Irish History Compressed by Bruce Gaston

Author:Bruce Gaston [Gaston, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Irish history, Ireland
Published: 2013-11-18T14:00:00+00:00

Trouble in Northern Ireland

In politics, there was a thawing of relations with Northern Ireland. Seán Lemass held a series of meetings with his counterpart, Terence O’Neill — the first face-to-face contacts since Michael Collins had met Northern Irish Prime Minister James Craig in 1922. Despite achieving nothing concrete, the meetings represented a thawing of the Cold War between the two parts of the island, though the outbreak of the Troubles in the North in 1969 forced another reassessment of relations. The then taoiseach, Jack Lynch, unwisely hinted in a television broadcast that he might send troops into Northern Ireland to protect Northern Catholics; a few members of the government and associates went further and privately redirected aid money towards buying arms for the IRA. Their trials, which ended inconclusively after conflicting statements from the main players, cast a long shadow over the participants, especially future taoiseach Charles Haughey.

Such extremism was rare, however. While most Irish politicians expressed sympathy for their fellow Catholics in Northern Ireland as well as a vague, romantic wish to see a unified island (in this they were certainly representative of their constituents), there was quiet acknowledgement that the Irish Republic would simply be unable to cope with the manifold problems — social, economic, political, security-related — that would follow unification. But it was also impossible to ignore the situation, nor was the Republic left untouched by violence, the most deadly attack being the 1974 car bombs that exploded without warning in central Dublin and Monaghan, killing 33 and injuring hundreds.

For the next thirty years, Northern Ireland remained the most important ‘foreign’ policy area for all Irish governments and was often a distraction when other areas — such as the economy — required close attention.

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