A Short History of the Troubles by Brian Feeney

Author:Brian Feeney [Brian Feeney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847176585
Publisher: O’Brien Press
Published: 2014-01-18T14:00:00+00:00

7. Ballots and Bombs, 1986–1992

The years immediately following the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) were a time when the communities in the North of Ireland operated more than ever in two parallel political universes. Unionists could see nothing but the AIA. They threw everything into trying to overturn it, using every political and extra-political device that had worked in previous generations to defeat any development they did not control.

On the nationalist side, Sinn Féin – completely controlled after 1986 by a new generation of determined northerners – moved rapidly into the political arena, fighting every election and demanding unconditional talks with Britain, despite continuing IRA violence. The Sinn Féin leadership also worked simultaneously to develop a rapprochement with the SDLP, ostensibly to try to achieve a united nationalist position, but ultimately to overtake the SDLP as the voice of northern nationalists, a strategy that was a source of concern to many in both the Irish and British governments. Would closer relations between the two parties make a deal with Unionists easier, or impossible?

The Anglo-Irish Agreement had come as an immense shock to the Unionist psyche. Unionists experienced an intense feeling of betrayal and insecurity, accentuated by the secrecy in which the British had shrouded the negotiations. Unionists were aghast that Northern Ireland, their State, the place the British had given them in 1921 to enable them to secure their position in Ireland, had been the subject of negotiations with the Irish government, the very entity which officially laid claim to the territory of Northern Ireland. That same Irish government was now to have a consultative role in running the North. Not only had all this been done without Unionists’ consent, it had been done behind closed doors, with no input from them whatsoever. Yet the Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, had kept the SDLP fully briefed.

In reaction, Unionist politicians launched a massive campaign of opposition. Initially they enjoyed significant public support, but as years passed resistance became largely confined to the Unionist political class, which withdrew all cooperation from the political system. Unionist politicians refused even to talk to British ministers. They refused to engage in political discussions unless intergovernmental meetings under the auspices of the AIA were suspended. They maintained this position for five years until the two governments conceded in 1991.

The Irish and British governments and northern nationalists were nonplussed at what they saw as unionism’s wildly disproportionate reaction because, as a matter of fact, the consultation machinery the AIA established amounted to much less than unionists had feared and certainly proved much less effective than nationalists had hoped.

The basic tenets of the Agreement were these. An Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council was set up and chaired jointly by Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Britain’s northern secretary. This Council was serviced by a permanent secretariat based at Maryfield, an unprepossessing two-storey building near Holywood, on the outskirts of Belfast. It was surrounded by heavy security fencing and stood adjacent to one of the main British Army garrisons in the North, Palace Barracks, a

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