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Exercise Armageddon [1] [2] was a military exercise by the Republic of Ireland in 1970. The aim of the exercise was "to study, plan for and rehearse in detail the intervention of the Defence Forces in Northern Ireland in order to secure the safety of the minority population". [3]
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association organised protest marches from 1968 seeking to improve conditions for Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland. This had led to counter-protests and then sectarian riots, leading to 1,500 Catholic refugees fleeing to the Republic of Ireland. On 13 August 1969 the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch said in a television interview: "…the Irish government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse". [4] [5] His cabinet was divided over what to do, with Kevin Boland and Neil Blaney calling for robust action. On 30 August Lynch ordered the Irish Army Chief of Staff, General Seán Mac Eoin, to prepare a plan for possible incursions.
The then Northern Irish junior home affairs minister John Taylor recalled that Lynch's comment about no longer standing by resulted in Taylor mobilising 8,000 police reservists "to repel a possible invasion". [6]
While the riots continued, the introduction of British Army troops in the Falls area of Belfast, and around the Bogside part of Derry from mid-August under Operation Banner protected Catholic areas from further mass loyalist attacks.
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In September 1969, an Irish Army document was drawn up called, Interim Report of Planning Board on Northern Ireland Operations. [7] It outlined their concept for feasible military operations within Northern Ireland. The army's planners accepted that it had "no capability to engage successfully in conventional, offensive military operations against the security forces in Northern Ireland" to protect the Catholic minority from loyalist mobs.
The plan called for units of specially trained and equipped Irish commandos to infiltrate Northern Ireland and launch guerrilla-style operations against the Belfast docks, Aldergrove airport, the BBC studios, and key industries. The campaign would start in Belfast and the northwest, so as to draw the bulk of security forces in Northern Ireland away from the border areas, and turn their attention to the guerrilla campaign. The Irish Army would then invade with four brigades operating in company-strength units to occupy the Catholic-majority towns of Derry and Newry, and contain any remaining security forces in those areas. The Irish Army Transport Corps did not have enough resources to transport all of the necessary forces to the conflict zone, and the plan suggested hiring buses from CIÉ. For political reasons, the Republic would not formally declare war when the operation started.
Only 2,136 troops out of 12,000 in the army were at actual combat readiness.[ citation needed ] The operation would leave the Republic of Ireland exposed to "retaliatory punitive military action by United Kingdom forces". [8] The plan included a warning that: "The Defence Forces have no capability of embarking on unilateral military operation [sic] of any kind … therefore any operations undertaken against Northern Ireland would be militarily unsound." [9]
The 2009 documentary, If Lynch Had Invaded, interviewed a number of academics, former civil servants, and Irish Army officers, and they put forward a number of theories: [10]
Nevertheless, historian Diarmaid Ferriter considers that the operation would have been popular at the time, given the strong emotive feeling in the Republic about the situation in Northern Ireland.
On 6 February 1970, the defence minister, James Gibbons, ordered the army to prepare and train for a possible intervention in Northern Ireland due to the deteriorating situation there; specifically the increase in the amount and severity of rioting and the growth of loyalist extremism. The object of the intervention would have been to protect the life and property of civilians and it would have only occurred if there had already been a breakdown of law and order to such an extent that the Irish Army's actions could not have caused further destabilisation. [11] In September 1970, Colonel Michael Hefferon, the former director of army intelligence, told the Arms Crisis trial that the directive instructed the army to set aside surplus arms, ammunition and gas masks for a possible operation, which could have involved the army making 'incursions' into Northern Ireland and distributing arms to the civilian population. [12]
Subsequently some more actively nationalist Irish government ministers were tried in 1970 in the Arms Crisis trial, where the defendants included an Irish Army officer. It emerged that a secret Irish government fund of £100,000 had been dedicated to helping the refugees, but most of it had been spent covertly on buying arms for nationalist paramilitary groups in the North. Ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were sacked from their posts.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent republic encompassing all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It saw itself as the army of the all-island Irish Republic and as the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war". The conflict began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a "workers' republic" encompassing all of Ireland. It emerged in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of the Troubles, when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) split into two factions. The other was the Provisional IRA. Each continued to call itself simply "the IRA" and rejected the other's legitimacy.
The Ulster Special Constabulary was a quasi-military reserve special constable police force in what would later become Northern Ireland. It was set up in October 1920, shortly before the partition of Ireland. The USC was an armed corps, organised partially on military lines and called out in times of emergency, such as war or insurgency. It performed this role most notably in the early 1920s during the Irish War of Independence and the 1956-1962 IRA Border Campaign.
Events in the year 1969 in Ireland.
Operation Motorman was a large operation carried out by the British Army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The operation took place in the early hours of 31 July 1972 with the aim of retaking the "no-go areas" that had been established in Belfast and other urban centres. In Derry, Operation Carcan, initially proposed as a separate operation, was executed as part of Motorman.
The Arms Crisis was a political scandal in the Republic of Ireland in 1970 in which Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were dismissed as cabinet ministers for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle arms to the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. At the ensuing Arms Trial, charges against Blaney were dropped, and Haughey, along with co-defendants Captain James Kelly, John Kelly and Belgian businessman Albert Luykx, were found not guilty of conspiracy. Blaney claimed that the then government knew about the plan, while Haughey denied this.
The Battle of the Bogside was a large three-day riot that took place from 12 to 14 August 1969 in Derry, Northern Ireland. Thousands of Catholic/Irish nationalist residents of the Bogside district, organised under the Derry Citizens' Defence Association, clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and loyalists. It sparked widespread violence elsewhere in Northern Ireland, led to the deployment of British troops, and is often seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles.
Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, and throughout its modern history has been a major commercial and industrial centre. In the late 20th century manufacturing industries that had existed for several centuries declined, particularly shipbuilding. The city's history has occasionally seen conflict between different political factions who favour different political arrangements between Ireland and Great Britain. Since the Good Friday Agreement, the city has been relatively peaceful and major redevelopment has occurred, especially in the inner city and dock areas.
From 1969 until 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) conducted an armed paramilitary campaign primarily in Northern Ireland and England, aimed at ending British rule in Northern Ireland in order to create a united Ireland.
Operation Demetrius was a British Army operation in Northern Ireland on 9–10 August 1971, during the Troubles. It involved the mass arrest and internment of people suspected of being involved with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which was waging an armed campaign for a united Ireland against the British state. It was proposed by the Unionist government of Northern Ireland and approved by the British Government. Armed soldiers launched dawn raids throughout Northern Ireland and arrested 342 in the initial sweep, sparking four days of violence in which 20 civilians, two IRA members and two British soldiers were killed. All of those arrested were Irish republicans and nationalists, the vast majority of them Catholics. Due to faulty and out-of-date intelligence, many were no longer involved in republican militancy or never had links with the IRA. Ulster loyalist paramilitaries were also carrying out acts of violence, which were mainly directed against Catholics and Irish nationalists, but no loyalists were included in the sweep.
Operation Banner was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operation in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2007, as part of the Troubles. It was the longest continuous deployment in British military history. The British Army was initially deployed, at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland, in response to the August 1969 riots. Its role was to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and to assert the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland. This involved counter-insurgency and supporting the police in carrying out internal security duties such as guarding key points, mounting checkpoints and patrols, carrying out raids and searches, riot control and bomb disposal. More than 300,000 soldiers served in Operation Banner. At the peak of the operation in the 1970s, about 21,000 British troops were deployed, most of them from Great Britain. As part of the operation, a new locally-recruited regiment was also formed: the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).
During 12–16 August 1969, there was an outbreak of political and sectarian violence throughout Northern Ireland, which is often seen as the beginning of the thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles. There had been sporadic violence throughout the year arising out of the Northern Ireland civil rights campaign, which demanded an end to discrimination against Catholics and Irish nationalists. Civil rights marches had been attacked by Protestant loyalists, and protesters often clashed with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the overwhelmingly Protestant police force.
John Kelly was an Irish republican politician in Northern Ireland. He joined the Irish Republican Army in the 1950s, and was a founder member and a leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s.
The Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA was the largest of the organisation's brigades, based in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The city of Derry, Northern Ireland, was severely affected by the Troubles. The conflict is widely considered to have begun in the city, with many regarding the Battle of the Bogside in 1969 as the beginning of the Troubles. The Bloody Sunday incident of 1972 occurred in Derry, in the Bogside area.
The Battle of St Matthew's or Battle of Short Strand was a gun battle that took place on the night of 27–28 June 1970 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was fought between the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Ulster loyalists in the area around St Matthew's Roman Catholic church. This lies at the edge of the Short Strand, a Catholic enclave in a mainly-Protestant part of the city. Violence had erupted there, and in other parts of Belfast, following marches by the Orange Order. The battle lasted about five hours and ended at dawn when loyalists withdrew. The British Army and police were deployed nearby but did not intervene. Three people were killed and at least 26 wounded in the fighting, while another three were killed in north Belfast.
The Northern Ireland civil rights movement dates to the early 1960s, when a number of initiatives emerged in Northern Ireland which challenged the inequality and discrimination against ethnic Irish Catholics that was perpetrated by the Ulster Protestant establishment. The Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) was founded by Conn McCluskey and his wife, Patricia. Conn was a doctor, and Patricia was a social worker who had worked in Glasgow for a period, and who had a background in housing activism. Both were involved in the Homeless Citizens League, an organisation founded after Catholic women occupied disused social housing. The HCL evolved into the CSJ, focusing on lobbying, research and publicising discrimination. The campaign for Derry University was another mid-1960s campaign.
The Battle of Lenadoon was a series of gun battles fought over a six day period from 9–14 July 1972 between the Provisional IRA and the British Army. It started on Thursday, 9 July 1972 in and around the Lenadoon Avenue area and spread to other places in Belfast. Loyalist paramilitaries and the Official Irish Republican Army were involved in some of the incidents. 28 people in total were killed in Belfast according to the CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths. The violence ended a two-week truce between the forces of the British Government and the IRA.
The Troubles of the 1920s was a period of conflict in what is now Northern Ireland from June 1920 until June 1922, during and after the Irish War of Independence and the partition of Ireland. It was mainly a communal conflict between Protestant unionists, who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic Irish nationalists, who backed Irish independence. During this period, more than 500 people were killed in Belfast and 23,000 people were made homeless in the city, while approximately 50,000 people fled the north of Ireland due to intimidation. Most of the victims were Catholics.