as for themselves. Unionist leaders were becoming more and more unpredictable, a sentiment echoed in the public speeches of most republicans at the time. Malachy McGurran, the press officer for the Republican Clubs, had been the first to publicly inquire whether Bill Craig’s Vanguard movement might embark on ‘a campaign of selective assassinations and bombings in Northern Ireland, with the possibility of certain activity in the border counties’. A day before the meeting between Wilson and the Provo leadership, IRA Chief of Staff, Sean MacStiofain, claimed that guns were being imported by Protestant extremists without much difficulty.23 Ironically, the Provisionals had also imported large numbers of weapons themselves, principally from the United States,24 and in the preceding twelve months were responsible for several hundred shootings and bombings.
Curiously, rather than find a way to disarm loyalist and republican armed groups, Wilson chose the path of least resistance. The biggest single issue for him at the meeting with the Provisional chiefs was the presence of 112,000 legally held guns, the vast majority to be found in the hands of law-abiding Protestants. Rees shared his leader’s concerns, believing that the prospect of civil war was not far off. To head it off at the pass, the IRA needed to be talked down and the loyalists disarmed. Both Wilson and Rees were of the view that the Protestants were behaving unpredictably, telling the IRA leaders they were terrified ‘that there would be massive atrocities and attempts to charge the IRA account with what came from Orange sources’.25 British opposition politicians, it seemed from this meeting, were happy to agree with the Provos that Protestant extremists were the main source of the violence. Ironically, this was not reflected in the higher echelons of the Stormont and London administrations, in large part because they may not have wanted to fight a war on two fronts. Despite having intelligence on loyalists, the British government was not to act on it until February 1973, when the first loyalists were interned.26
In giving the fullest consideration to the Provisional IRA’s three demands, Wilson told the leadership that he felt the British Army should be deployed in a defensive, peacekeeping role, an impossibility now that IRA gunmen insisted on engaging them in intense gun battles on the streets. Running in parallel with this plan, Wilson said that Protestants would be relieved of their legally held guns. The British would also simultaneously move against loyalist paramilitaries, thereby creating breathing space for negotiation between the British government and the IRA. On the question of suspending Stormont, Wilson believed that Heath was close to doing so anyway, regardless of the opposition from within the unionist community. The IRA would get their wish. With regard to the IRA’s third demand for a total amnesty for political prisoners, Wilson was considerably more guarded. ‘No British Government could accept point three after Aldershot,’ he told the stony-faced IRA leaders. ‘I would not accept it, nor would any British Government,’ he said flatly. Ó Conaill was quick to respond. ‘Not even after Bloody Sunday?’ he inquired. Wilson did not appreciate being interrupted. ‘No. An amnesty comes at the end of a political settlement. Makarios, Kenyatta … the amnesty followed the political settlement. I do not think this is out (indicating the IRA document). I would put three and two on the agenda of all-party negotiations. At the end of the day, an amnesty is on. At an appropriate point I will send a message through John O’Connell and say, “For God’s sake, give us a truce”.’
In closing the secret talks, Rees addressed the IRA leaders directly. ‘What we want out of the Government are internment and security. The question is this: What can all of us do to get it out of the Government?’27
When news of Wilson’s clandestine talks with IRA leaders leaked, the Labour leader came under a barrage of criticism. He remained undeterred. His personal view was that it was the right thing to do. By engaging in these exploratory talks, Wilson misjudged the threat posed by Protestant paramilitaries who were showing little sign of halting their violence.
Support for a united Ireland was not only confined to the opposition benches. On the day that Wilson met with the IRA in Dublin, Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home wrote a letter to Prime Minister Ted Heath in which he professed his dislike for the option of imposing Direct Rule on Northern Ireland, ‘because I do not believe they are like the Scots or Welsh and I doubt if they ever will be’. For Douglas-Home, the ‘real British interest would I think be served best by pushing them towards a united Ireland rather than tying them closer to the United Kingdom’. He copied the letter to other senior Cabinet ministers, including the Defence Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord President of the Council and the Cabinet Secretary.28
At the highest reaches of power, loyalists had become friendless. Caught between a duplicitous British government on the one hand and their enemies in the IRA on the other, the UVF leadership resolved to carry on its campaign until such times as their republican enemies were bowed.
***
Ravenhill Road, East Belfast, Evening, 13 March 1972
A few hours after Harold Wilson concluded his talks with the IRA, loyalist paramilitaries were on the streets once again stalking their prey.29 Nineteen-year-old Patrick McCrory was at home with his mother, getting ready to go out to meet some friends. He was in good spirits as he washed and dressed himself, pulling on his brand-new rust-coloured Canada jumper and slipping on his smart black shoes. His routine was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing. Thinking it was one of his friends, he trundled downstairs, stopping to pick up his jacket from the living room as he went, closing the living room door behind him. ‘I heard a loud crack,’ his mother later told police. It quickly dawned on Patrick, as he answered the door, that the caller was a gunman and not a friend. As he turned to run back into the house, a bullet was discharged from the pistol, hitting Patrick on his right shoulder blade and leaving his body by his left jaw bone. Understandably, the shot startled Patrick, sending him falling backwards. He managed to regain his balance for a few seconds before staggering into a dressing table in the hallway, knocking over an ornament with a loud crash in the meantime. The young man who had appeared from the shadows to fire the fatal shot at Patrick McCrory was Frankie Curry, a young volunteer belonging to the Red Hand Commando (RHC), which had aligned itself to the UVF. Curry was a year younger than his victim when he pulled the trigger.30
In a state of shock, Patrick stumbled into the living room holding his neck, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood now seeping from the open wound. He managed to make his way to the kitchen where he picked up a facecloth. ‘What happened son?’ asked his mother, as fear gripped her. ‘A gang,’ replied Patrick, before fainting. As he fell to the floor, Patrick’s mother ran out onto the street to raise the alarm. ‘Phone an ambulance! Phone an ambulance!’ she cried out. Lights flickered on in other homes in the street, as the McCrorys’ neighbours appeared at their front doors to see what the commotion was about. The first people to arrive on the scene found Mrs McCrory in a hysterical state. ‘Patrick has been shot,’ she told them as she went into shock. When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics found Patrick lying face down on the living room floor where he had collapsed from his wounds. ‘Don’t worry Mum, I’m alright,’ he told his mother, as he was lifted out on a stretcher from his home. A few minutes later, Patrick began to complain of not being able to breathe properly. As the ambulance screamed its way from one side of the River Lagan to the other, the paramedics fought desperately to save Patrick’s life. It was no good. Before they had even reached the Royal Victoria Hospital, Patrick suffered cardiac arrest and died a short time later.
In the days and weeks after the death of Patrick McCrory, growing resentment was being reported across Protestant areas of Belfast. Bill Craig, who was by now leader of a self-styled, right-wing organisation known as Ulster Vanguard, held a rally in Belfast’s Ormeau Park, attended by up to 100,000 people. ‘We must build up a dossier of the men and the women who are a menace to this country,’ he told those gathered on 18 March, ‘because if and when the politicians fail us, it may be our job to liquidate the enemy’. Loud cheers went up from the crowd.31
Less than forty-eight hours after Craig’s dire warning, the IRA detonated a car bomb without warning on Lower Donegal Street, killing four Protestant civilians, two RUC officers and an off-duty
