfast Telegraph December 21 1972: O'Connell looks to be the new Provo leader

ALL THE indications are that David O'Connell, who claims he is on the run from the police in Eire, has taken over as chief of staff of the Provisional IRA in the absence of Sean MacStiofain, serving a jail sentence. O'Connell went into hiding after what he believes was an attempt to arrest him in Dublin a few days ago. The police have denied that they were seeking to arrest him. It is understood that O'Connell's appointment has the full approval of the Northern Command, including Seamus Twomey and Gerry Adams. O'Connell has a history of guerilla activity and is by no means purely the political figure he is thought by some to be.

Belfast Telegraph January 29 1973: Adams to head IRA in Ulster?

Gerry Adams, the former commander of the Ballymurphy battalion of the Provisional IRA and who has been the Provos boss in Belfast in recent months, may soon assume overall leadership of the IRA in Northern Ireland. Sources in both Belfast and Dublin said today that. Adams, a 24-year-old ex-barman, was in the running for post of military leader, now that Sean MacStiofain was in prison at the Curragh Camp. It is understood the Provisional IRA leadership will now be divided in two parts. David O'Connell will assume leadership in the South, with Adams leading the military campaign in Northern Ireland. The president of Sinn Fein. Mrs. Maire Drumm will continue her role of being in charge of political leadership of Sinn Fein (Kevin Street). Adams succeeded Seamus Twomey (54) as the Provo boss in Belfast. Both are members of the Provo's army council… Adams has the advantage of not being well-known to the public. His face has rarely been seen in public.

Birmingham Post January 30 1973: Two Ulster IRA men are jailed after Dublin trial

Sunday Mirror March 11 1973 'Bombers Plan Fresh Terror'

A Secret commando-style group has been set up to organise more IRA bombings in Britain. Sources close to the Provisionals said yesterday that the group is part of an operation which started with the London bomb outrages on Thursday... Hand-picked young men and women volunteers from Belfast would carry out the raids, linking up with IRA cells already set up in London and other British cities. The volunteers have been chosen for their youth, their fanaticism and because they are unknown to security forces. Republicans throughout the north were delighted by the shock which the London bombings produced... The London bombings came as a complete surprise to most of the rank-and-file IRA membership. According to one source, they were organised by former internee Gerry Adams and the director of operations was the only man to ever escape from Long Kesh. Francis McGuigan.

Liverpool Daily Post April 12 1973: Welsh soldier killed in Ulster

…And in Belfast, security chiefs in Northern Ireland have ordered a new search for two top Provisional IRA men. They are convinced that Seamus Twomey, the Provos commander in Belfast, and his assistant Gerry Adams are in the city, investigating reports that thousands of pounds of the movement's "fighting fund" have been misappropriated.

The Liverpool Echo May 14 1973: One killed, three hurt by IRA mine

Sources close to the IRA in Ulster were reluctant early to-day to comment on reports of a Belfast-inspired take-over of the complete Provisional network. According to the reports, Seamus Twomey and Gerry Adams, both now acknowledged as hard liners, were among those in control. Twomey and Adams have been closely identified with the violence in Belfast.

Daily Mirror May 25 1973: Hunt For IRA Terror Boss

A Former Belfast barman became Ulster's Public Enemy No. 1 last night. Army chiefs named 25-year-old Gerry Adams as the man behind a new wave of IRA killings. Adams, latest head of the Provisionals' underground army in the city is believed to have set himself a target of 200 British deaths before the Ulster Assembly elections next month. The Army's death toll since the emergency started in 1969 now stands at 180. An Army spokesman said last night: "We would like very much to talk to Mr. Adams."

Belfast Telegraph June 15 1973: 3 injured as 'Duke's' is hit by bombers

A 54-year-old man suffering from facial lacerations and a 34-year-old woman. with superficial injuries were two of the three people taken to hospital after the huge blast outside the Duke of York's… the bomb… had been left in a hijacked television supply firm's van in narrow Commercial Court, close to the bar where Provisional IRA leader Gerry Adams once worked as a barman. The blast, about 20 minutes later, wrecked the old building and extensively damaged adjoining property. None of the injured was reported to be seriously hurt.

Belfast Telegraph July 19 1973: Gerry Adams Is Held By Troops

Gerry Adams, the Chief of the IRA in Belfast, and two brigade officers, were arrested by security forces in the Falls area of the city this afternoon. The two top Provos arrested with their leader are understood to be Brendan Hughes and Tom Cahill, brother of former Belfast Chief of Staff, Joe Cahill. Details of the security forces' biggest coup were not being immediately released but it is understood the three were detained without a struggle.

Belfast Telegraph July 20 1973: Blow To Provos As 18 Top Men Are Held

A Severe Blow was dealt to the Provisional IRA command structure yesterday when 18 men including some of the top brigade staff were detained in Army swoops. News of the coup broke after three top ranking IRA officers - ex-Belfast barman Gerry Adams (25), described as the most wanted man in Ulster, Brendan Hughes and Tom Cahill, brother of former Belfast chief of staff Joe Cahill - were caught in a house at Beechmount, in the Falls area of the city. Acting on tip-offs, four military units swooped on houses in different parts of the city and arrested the men in one of the most successful operations since the terror campaign began in 1969.

Today an Army spokesman said: "It was a very satisfactory day, but only one step on the long road." Despite this modest view the Army must feel they are now getting to the top.

Adams, who was captured by a ten-man patrol of the 2nd Light Infantry, was believed to be the brain behind the campaign in Belfast… Brendan Hughes (23) thought to have planned many of the recent bombing campaigns in Belfast.




The Irish People (NORAID) 28 July 1973: Adams, Hughes, Coogan Kicked, Beaten And Burned By British Soldiers

A report smuggled out yesterday from Cage Six in Long Kesh Internment Camp alleges that the Belfast Provisional I.R.A. Leader, Gerry Adams, was subjected to "considerable ill-treatment" in Springfield Road Barracks, Belfast, last Thursday, before his removal to Castlereagh interrogation centre. The report says that Adams, who was arrested at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday was not, despite reports by the media, removed to Castlereagh at 3:30 p.m., but was in fact held in the Springfield Rd. Barracks until 11:30 p.m. During the nine hours spent in the barracks it is alleged he was knocked unconscious by British soldiers, and revived by having buckets of water thrown over him. He was reportedly struck on the body and on the genitals, and had his hand and body burned with cigarettes. The report also claims that Brendan Hughes, who was captured with Adams, was subjected to kicking and was made to sit on spikes during his period in the barracks.

Birmingham Post December 27 1973: Kangaroo Court Theory in Ulster Killing

Four detained Ulster terrorist suspects made an unsuccessful Christmas attempt to escape from The Maze, it was disclosed on Christmas Day. One was Gerry Adams, once reputed to be leader of the Provisional IRA in Belfast. They got no further than the edge of their own compound, and were nowhere near to making a complete getaway.

Belfast Telegraph May 10 1974: Top IRA Escaper Caught

Continued from Page 1… Dark-haired Hughes is reported to be a hard-liner who prefers the military approach. A close friend of Gerry Adams, he was a former operations officer for the Provisionals in Belfast. Details of how the security forces picked up Hughes and how they knew where he was staying were not immediately known.

Belfast Telegraph 27 July 1974: Adams Escape Bid: Police Question Men

A Number of people. were being interviewed by the RUC today following yesterday's abortive escape from the Maze Prison of top Provisional IRA man Gerry Adams. They were being questioned by detectives after Adams (26) tried to swap places with a man in one of the prison's visiting cubicles. But a prison warder became suspicious and all visiting was immediately suspended. Adams, a former barman and once chief of the Belfast brigade, was wearing a wig and false beard he had shaved his own off when the escape bid was intercepted. He also had his hair cut in an attempt to deceive warders.

One of the people being quizzed today was the man Adams intended changing places with. Adams has been detained since his capture in the Falls area of Belfast just over a year ago when he was caught with two other hard-liners. And his bid for freedom yesterday is believed to have been the second he has made within the last two months. He is believed to have been one of six Provos, who tried to walk out of the prison dressed in mock Army uniforms and carrying wooden weapons. Meanwhile the Northern Ireland Office has refuted allegations that visitors were ill-treated and food parcels were interfered with after Adams was hurriedly removed from the cubicle.

Belfast Telegraph August 23 1973: Adams escape bid charge

An 18-Year-Old Belfast woman alleged to have taken part in the attempted escape by IRA leader Gerry Adams from the Maze prison, was released on continuing bail at Armagh court today. Earlier this week, Cottette McKenna (18), of Creeve Walk, was granted bail totalling £2,500 by the High Court. But when Miss McKenna appeared in the dock this morning along with Elizabeth Anne O'Neill (24), of Westrock Drive, and Eileen Owens (20), of Dunmisk Park, both Belfast, the clerk of petty sessions, Mr. James Weir, said that the bail documents were not in his possession.

Belfast Telegraph September 7 1973 Man Is The Double Of IRA Terrorist'

Alfred Noel McNeice looks uncommonly like "notorious IRA terrorist Gerry Adams," the High Court was told this afternoon. Crown counsel told Mr. Justice Kelly that a bid had been made to substitute McNeice "for a notorious IRA terrorist Gerry Adams," and McNeice had made a full statement… Counsel for McNeice said it was perhaps because of his job he had to follow a regular routine and his undoubted similarity to Adams that he was chosen as a substitute to enable the escape to take place. He understood that McNeice was uncommonly like Adams and this had led to a number of embarrassing positions he had found himself in, particularly with the arrival of a new Army regiment.

⏩Bleakley is an IT consultant currently living in the south of Ireland. Covid-19 boredom spurred an interest in the nitty gritty of Irish history.

Gerry Adams Through The Eyes Of The Press 1969-1974

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