were lambasted by former TD Conor Cruise O’Brien in The Observer. In Croydon, Seamus O Mathuna received a cold reception from Merlyn Rees upon raising the subject of the H-Block crisis.213
The political landscape changed on 4 May 1979 with the resounding victory of the Conservative Party, which brought Margaret Thatcher to power as Prime Minister. The prospects of republicans making significant political headway with the most right wing British government in decades appeared remote. Thatcher’s ascent had shortly followed a major personal setback when Irish socialist republicans blew up Airey Neave on 30 March 1979. Neave was not only her closest mentor during her ousting of previous party leader Edward Heath, but was intended to become Secretary for State for Northern Ireland. The sense of outrage within the establishment was sharpened by the fact that Neave had been killed by the INLA within the precincts of the House of Commons. Soviet - manufactured plastic explosives were detonated by a sophisticated mercury tilt switch which activated as Neave’s car ascended the exit ramp of Westminster’s underground carpark.214 The INLA had originally targeted the incumbent Northern Secretary Roy Mason in his Yorkshire Labour constituency but switched their focus to his equally virulent Conservative counterpart during the election the which Tories appeared poised to win.215 The organization had been in existence under various flags of convenience from 8 December 1974, but was only proscribed in Britain on 3 July 1979 under Section 1 (3) of the PTA (Temporary Provisions) Act 1976.216 Neave was one of the most vocal Conservatives to publicly oppose British military withdrawal from Ireland and evidently believed that the IRA could be defeated.217 Thatcher recalled his sudden loss in 1983, having survived an IRA attempt on her own life when in Downing Street: ‘For some reason the death of a friend or family member by violence leaves an even deeper scar’.218 In hindsight, moderate Tory John Wells told Thatcherite MP Alan Clark that ‘the historic consequences of Airey’s assassination could never be fully assessed’ and had resulted in ‘errors of judgment’ in appointments to her first Cabinet in 1979.219
The killing shocked outgoing Prime Minister Jim Callaghan, who, on 2 April 1979 addressed his National Executive Council to warn that arising from ‘the political assassinations that have taken place, particularly Airey Neave’s, there is a risk to NEC members’. Yet Mason, openly despised by dangerous enemies in Ireland, had been spared by the INLA and no Labour Party politician was ever shot or bombed to death by the IRA. Callaghan’s spiel digressed into the ‘issue of Northern Ireland and terrorism’, resulting in an extraordinary late office - declaration that opened blue water between the stated views of a man facing enforced retirement and the numerous courageous initiatives taken by his predecessor Harold Wilson: ‘We should have as little difference as possible between ourselves and the Tories. I think there should be talks with both parties to discuss’. Tony Benn MP, a genial and perceptive diarist, was perturbed by this improbable conflation of incident and arguably pusillanimous bipartisanship on a matter of principle and practicality.220
Extensive use was made of the PTA to question, often harshly in respect to Paddington Green, IRSP members living in England. Deirdre O’Shea, a left wing political activist with IRSP connections, lost several teeth when assaulted in the London police base. In December 1984 she was deeply engaged in efforts to protect her veteran activist mother, Dr. Maire ‘Betty’ O’Shea, from prosecution in an INLA - linked operation in England.221 Nick Mullen, student radical and a significant figure in IRA logistics in England in the late 1980s, was also detained for two days in Paddington Green in 1979 arising from the Neave assassination. Mullen was then involved with the IRSP, in which he encountered leading socialist republican personalities Naomi Brennan and Gerry Roche.222 Personal connections heightened the sense of grievance for IRA prisoners in England. Billy Armstrong knew and respected the IRSP/ INLA leader Ronnie Bunting, who was killed by a pro-British death squad on 15 October 1980.223 Bunting was one of a number of prominent IRSP and H-Block campaigners shot in 1979–1981, not least Noel Lyttle, Miriam Daly, John Turnly and Bernadette McAliskey. The involvement of British military personnel in collusion with embedded Loyalist auxiliaries was widely suspected, particularly when the integral involvement of UDA commander John McMichael was revealed.224 Another leading UDA member and British agent, Robert McConnell, claimed SAS assistance in the assassination of Turnly.225
Suspicions of such illicit co-operation were raised by Billy Armstrong and others in England regarding the fatal shooting of National H-Block Committee member and QUB lecturer Miriam Daly on 26 June 1980.226 Daly had cogently presented both academic and personal analyses of the Irish crisis in Newfoundland, Massachusetts and elsewhere to an extent that her advocacy induced concern from well wishers. If locating her home address did not present a major intelligence - gathering challenge for resourced opponents, the selection of a time when she could be accessed, interrogated and fatally shot without incurring reaction from locally positioned official combatants paid to spy on such prominent IRSP personalities indicated, at best, that uncommon luck had coincided with gross incompetence. The unusually professional modus operandi of Loyalists in such attacks struck imprisoned IRA men as demonstrative of direct British assistance. Co-operation between Loyalists and members of the British Army, UDR and RUC was evident in numerous other instances during the course of the Troubles.227 When considering frequently random killings of Ulster Nationalists, Armstrong noted in March 1980: ‘I think the B[ritish] A[rmy] and RUC have an agreement with the Loyalists to stay out of a certain area for a certain period of time’.228 Self-confessed counter-insurgent, Albert ‘Ginger’ Baker, confirmed the reality of this scenario to several IRA prisoners whom he encountered in jail in England in the 1980s.229
The resurgent Conservative administration, acclaimed by Unionist MPs, was not diverted from its rigid Irish policy following the death of Neave. In July 1980 Thatcher described as ‘disgraceful’ a proposal of the Labour Party’s NEC to investigate allegations of maltreatment in Six County prisons. Although criticized by ex-Prime Minister James Callaghan on the grounds that an enquiry could be misinterpreted as Labour acceptance of republican claims, Kevin McNamara, MP for Kingston upon Hull, Central, and John Maynard, MP for Sheffield, Brightside, urged support. The issue was raised in the context of an imminent Commons debate on a White Paper on devolving power in the North of Ireland. Within months the studied failure in London to address the crisis in Long Kesh, Armagh and Crumlin Road prisons had dire consequences for Anglo-Irish history.230
Confronting the reinvigorated IRA inside Britain’s prisons and cities fell to William Whitelaw who, against expectations, was appointed by the Conservatives as Home Secretary on 15 May 1979.231 Given his background as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the most violent years of the Troubles, 1972–73, Whitelaw was well versed for a politician on the nature of the IRA threat in its totality. In July 1972 he had met much of the republican leadership in London alongside Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams who, by 1979, were both influential in such circles.232 Humphrey Atkins assumed the challenging post of heading the NIO at a time when the implications of the IRA’s ‘Long War’ strategy for the ‘Ulsterisation’ policy were becoming apparent in both Britain and Ireland.233 With over 350 republican prisoners on protest in Long Kesh in the spring of 1979, the priority of Sinn Féin’s ‘Smash H-Block’ campaign in Ireland was clearly determined. In an inversion of standard perspective, the party held out the example of England as a warning of how the situation might unfold in the Six Counties: ‘Remember the lingering deaths in English dungeons of Frank Stagg, Michael Gaughan, Noel Jenkinson and Sean O’Connell? Do not let the British kill any of the heroic “blanket men”’.234
