as one more important than others.
Control of the border in its own right was identified early on as being important, so along with the setting up of Field Hospitals – in reality First Aid stations, three of which were established on the main Donegal to Derry road and a fourth in County Cavan – it was important that the Irish Government retained its state territorial authority and the power to direct, influence or restrain movement across it. The highly volatile and uncertain political situation was the overall context within which the Defence Forces were directed to act. The circumstance for the Irish Government unfolded as an unprecedented crisis; developed north of the border in a manner over which it had no jurisdictive control. Internally there were those, some Government ministers amongst them, suggesting the seizure of the moment to end partition by directing the Defence Forces across it. Jack Lynch had received the wise counsel of the Governor of the Central Bank, TK ‘Ken’ Whitaker, who advised that the Republic take over neither Britain’s financial contributions, nor the task of keeping order by controlling the border.
There were those, primarily Sinn Féin, who were advocating such an intervention to crowds in Dublin. Scuffles broke out, punches and kicks were thrown and there was a lot of pulling and dragging; a crowd dynamic was whipped up and a mob mentality aroused. The inevitable clash erupted – not a fully fledged fight, more a confused struggle – but there was a roughness to it all the same. The non-violent demonstrators had marched from outside Dublin’s General Post Office (GPO) on O’Connell Street where about 3,000 people had gathered initially and been addressed by the President of Sinn Féin, Tomás Mac Giolla. He raised cheers when he announced that IRA units had ‘defended with guns, Belfast people under attack, that the IRA were the only ones present to protect the people and that it was time for action’. From among the crowd, ‘volunteers’ for active service were recruited from the platform, whereupon he pointed out that the army had the weapons needed to protect the people in the North and that if the (Irish) army were not prepared to use their weapons then they ought to give them to the volunteers, who would. He then encouraged the crowd to accompany him to Collins Barracks, Dublin, where upon their arrival he demanded that the Collins Barracks garrison protect the people of the North or else hand over their guns to the volunteers, who were ready to do so. They began chanting: ‘Give us guns, give us guns’, and with that a scuffle broke out with the attendant Gardaí and the scene became an unpleasant and threatening one for a time, before the crowd realised they were not getting guns on this occasion and dispersed.
The following evening (16 August) also saw some disturbances, again initiated after a meeting outside the GPO, this time under the auspices of The National Solidarity Committee. Hostile and ugly scenes followed when a crowd of 2,000 marched on the British Embassy in Merrion Square outside which the street was cordoned off by Gardaí, as there had also been protests the previous evening. On arrival at the cordon, the marchers started throwing stones, with bricks and bottles being added as the disturbance continued. The Gardaí responded with baton charges, causing the crowd to eventually disperse and retreat into Clare Street, only for them to erect a makeshift barricade outside the Mount Clare Hotel. Fires were set, windows broken and cars vandalised. In all, fourteen Gardaí were injured during the disturbances but the Embassy remained intact.
Whilst this was ongoing, not too far away in St Stephen’s Green three Nationalist Stormont MPs arrived at the offices of the Department of External Affairs (Iveagh House) requesting to speak with the Taoiseach. They were there to obtain weapons for beleaguered Catholics in Belfast’s Falls Road area, where the B-Specials and extremist Protestant mobs were running amok attacking nationalists, burning rows of houses and injuring scores of residents. Three people had been fatally shot, and with the number of displaced people growing the situation was deteriorating alarmingly, eclipsing the uproar and rioting that was witnessed during the Battle of the Bogside:
I was Quartermaster for a large FCÁ Camp (second line, part-time reservists) in Gormanstown Camp, Co. Meath, when mid-morning at the camp’s end – and organising the FCÁ out, and refugees in – I emerged from my office to find the camp suddenly ‘chock-a-block’ full with army vehicles and hundreds of troops. Enquiring as to what was happening, I was glibly told: ‘Oh, we’re from the Brugha (Cathal Brugha Barracks, Rathmines, Dublin) and now we’re the 16th Infantry Group going to the Border.’
Their arrival was a total surprise to me and the sudden presence of possible extra mouths to feed immediately triggered my quartermasterly instinct and mind-set and I decided I needed to know if they were expecting to be fed. To this end I boldly interrupted an officer’s briefing in progress and requested of the officer-in-charge were he and his men staying for lunch, to be told they were and [I was] thanked for my seeking clarification on the matter. Then was added: ‘But I want the Point Platoon fed first.’ I had never heard the expression ‘Point Platoon’ used before and discreetly enquired as to who and what were his Point Platoon? I was informed that they were a recently passed-out recruit platoon and the only platoon to have combat uniforms!
It is often said that the truth comes out in a crisis. Such truths that the Troubles were set to expose, however, had yet to be revealed. The Irish Government would face unprecedented challenges as the various strands of the circumstances played out dramatically. One element which became starkly obvious early on though was a lack of foresight: aware of a growing political problem on its doorstep, the Defence Forces were grossly unprepared for its outbreak and the early days of the crisis – a period of considerable danger – proved to be a time of great difficulty. There was great uncertainty; no one was sure what might happen next; and there was no planning contingency, no resources were available and no organisational preparations had been made. Yet the need for action and a speedy response to the eruption of the Troubles was paramount. Nine years previously, the Defence Forces had received a serious jolt when they were suddenly tasked by the United Nations to provide a response for overseas troop participation in the Congo. This overseas involvement was to prove to be the single most significant development in the history of the Defence Forces. Nearly a decade later, the Defence Forces remained undermanned, underarmed and underfunded, only now it was facing a severe test at home; the mission to contain a situation which, if unaddressed, could possibly lead to a civil war on the island of Ireland.
Along with the setting up of field hospitals and refugee stations, and coordinating the northward movement of Irish troops to the border, a prudent, logical contingency to explore was the possibility of a drastic humanitarian crisis, with an extraction operation in extremis if necessary. If the violence in the North escalated, should Irish troops on the border move into the Six Counties to extricate nationalists from attack and significant loss of life, or to facilitate the rescue of wounded and terrified portions of the Catholic population? A judicious proposal, it was contingent on the operational and logistical capability to execute it. However daringly audacious, morally justified and politically righteous, it would need to be rigorously feasible, and the Irish army in its current state was not in a position to respond to such a scenario.
There were, however, some who recklessly advocated this course of action. The Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, was not one of them and he again requested Dr Patrick Hillery, the Minister for External Affairs, to travel to London to propose the setting up of a combined Irish and British military peacekeeping force, or alternatively a United Nations one. Unsuccessful with the British Government in London, the Irish Government continued to internationalise the Northern Ireland crisis and Patrick Hillery travelled to the United Nations Headquarters in New York in an attempt to raise the Northern Irish situation as a motion on the UN Security Council Agenda. This initiative was not necessarily to actually achieve such an outcome, it was deemed an internal matter for the United Kingdom, but to create worldwide awareness of the matter, which was certainly achieved.
The British had overall responsibility for the situation in Northern Ireland but understood neither the problem nor the place. The Northern Irish Unionists understood the problem, but had no desire to reform, and the Northern Irish Nationalists had a strong case for reform but had neither the voice nor the platform. The Irish Government had no jurisdiction but had to contain the crisis from spilling over into their territory. Not only were they
