non-interference, despite requests in advance to do so, in the Catholic Short Strand enclave amid an armed attack by a loyalist mob, a defence which included the armed protection of St Matthew’s Church – an event in the sub-culture of the Troubles that marked the rebirth of the IRA. Earlier that month was also to see a change of government in Westminster when the Conservative Party under Edward (Ted) Heath came to power.
Traditionally, the Conservatives were more closely allied with and supportive of the Unionists, and the Stormont Government in Northern Ireland now found themselves with the twin advantages of being fully supported by London and with British troops at their disposal. Brian Faulkner, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, favoured the prioritising of security to that of political reform, and as a result the British army, at the behest of the Unionists, were directed to nullify the fledgling IRA. This push for harder security measures addressed the symptoms rather than the root cause of the Troubles, and was to later include internment without trial of over 300 people suspected of being involved with the IRA.
When the Troubles initially broke out in August 1969, the IRA had few members, fewer guns and hardly any money. The organisation was unable to adequately defend Catholic areas against the ‘Protestant Pogrom’, as it was considered in some quarters. Those few remaining individuals were taunted by graffiti daubed on walls publicly denouncing and condemning the IRA as standing for ‘I Ran Away’. Discouraged, and disheartened after the failure of ‘Operation Harvest’, the border campaign from 1956 to1962, the leadership had taken to the pursuit of a more political campaign advocating the merits of advancing a Marxist–leftist policy. After August 1969 a more militant element emerged, and in December 1969 there was a split in the organisation resulting in the pre-existing, more politically inclined, ‘Official’ IRA and the more extreme, militantly active ‘Provisional’ IRA. A strained stand-off existed between the Provisional IRA (PIRA) and the British army; though this was actually part of the Provisional’s strategy of ‘phased or staged engagement’.
The first engagement – defensive in nature and an opportunity to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Catholic community in Belfast – occurred on the evening of 27 June 1970, when a loyalist Orange Order band and their supporters marched through the Short Strand/Ballymacarrett area of East Belfast. On their return from the main parade, violence erupted as the march entered the Catholic Springfield Road area.
The River Lagan, the Newtownards and Albert Bridge Roads enclosed the district on three sides and existing within the boundary was a hugely outnumbered Catholic enclave. Theirs was an uncomfortable existence and the spectre of conflict often hung over them. Protection was problematic and withdrawal was difficult, and if attacked they knew they simply had to stand their ground. With the British army and RUC deployed nearby, but unhelpfully not intervening, it fell to those within to prevent being burned out of their homes. Armed PIRA men moved into positions distributing themselves throughout the district, including taking up the advantageous aspect afforded by the tall tower steeple of St Matthew’s Church, granting them excellent fields of observation and fire.
When repeated, determined incursions by loyalist mobs were in progress, those in the steeple responded with unyielding defence. The five-hour firefight prevented the Protestant mob from being able to position themselves to hurl petrol bombs. The march had become a riot then transformed into a gun battle, and the spirited and energetic defence of the Provisional IRA saw the attack wither. It was PIRA’s first major action and an enormous propaganda victory; successfully defending a vulnerable Catholic enclave from an armed, aggressive loyalist mob. The following day, loyalists expelled 500 Catholic workmen from the nearby Harland & Wolff shipyard and the months of June and July 1970 were to witness a series of blunders by the British military, mostly at the behest of the Unionist regime in Stormont, with an all too willing and emergent Provisional IRA capitalising on the mistakes and plunging Northern Ireland into three decades of armed conflict.
The insensitivity of The Falls Curfew was one such event that played directly into the Provisional’s hands. On 2 July 1970, an arms find in a house on Balkan Street and the resultant repercussions over the following three days were to see a turning point in the initial rapport between the Catholic community and the British army. Following a tip off, a British army patrol of five or six vehicles was despatched to the Lower Falls area, where a quantity of arms and ammunition was discovered in a house on Balkan Street. As the British troops started to withdraw, they came under attack from local youths who pelted them with bottles and stones. With the British platoon besieged in the middle of The Falls, reinforcements were sent only to be cut off by rapidly constructed barricades and suddenly an entire company was stranded in the same area. In turn, two companies were despatched to their rescue and they were forced to fire CS gas at the rioting crowds. By late afternoon, the Falls was in chaos as more troops were sent in to rescue the rescuers.
The residents claimed the unfolding of the confrontation was more systemic than reactionary, and that after days and nights of rioting and gunfire the army imposed an illegal curfew on the Lower Falls area of Belfast, putting the area in lockdown as an extended cordon line perimeter surrounded and enclosed the Catholic nationalist area for 36 hours. In conducting searches, residents complained bitterly that the army had been abusive and it was believed they caused unnecessary damage: ransacking homes, ripping up floorboards, breaking furniture and cracking open the plaster on the walls. The area being predominantly Official IRA, the two branches of the IRA fought the British army with gunfire, petrol and nail bombs. Four people were killed – three shot and one knocked down, pinned by a military vehicle – and by its cessation approximately 100 weapons and quantities of ammunition were seized. At the conclusion of the curfew, the army brought two Unionist Ministers, William Long and Captain John Brooke, into the area in the rear of a military vehicle to demonstrate their effectiveness. However, it only really ended when hundreds of women descended on the area with food, forcing their way through the cordon and leaving, it has been claimed, with IRA weapons concealed in prams and in their clothing.
Dr Patrick Hillery, the Republic of Ireland’s Minister for External Affairs, also visited the area, much to the outcry of the Unionists. The ‘Falls Road Curfew’ was an act of monumental stupidity as it generated a sense of alienation among the Catholic community. Trust was lost and the conviction that the British army were irredeemably pro-Unionist was copper-fastened. The year-long honeymoon between nationalist Belfast and the British army was at an end.
The Provisional IRA gained enormously from those early errors of judgement and was hurled headlong, beyond its expectations, towards embarking on the beginnings of its ‘offensive stage’. For a propaganda effect to be sustained you have to demonstrate its achievement in real terms; the young were vulnerable to the Provisional IRA’s propaganda, and these idealists in many cases became somewhat blinded by it. The Provisional IRA believed that violence was a necessary part of the struggle to rid Ireland of the British and aimed to enthuse public support for their ‘cause’ and encouraged people to believe that now was the moment to end partition. They believed that ‘one big push’ was all it would take and by escalation of the military campaign this was certain to be achieved. ‘Escalate, escalate, escalate’ became PIRA’s mantra.
The blunders and misuse of military resources by the Stormont Government, and by extension Westminster, caused the total alienation of the minority Catholic population from the Northern Ireland system, granting the Provisionals an opportunity to take hold. This all resulted from the Unionists’ unwillingness to compromise. A previously all but extinguished IRA had been handed a platform of opportunity – gifted a ‘cause’ – and the momentum of its initial campaign was accelerated beyond its expectations by sheer bloody-mindedness.
A visibly larger, stronger, more self-convinced Provisional IRA now took on the British army. Gun and bomb attacks became more frequent and ever more audacious and a battle of wits began between PIRA bomb makers and the British army bomb disposal teams. The Provisionals were soon getting the better of the street exchanges and British soldiers were now targets, whether they were on-duty or off-duty. For the British army, operations in Northern Ireland were a very different type of conflict to what they were
