The Troubles
Civil rights protests in Northern Ireland spiral into three decades of violence between republican and loyalist paramilitaries and the British state, killing about 3,500 people.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland — Malcolm Sutton, CAIN, Ulster University
- Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles — David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, Mainstream Publishing (1999)
- Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA — Richard English, Macmillan (2003)
Northern Ireland was built to have a permanent unionist majority, and for fifty years the Ulster Unionist Party governed it from Stormont. Catholics, about a third of the population, faced discrimination in housing, jobs and local voting, where gerrymandered wards such as those in Derry gave unionists control of a Catholic-majority city.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- Northern Ireland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
From civil rights to war
In the late 1960s, inspired by the American civil rights movement, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association demanded “one man, one vote” and fair housing. On 5 October 1968 police batoned marchers in Derry on television. In August 1969 rioting in Derry’s Bogside and in Belfast, where Catholic streets were burned out, led London to deploy the British army.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- Hume, John — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
The Provisional IRA, formed in a split in 1969–70, began an armed campaign to drive Britain out. Loyalist paramilitaries such as the UVF and UDA killed Catholics, often at random. The introduction of internment without trial in August 1971, aimed almost entirely at nationalists, and Bloody Sunday in Derry on 30 January 1972, when British paratroopers shot dead thirteen unarmed civil rights marchers (a fourteenth died later), drove many young nationalists into the IRA. 1972 was the bloodiest year of the conflict, and London suspended Stormont and imposed direct rule.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA — Richard English, Macmillan (2003)
- Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry — Lord Saville of Newdigate (chair), The Stationery Office (2010)
Thirty years
What followed was a long, grinding war of bombings, shootings and reprisals, in Northern Ireland, in Britain and occasionally in the Republic. A power-sharing government in 1974 was brought down by a loyalist strike. In 1981 ten republican prisoners died on hunger strike demanding political status; one, Bobby Sands, was elected an MP before he died, a turning point that drew Sinn Féin into elections.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA — Richard English, Macmillan (2003)
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
The cost
Malcolm Sutton’s index records 3,532 deaths related to the conflict between 1969 and 2001; Lost Lives counts somewhat more.
- An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland — Malcolm Sutton, CAIN, Ulster University
- Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles — David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, Mainstream Publishing (1999)
- An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland — Malcolm Sutton, CAIN, Ulster University
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
How the language divides
Even naming things is political. Many nationalists say “the North” or “the Six Counties”; unionists say “Northern Ireland” or “Ulster”. Republicans may speak of a “war” and “volunteers”; unionists of “terrorism”. Derry/Londonderry has two names. Most people learned to read these signals, which is one reason “whatever you say, say nothing” was such a common piece of advice.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- Census 2021: Main Statistics for Northern Ireland (religion and national identity) — Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (2022)
Legacy
The Saville Inquiry concluded in 2010 that the Bloody Sunday killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable”, and Prime Minister David Cameron apologised in the House of Commons.
- Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry — Lord Saville of Newdigate (chair), The Stationery Office (2010)
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles — David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, Mainstream Publishing (1999)
The conflict grew out of a sectarian state that discriminated against Catholics and met peaceful protest with batons and bullets. Most nationalists supported the SDLP's non-violent path; republicans saw the IRA's armed campaign as resistance to British occupation, though many nationalists rejected its methods.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA — Richard English, Macmillan (2003)
- Hume, John — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
A terrorist campaign, waged mainly by the IRA, to force a British people into a united Ireland against their will. Unionists stress that republicans caused most of the deaths and that their community, including part-time police and soldiers, was targeted. Loyalist paramilitaries claimed to be defending it, though most unionists rejected them.
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
- An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland — Malcolm Sutton, CAIN, Ulster University
- Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles — David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, Mainstream Publishing (1999)
Britain presented itself as a neutral peacekeeper holding the ring between two warring communities. Inquiries have since shown serious wrongdoing by state forces, including Bloody Sunday and collusion with loyalist killers, and in 2010 the prime minister apologised for Bloody Sunday.
- Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry — Lord Saville of Newdigate (chair), The Stationery Office (2010)
- Making Sense of the Troubles — David McKittrick and David McVea, Blackstaff Press (2000)
For many ordinary people the Troubles were less a war than a background of fear: security checks, bomb scares, sectarian murders and the careful avoidance of the wrong street or the wrong question. Most people in both communities never supported the paramilitaries, and much of the cost fell on working-class districts in Belfast, Derry and the border areas.
- Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles — David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton, Mainstream Publishing (1999)
- An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland — Malcolm Sutton, CAIN, Ulster University
- Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction — Marc Mulholland, Oxford University Press (2002)
Why it matters today
The Troubles are within living memory, and almost every family in Northern Ireland has a story. Questions of truth, justice and who deserves to be called a victim are still raw, Belfast's "peace walls" still stand, and the language people use about the conflict often reveals where they come from.
For people in Northern Ireland the Troubles are not history but family memory: the relative killed, the street burned out, the checkpoint on the way to school. How to deal with the legacy, prosecutions, inquests, amnesty or truth recovery, remains among the most painful and divisive questions in public life, and the trauma is still being passed down.