Dan Snow's History Hit - The Troubles Explained (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

From the late 1960s to 1998, Northern Ireland was gripped by "The Troubles" - three decades of bloodshed, resulting from competing visions for its future. This week, we're releasing a two-part series that explores why this conflict erupted and how it played out. For this, Dan is joined by Dr Thomas Leahy, Lecturer in British and Irish Politics and Contemporary History at Cardiff University.In this second episode we chart the turbulent 20th century, from the Irish War of Independence to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello folks, Dan Snow here. I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history hit. I'd love for you to be there. Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London, in England on the 12th of September to celebrate the 10 years. You can find out more about it and get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there. Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's history hits. This is part two of our history of the troubles, the euphemistically named conflict that gripped Northern Ireland, some Ireland, Britain in many ways as well, for 30 years.

In the first episode, we went all the way back to the beginning. We traced 700 years of British and Irish history. From the reign of Henry II, all the way through to the Easter uprising in Dublin and Sinn Féin's landslide electoral victory in the 1918 elections. If you missed it, there's a link in the show notes, or just look back on your podcast player. I'd really recommend listening to that one before you launch into this one. Although this one would make sense by itself, we start at that great watershed of European world history, the First World War. We're in 1919.

The Irish War of Independence is beginning. The Irish Republican Army, the IRA, begin a guerrilla campaign against British forces. We're going to hear about how that campaign went. We're going to hear about the partition of Ireland. two states. We're going to hear about the civil rights movement and what happened during the Troubles themselves. Our expert guide through this tumultuous history is Thomas Lehi, a senior lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, teaches British and Irish politics and contemporary history. He's an expert on the Irish Republican Army in Sinn Féin after

1969. This is the second part of our explainer mini-series on The Troubles. Enjoy. T-minus 10. Sheel. God saves the king. No black white unity till there is first than black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off and the shuttle has cleared the power. Thomas, thank you very much coming back on the podcast. Thanks having me again.

We have left Ireland with the vast majority of people on the island of Ireland, making it very clear that they wish to sever either entirely or practically, they're link with London, they're link with British rule. There are six counties in the north of Ireland which have a Protestant majority for staying part of that British project. And the British Crown is not just going to give up without a fight. Tell me about the Irish War of Independence. Comes right at the end of the First World War. How should we think about this war? Is it a guerrilla campaign or are there armies clashing in the field? It's the guerrilla campaign. And what happens of

it and why it ends up in that direction. What we talked about, you know, finishing off last time was talking about the, for Irish Republicans, they reflected on the East horizon and said there is no point having set peace battles with the British Army, the better train, the better equipped, we will lose. So the idea of people such as Michael Collins, who becomes a key IRA leader and key in Sinn Féinist political wing as well, he says we're going to engage in hit-and-run tactics and a kind of, you know, what a modern parlance sometimes is called, like the war of the flea. If the flea keeps biting the dog or buying the cat time and time again, eventually the largest species in this case, the dog or the cat, or in this parlance, you know, what happened with the UK government is they'll eventually get sick of on and they'll leave because it's too much hassle for them. They have to negotiate for a settlement.

And, I mean, at first, their outlook was, we'll try the political route. Do they stand in that 1918 election? They get the majority to seat. they then, if we link it to World War I and go to the Versailles Peace Conference and via particularly the American government, they try to influence the American government to say to the British government, let Ireland have self-governance in terms of like basically independence. The way they tried to influence that, the head of the Sinn Féin party at this point, the president of the self-declared All-Illand Republic, is a guy called Amen

Devalera and Amin de Valera had American ancestry. So partly why they felt, okay, we might have some foot in the door, if you like, with American government. The issue for Sinn Féin was that because of the alliance between American and British forces, et cetera, and World War I, and the government, America wasn't going to do that. It wasn't going to allow itself to be backing an Irish Republican-led government in Dublin and Irish separatism. And then what happens is the British government, what does it do about this independent parliament set up an island, parogues it, or just, that's just one way of saying, spends it, gets rid of it. And it does that because I think from a British government context,

we've got to remember this, there's still an era of empire, and they do not want Ireland setting a precedent, for example, say India, to decide, right, we'll follow the suit, we'll do exactly what Ireland did. So the leaders of Sinn Féin in the IRA are the ones that don't go underground are arrested. They include some of the Sinn Féin members of the Irish Parliament, self-declared Republic and members of that parliament were arrested. And then what you get from 1990 then is an uprising that involves, the Irish Republican Army, the IRA, the armed wing of Sinn Féin, and British forces. At this point,

when we say British forces, to begin with, it was what was called the Royal Irish Constabulary, the RIC, which is the British police on the island of Ireland. And the IRA got involved in assassinating them, killing them to begin with. And that then laid to more and more British backup forces coming in. Some of these would have been British Army. Other ones would have been what the Irish population nicknamed the black and tans because of the color of their uniform. But essentially they were auxiliaries to back up the police, armed auxiliaries to back up the police in Ireland to try and stem what the IRA was doing. The black and tans are mainly recruited from some British army, but also from what we could

call like sepherent areas of Scotland to places like Edinburgh or Glasgow. And in this case, it would have been from Protestant British areas of Scotland. So that's essentially what goes on, and really the type of conflict you get, you're hit and run. And then you get kind of tip-for-tap war. And what this involves in, particularly the south of Ireland, giving you like standard examples. So what was called Bloody Sunday, like one of the original ones in during this conflict. So Michael Collins, who was one of the IRA leaders, has a select band of IRA personnel. He works with the assassinated a number of members of British intelligence in Dublin on one.

morning. In retaliation, the black and tans go to a place on the same day called Croke Park. So Croke Park's the head of a Gaelic Athletic Games in Ireland. So the interest in Gaelic hurling or Gaelic football. That's where it's all played. So they go into the stadium and the black and tan shoot up the crowd. There's a number of people who die. Another example of this is in Cork City. So a number of IRA volunteers then assassinate Black and Tands and other members of British forces. Then retaliation, the Black and Tand burn Cork City to the ground. and declare martial law there. So this is the kind of thing that starts going on. And very quickly, there's a momentum to one side will do something. The other side of retaliate, and it has a certain

momentum to itself. And that's the pattern of the conflict, really. The IRA engage in hit and run attacks. They live in what's called in this period flying columns. So they live on the run, often like in the countryside areas. And they come out to attack and then they just fade back away. They're obviously, it's quite clear that the fact they're able to sustain that campaign, they've clearly got a very minimum, sizable minority support. There's enough people are willing to aid them in terms of hiding volunteers, hiding weapons, et cetera, and that's basically how the campaign plays out. The Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla war, really.

It was fought in ambushes and raids and targeted assassinations. And the British responded, as conventional forces doing guerrilla wars, they responded in enormous force. They unleashed the black and tans on Ireland. they were effectively paramilitary soldiers really. They were hastily recruit into the Royal Irish Constabulary, Ireland's police force. But they were poorly disciplined, they were notorious for their brutality. They often tend to be people that quite enjoyed the opportunities for violence and other things during the First World War.

They burned homes, they attacked villages, they killed civilians in reprisals. Thomas mentioned Bloody Sunday in 1920 there. Sadly, that's not the only bloody Sunday we're going to talk about in this episode. Their presence really antagonised the Irish. It deepened their resentment. Instead of pacifying the population, they drove many towards supporting republicanism, supporting the IRA. This tip for tap violence, IRA ambushes, followed by black and tan reprisals, created a cycle of bloodshed and hatred that really came to find that war. By 1921, both sides were exhausted and came to the negotiating. table. The resulting Anglo-Irish Treaty established the Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion

similar to Canada or Australia. So for many, this was a triumph to nationalist leaders like Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith. This was a stepping stone to full independence. But it accepted, well, a few things really. One is that Ireland would remain in the British Empire and also that the island of Ireland would be partitioned. The six northern counties would remain part of the United Kingdom. Now within the rest of Ireland, a division formed between pro-treaty force who supported the free state and anti-treaty forces who oppose the treaty and its implications for an Irish Republic that incorporated the whole of Ireland. Here's Thomas to explain more. The British government bows to the inevitable, well, I suppose the inevitable given that they are unprepared to wage the kind of war

that they might have been prepared to wage on the imperial frontier outside Europe, that they bow to the inevitable, they agree to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921. Although it's a slightly complicated process, that effectively means the Republic of Ireland will be born, covering most of the island of Ireland, but not the six counties in the north, which remain part of the United Kingdom. And when we get to the peace agreement, why does the IRA also opt into this and Sinn Féin,

is because a majority of that organization believe, as in the two parts IRA and Sinn Féin would call it the Republican Movement. The majority of the Republican movement accepts that this is the best we're going to get at this stage, the Anglaris Treaty. And they felt that we're at a point Michael Collins claimed they might run out of weapons.

And we said we should throw our lot in with what the British government offer and negotiate hard and see what's the most of give us. Lloyd George's British government was willing to give Ireland in 1921 Dominion status. more than home rule, but it's less than full-on republic independence, because if you're in the dominion like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, you're still in the today like the British Commonwealth. A size of a minority, about 45% class of the Iranian Sinn Féin did not accept this.

And they said that, you know, this is basically traitorous to what we set up in 19th, in a full-on republic. And there was a close vote in early 1920s in Ireland, the Doyle, which became the Irish Parliament. It was pretty close in terms of about 51% backed it, 49% against it. The big thing is the 49% walked out and declared they were to set up a separate government. They have dual power in Ireland. The government that the British government recognised, the kind of Commonwealth 15th government, then the other one, which declared itself still the existing Irish Republic, set up a place called the Four Courts and Dublin, and eventually, partly under British government pressure to Michael Collins, they're told to stop these lot carrying one like this, you need to bomb them out.

the resulting Irish Civil War was short, but it was devastating. It pitted the Irish Free States and pro-treaty forces against the anti-treaty forces. So these are nationalist comrades who had been united in the fight against Britain until so recently. They now turned their guns on each other. So fighting began in June 22, anti-treaty forces occupied the four courts in Dublin, pro-treaty troops, now the official National Army of Ireland. They shelled the building with artillery, which was provided by the Brits. The conflict was bitter, it was brutal. The National Army was better armed and better organized,

and they quickly asserted their control of Dublin, other cities, and the fighting dragged on the countryside. The anti-treaty forces, well, they went back to waging a guerrilla campaign that they were familiar with. The same tactics they'd just used against the British and the Irish War of Independence, just a few years previously. The war was again marked by assassinations and reprisals and executions. And for anyone wondering why we're talking about a war

that was fought 40 years before the so-called troubles actually began. it's just important to remember this kind of intercommunal fighting is so vicious and it creates bitter resentment and those fractures can last long after the conflict is done. One of the most shocking moments came in August 1920s when Michael Collins, who was a hero of the independence struggle, he was killed in an ambush by anti-treaty forces. By May 1923, the anti-treaty IRA were exhausted, they were outmatched, and they ordered a ceasefire. The war was over, but its consequences were really profound. It shaped Ireland's politics. It cemented partition. So the northern counties of Ireland would remain part of the UK. And the Irish government accepted that. And that in turn,

that remnant of the UK in Ireland would explode eventually in the troubles. The pro-treaty party won. And then eventually the Irish Republic became a Republican in 1948. He's unilaterally left the Commonwealth by itself. So then the northeast, it's just one. gets left behind. So why does six of the northeastern counties stay within the UK? And really, it comes back to all the things we talked about, like the Irish War of Independence, and we just talked about it at 1916 rising. Ulster Protestants after World War I, large number of them have died, people who see themselves as British, will go into the British government saying, look at this rebellious lot in the South. So how on earth can you defer to them and give them

self-government whilst basically being traitorous to us and forcing us into any kind of Irish Catholic rule, whether that's devolution or independence. And, you know, from the British government's point of view, they found this very difficult to resist as an argument. I think the political makeup of what's going on was important. At that point, after World War I, you've got Lloyd George's prime minister in this period as a liberal. He has to be in coalition, basically, with the Conservatives, because they've got a number

of teeth. There wasn't an outright majority for either. You've got a liberal prime minister with a conservative government and the conservative cabinet, and the Conservatives had quite a close relationship with the Union and the Party. even that, you know, Ireland was better to stay within United Kingdom framework. But then there's a question, well, if we talk about Ireland's provinces, so anyone's into rugby, we'll know this, Ulster, Lensda, Karnak, Munster. Now, Ulster, when we talk about historically an island, was a nine-county province. So it was the six counties in Northern Ireland today,

that's Kavan, Monaghan, Adan. So then there's a question, well, why was Northern Ireland made up six of them and not nine. And that's because the Ulster British-British Protestants via the Ulster Unionist Party, the main British Protestant Unionist Party in Northern Ireland said, we don't want the other three, because if you give us the other three, the Catholic Protestant makeup of the North East State or State Northern Ireland would have almost been 50-50 percent Catholic Protestant. Alster British Protestant wanted a majority and not just a slight majority, they wanted a big majority. And the reason then, therefore, the six counties are chosen is because that would have given them the largest majority

it's feasible for them to hold on land. And the reason they want that because in their belief was we can't come under any All-Ireland form of government, devolution or not, because we'll be discriminated against property. And in Northern Ireland, the lines are being drawn very selectively, as you said, moving around its population to make sure there's the biggest majority possible. So all sorts of techniques being used to try and maintain British Protestant control over those counties. Does it sort of roughly work from the 1920s into the 1960s or what starts to shake it? Yes, you're absolutely right. And it's an interesting question there when we then look at the Northern Ireland conflict, you know, kicking off from

1969. Interestingly, right, if we go back to time, 1940s after war, there's started to be some problems. And the problems were because when Atle's Labour government come in, it passed certain acts like Universal Security Education Act, it started to bring in like a national health service. Now, one of the fears there, and interesting for the Austerunist British Protestant government in Belfast, which was always winning elections, because it was a majoritarian voting, not like now, power sharing, similar what you have for Westman is the first past the post, but if you've got a British Protestant majority in the state, funnily enough, that win every single election that you hold. But what was interesting is when the Labour government passed these

Act under Attlee, the unionist government in Belfast actually threatened to say, right, we're going to end up like Canada, Australia. We want to become a dominion. We don't want to be part of the UK set. The fear for Ulster British Protestants was, well, if Irish Catholics are educated the same level of us, the discrimination becomes more obvious in 15 to 20 years time when these people are coming out of school and trying to get jobs and they can't get the jobs. The other worry was, if you had any interference in Westminster, like with gerrymandered electoral boundaries, so, hang on a minute, there's a Protestant minority in very city, but they're elected more councillors. Why were they discriminating in areas where Catholics are majority? But in

Unionist, British Protestant parlance and heads, again, this is an excuse in it, it's just trying to explain the thinking. They thought, if we allow Catholics any influence in this state in positions of the power, will end up in an all-Iam of a republic. The better to hold everything you've got, even if you have to discriminate, to stop that situation happening. So the first, I think, chinks came in 1940s, and we can see that by their reactions saying, well, we might become a dominion instead and threatening Westminster. That doesn't happen because Atley, as the Prime Minister says, we're not going to interfere what's going on Northern Ireland. We passed the facts for the whole of the UK, benefit of all citizens, but we're not going to interfere.

You do your thing, we'll do our thing. So that, what, Atley gives them a sort of de facto opt-out? Not a thing such as either, for example, the NHS and the secondary education. They have to take those things on. But what Atley promises is, is, I'm not going to come and look at your books for what's going on in terms of employment figures or what's going on related to social housing provision and where you're giving the social housing. The social housing actually just reflecting on that, it's a really key area because this is the key dispute by a normal and civil rights association in the 60s, their argument is, and there's plenty of evidence for this, that scholars generally agree with

this. We might disagree a lot to other things, but we generally agree on this, is that classic example, a place with Caledon and Counted Toronto in the 60s, where a single Protestant lady, she was about, I think, in her, I think she was either 19 or 20, was given a house, a social housing, she also worked for local unionist politician over a large Catholic family where there was great a need. And this led to some of the sitting protest that kicked off to civil rights movement. Now, okay, social housing, the unionists didn't like that when Labour bought that in in the late 40s either because they thought this is a threat. But no, Atlee also said it's fine. Your government and your councils could control the social housing. We

won't interfere in that. So that's the potential first chink. You know, like we said, this discrimination has been there from the 20s. So why is there mainly protest in Northern Ireland and the 60s? Two main factors for that. First factor, when you look at the Asia people in the civil rights movement, a lot of them might have been quite young, like 18, 19 plus into 20s and 30s, these were the people who were benefiting from the Secondary Education Act. So then these are people 20 years later after the 40s and saying, oh, hang on, I've gone to a same school, a similar standard of school, just the Catholic area rather than the Protestant areas, my Protestant counterparts, and might be better qualified for them, I'm not getting a job. So it becomes

more obvious then that, okay, there's discrimination involved. The second big factor here is the global climate. And what we've got in particular is Martin Luther King and the US civil rights. That's where they're picking up their tactic, the Irish Catholic generally population about civil rights. That's where they picked it up from seeing examples from the US. And it was effective. Once, particularly Harold Wilson's government in the mid to late 60s, its eyes are turned on this because of the protests happening. You should have said that as well. They're having their sit-down protests or their marches.

And what was starting to happen was the union estate, as in the government in Belfast was trying to ban some of the marches. Plus, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the RUC, the Northern Ireland-Haddle Police Force, is predominantly Protestant, was ordered by the stormed government to join clampdown. some of the marches. And these have been caught on cameras, particularly by Irish television, RTE. It led to more widespread anger in the Irish Catholic community. There is something going on here, and this state is deliberately trying to resist what we want. And Westminster, yeah, in a sense, can't turn it a blind eye to this. We've had things like decolonisation at this point across various parts of the empire is, you know, in line with like human rights, etc. But in its backyard, this thing is going on. So it has to take notice of what's happening.

So there are marches, there are fights at those marches, the RUC heavy-handed policing, water cannons, batons being wielded, and those are both engaging and provoking Catholic rage in Northern Ireland, but also now meaning the British government cannot look away. These images are being broadcast, well, of course, Britain and the world. Exactly. And I think the other element we have involved here is not all of them, but a majority of the Ulster Union in this party, the British Protestant main part, in Northern Ireland and the British Protestant population are against the civil rights movement. And even to show that how peculiar this is in some respect, when we then talk about Ulster Protestant loyalists, so when we use this word, the same belief as unionists, keep Northern Ireland within the UK, later on loyalists are willing to use violence against the Irish Catholic population and the IRA to achieve that. So that's slightly different than unionist political parties because they don't believe in violence.

They would argue to achieve their objectives. But loyalists are from the same like Ulster Protestant community, if we called it that. for British Protestant people there. Now, what's interesting with them, some of this discrimination we talked about, you know, you had to own a house or you had to be the rent-payer to vote, it affected them some of the working-class Protestants as well. But the unionist, that mentality, again, we can't give an inch, because if we give an inch, we'll end up in an all-Ireland Catholic, and we'll all be discriminated again. So you've got the government, plus then who are controlling the police force, the Belfast government, controlling the police force, the

are you see and that behavior. And then the British government, you know, as the overarching ministrates a rule in Northern Ireland, because it has similar to devolution today, you know, and I always use the example with students. If the Senev in Wells said, right, everyone with blue eyes in Wells can't have a job anymore, the Westminster can shut it down tomorrow. It has the power to do that. It's the same in this period. But what it was trying to walk a tightrope a little bit with what we don't want, and I think this goes into the part of the British Army's ethos early in the conflict. We do not want an Israel-Palestine Mark II situation where we're caught in the middle, like they were in the 1940s, and killed by both sides. So we have to push Ulster Protestants

to reform and give civil rights as much as possible, but not to the point. We therefore push them into rebellion against us as well, alongside potentially Irish Catholic population. So that was the situation that stood. And I do think, yeah, because this is the year as civil rights, the British government was well aware. We have to remedy the civil rights issues because if we don't, then internationally we're going to look a little bit, potentially a bit of a pariah as well, allowing this to go on. And obviously, the American infants would be key here. The Irish Catholics and politicians from that background would be used in their contacts to America to draw attention to this to put pressure on the British government as well.

So the first chunk of 1969 is vital. Belfast very much sort of modelled on the Selma Montgomery March in Alabama, just a couple years before. That was attacked all on the route. It became pretty obvious that the police were sort of favouring those Protestants and occasionally turning a blind eye, that kind of thing. Tell me about the Battle of the Bogside. There's various of these kind of flashpoints. At the Battle of the Bogside at this point, in fairness to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland at that point, the Storm in the Storm of Government, they all seen in this party, is a guy called Captain Terence O'Neill. He'd started, in my view, because the British government and put massive pressure on him to do so, to start putting some of these reforms in place,

like, you know, one person, one vote, not based on, you know, rent or whether someone's a property owner, etc. That march, you mentioned the kind of copying Selma to Montgomery March in early 16, which was led by more radical elements within the civil rights movement, but to try and force the pace. It caused problems for O'Neill because he was trying to pass the reforms, but there were hardline elements within the OSCEUNAs party. Yeah, we're saying, don't give an inch because this is what's going to happen and this is not a civil rights movement. It's the United Ireland Front. It's just a new front to the IRA.

So what then happened by the time you got to the Battle of the Bulk side. So this is great where we're discussed in the history across the episode because every summer in Derry and across various parts of Northern Ireland, there's various marching season which commemorates for the Orange

Order linked to William of Orange for the British Protestant population, the victories they had over the Irish Catholic population in the past. You know, you're establishing British Protestantism, the monarchy in rule on the island of Ireland. So in summer in Derry, there is a march which was to do with the siege of Derry in 1989 and it being relieved by William of Orange. So they have this march. Because of the background tensions of the civil rights and people that happen, the Protestant population is involved in the Orange Order would march on the city walls.

The Irish Catholic Bogside area, particularly beneath the city walls, if people go there, you can still see this today. the kind of boggy land and yeah the tensions because of the civil rights and just generally the Irish Catholic population not being that appreciative of the orange order for obvious reasons just got again little bits of skirmish and some stone throwing etc what then happened is that the elements of loyalists so Ulster Protestant more radicals you want to call it that they decided to go into the bogside area said right we'll have a face off and we'll stop this stone throwing etc elements it's not all, but elements of the IUC and the security services, there's a couple of backups

of the IUC, something called the Ulster Special Conservatory, the Irish Nationalist Catholics would call it the B Specials, which was almost like 99 to 100% Protestant, and it was kind of like to the extent an armed paramilitary, a very old discipline. So they got involved in fighting with the marches. This time, the Irish Catholics living in the bogside stuck up barricade, and they were ready with petrol bombs. And yeah, and this went on for days and days, and it spread because what were the civil rights marches and those involved in the Battle of the Box side as it was called that area

put out a call to Breverin in Belfast and other parts of Irish Nationalist Northern Ireland to do the same kind of thing. In Belfast it led to mixed areas particularly by also Protestant burning out Irish Catholic homes in mixed areas the British troops had to enter because it was pretty obvious

that at that point the Stormont Austin British Protestant government and the IUC had lost total control of the situation. So the British Army are now on the streets of Northern Ireland. And the sort of really nuance bit is that then the British Army are not there to fight a counterinsurgency against Irish Catholic Republicans. And I don't think that the British political and military leadership did not want that

to be the case, did they? I mean, they're there to sort of try and ensure the rule of law whilst the British government is pushing the Northern Irish government to offer more concessions to write some of the historical injustice. How do you see the thinking in that deployment? Yes, exactly. To begin with, it was reluctant, and it was reluctant in the sense that, again, it goes back to the history we talked about. The British government, and therefore its own forces, did not want direct entanglement with Irish politics again. And it didn't want it for a few reasons. One, because they tried this when you had a franchise and various parts of the Irish population

voting, as we talked about in the early 1900s, he ended up with a home rule thing, almost a civil war. And then, obviously, the Irish War of Independence, and they thought we would not want direct involvement in Irish affairs again because of it. The second reason why, for Westminster, the government, is just because there's no vote. I mean, I know we've had exceptions to the recent periods where, like, Treason-Ais and the government was propped up by unionists in London under the Brexit period from 2017 was at 2019. But that's quite rare because we have a first past the post system voting for Westminster election. So very rarely do parties from Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland's today, what has 18 MPs and the 600 plus MPs, very rarely, even if

the government fell short, the majority, they're going to rely on parties from Northern Ireland. So it's not somewhere that electorally has any attraction for Westminster governments to get involved with. Even arguably more important than that. There are no votes on the mainland about Northern Island, right? So no one's vote is swayed in Reading or Glasgow or Cricketh because they wish the British government was firmer in Northern Ireland. Definitely. Yes. We hold the line here. We push the reforms through and hopefully the civil unrest, rather than like any main kind of in terms of your paramilitary groups involving at that point, but this civil unrest between the communities will settle down.

And that's how they approached the situation initially to begin with, definitely. This is the Dan Snow's history, talking about the troubles in Ireland, or coming up. The best spouse for a Habsburg is another Habsburg. That was the motto and the master plan of the family. that through strategic marriages and inbreeding didn't just gain power, they became Europe. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and in a new series on Not Just the Tudors, I'm coming face to face with the emperors, kings and queens who shaped the continent, not to mention their own jaw lines.

Power, scandal and naked ambition. Delve into the dynasty that ruled half the known world on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. For the first time in generations, the British Army was formally sent into Northern Ireland to keep the peace. Soldiers patrolled the streets of Derry in Belfast, and that marked the beginning of a military presence that would last nearly 40 years. Why Britain sent the army sent troops into Northern Ireland remains one of the most contentious part in this long and very complicated story. The decision wasn't taken lightly. For Westminster, it was meant to be a temporary measure.

They did not have any interest in British troops slogging around the streets of Northern Ireland when there was a lot else going on in the world. Soldiers were deployed to restore law and order to protect Catholic neighborhoods from loyalist mobs and support the Northern Irish government, which was close to collapse. So they're trying to please all parties here in the conflict. And these core goals are odds with each other. It wasn't clear whose side these soldiers were on. Catholics hoped the army would protect them from the law.

and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the police force of the Ulster government, unionists thought the army obviously would uphold their authority. Trying to satisfy both sides was impossible. So there was rioting in place like Derry and Belfast, and the army struggled to contain the unrest, and it became clear it wouldn't be just there for days and weeks. It was drawn deeper into policing Northern Ireland and actually dealing with that brewing insurgency. As the situation worsened, while it led to a cycle of violence. And we see at this point the rise of violence. And we see at this point the rise of the so-called provisional IRA. And we see acts by the provisional IRA, we see loyalist paramilitary retaliation, and on and on and on. Welcome to the decades-long troubles. That sort of doesn't

last. And by 1970, there are what looks like kinetic operations against the IRA, right? So more of that counterinsurgency. And that comes through, really, because of two things that the unionist government still exists, it's not a paroched, it's not suspended in Belfast, the devolved government they keep in business until March 1972. So you think the conflict starts for August 969, so it's another two for a year, on top. And the reason that is, and it gives us an insight into, you know, how's the British army getting more drawn into a conflict maybe with the Irish nationalist population to begin with, the Irish Catholic population, as we want to call it that, is essentially just because of the fact that unionist government is still convinced that the civil rights movement

is part of some kind of plot to draw Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Republic, so it's dragging its heels a little bit with some of the reforms. The British government's got to be careful in the army at this point. We do not want to get dragged into a conflict between both sides, and that means, for example, if we force for all civil rights and we force for all these changes in Ulster Protestants, will loads of them start going to a legal paramilitary organisation. There was also a fear, like, what about all these Ulster Protestants we've had in the RUC

and the British security services in Northern Ireland or the B specials, if we demobilised them and just back them and bow them from employment again, the ones we felt were involved in some of this trouble, where are they going to go? They'll join probably illegal loyalist paramilitaries and then potentially they'll be attacking the troops. So what then happens, I think, early on,

that kind of unionist paranoia then has an influence on British forces. And the classic example of this is something called like the Falls Road curfew in 1970. The Falls Road now is a, and it was at this point, the heavy Irish nationalist area, but particularly an Irish-Republican area, different between those two terms, just blame the listeners. Irish nationalists, someone who wants United Island, that's happy for it in the long-term via political means. An Irish Republican in this period, pre-1998, believes in the use of violence, you know, or the armed method to try and get an all-arlanded Republic and it'd be at the AP. And so what happened to the Falls Road curfew is British troops went in, had a curfew, and they searched houses. is they did find some weapons, but actually, you know, there's been British generals, etc.

written books after and said, yeah, but actually all we did was make some people probably fences in the community, we're not necessarily backing Republican, end up backing them. But the reason that search happens because the United States Protestant government influence the British government to allow it, probably more based on paranoia than actual danger from that area at that point. But the second thing that's happening with the British army, and partly this is because of a change of government in London with the Edward Heath government coming. in, there is more of a belief that we've got to be careful here because if also Protestants

resisting the changes we've said, and they then have an uprising, we're stuck in the middle. And a particular moment that's often, I think, overlooked. It was really key in this. We go back just a little bit to end of 1969. Lord Hunt was asked to do a review about the security services in Northern Ireland, the security forces, and what have they been doing or had they been discriminatory. He released a look called the Hunt Report in the winter months in 1969. He called for the spanding of the B specials, so totally getting rid of that backup for the IUC, because he said they were sectarian pro-British Protestant.

He also said the disarming of the IUC. Now, this never happened because of the conflict. But from an Ulster British Protestant perspective, this was a nightmare, and for them said that, look, the British government is teaming up with Irish Republicans as it reports us, again, like into Northern Ireland, So there's some riots in the heavily British Protestant Shankill Road area, Belfast. And what happened is in our UC officers that were shot there, but there was a lot of skirmishes

between the army and loyalists. And this sent kind of shockwaves, I think, through the, I think British Army and government, they thought, hang on here, we've got to be careful because in their heads, we're going to get caught in a two-front war. And in a sense, I think that leads to this ethos that, no, let's focus on essentially troublemaking in the Irish nationalist population, the re-emergence of the IRA and we'll crush that. And that will be the route to solving the tensions where they believe that would balance things out so they wouldn't be faced by two front war. It doesn't work out quite as smoothly as that. You mentioned that the Falls Road curfew. There's a full-on firefight. There's people killed. There's people discharging

automatic weapons in the streets. It's extraordinary. Does that reach ahead in January 972 with the infamous Bloody Sunday? Yes, and the background of the Bloody Sunday as well, a really key thing is internment without trial was brought in in August 1971 by the Unionist government in Belfast. So in terms of trial is pretty much what it says on the tin.

You can intern someone without putting it with a trial with the internment camped that up. Now, in theory, that could have lowered tension if two things. One, it was introduced with the Irish government at the same time, north and south of the border, because otherwise if people from Irish Republican background run off to the south, well, they're not going to be interned.

And that did happen during a brief small little IRA campaign in 1950. But at this point, the Irish government was not willing to introduce intern without trial because it said, well, you've got discrimination in the north and you've been discriminating against northern Catholics who live in Northern Ireland. There's no way we're going to introduce interment about trial until you settle those problems up north. That was one disadvantage for internment. The other problem was that in the first evening of internment, in orbit of 1971, about 300 people were interned, over half a release because most of them

weren't even in the IRA or champagne. Some of them were just in the civil rights movement, so it looked anti-Irish Catholic or anti-Irish nationalities. And also, no Ulster Protestants were initially interned. And some of these had been involved in the UVF, the Ulster Volunteer Force, an illegal paramilitary terrorist organisation, so what people would call them. And the other issue of internment was, it wasn't just like the Falls Road curfew, wasn't just in one place in Belfast. It was across the whole of Northern Ireland. And now you'd had a way of antagonizing and irritating various Irish nationalities community. When you then get to Bloody Sunday in Derry in January, 1972,

so this background is useful because there was a civil rights march, but they were marching against internment that day in Derry City. And what happened, Derry generally up to that point, a lot of the real bouts of the conflict, if you like, between the different sides were in Belmont. self-fast focus at that point. So Derry obviously had been the site of the civil rights dispute. But at that point, there was no particular faction of like the IRA that had emerged as kind of dominant and really driving a conflict there. And partly some of that was because one of the

Irish Catholic local, one of the exceptions, it was in the RUC, they had driven the kind of security policy where they'd been barricaded up in dairy, don't go in heavy-handed to try and remove them, basically have negotiations with the local people of that part of the population. population plus the IRA to see if we can get them to agree to remove barricades or agree to some other contingentary gesture. What happened by January 19702 is elements of the British army and certain regiments that have been in Belfast taking a tough approach said this approach need to be taken at dairy. It's ridiculous to allow bits of the state in what a nationalist in the bog style called free dairy to basically opt out live under barricade. They argue it's

and the IRA to grow. So this is all commonating when you get to this anti-interment march by the civil rights movement in Derry at the end of January in 1972. And what happened is the army units are involved on the day decided we're going to have a snatch an arrest operation of certain people who turn up to civil rights movement may well be in the IRA and they start stone throwing or petrol bomb throwing at the army. But what then happened is when the, as we know from the 2010 Lord Saville's inquiry by the British government. 14 unarmed civilians were shot dead

to civil rights marches. 13 died all the day and one died later. And Saville's verdict was these people were not posing a threat to British security forces on that day in that area. The problem was then compounded because at the time, just shortly afterward, Edward Heath's government did allow Lord Widry

to do a report about what happened. But Lord Widry's report was quite quick in nature, which I mean essentially wasn't that thorough when we consider Lord Sable's report was over a decade after the 1998 peace agreement coming to fruitation. And Widry's blamed the civil rights marchion. So it just led to a mushroom in growth in the IRA in that area in recruitment. And it kind of really was the cornerstone at that point and policy changed slightly to this more overt security operation approach by the British Army.

say avert, so it wasn't necessarily just targeting known IRA members or suspected. There was an acceptance at least that the rest of the Irish nationalist population might get caught up in some of these things, whether they were in the IRA or not. And that was kind of, yeah, led to the dynamics of the conflict increasing, really. The British government got rid of the Northern Irish Parliament and assumed direct control a little bit later in 1972. Is that an acceptance that this problem is now just growing and growing? You cannot leave it to this devolved administration. You have to run this from London. I think it was a few things. Yes, I think that's absolutely right. One thing it was doing

was it was an attempt to shift the blame, really, and somewhat for Bloody Sunday that it knew there were major ramifications for this. So it had to be seen to do something to it would appeal the Irish nationalist population. Plus, we should add in the Irish government at this point. The Irish government was upset outraged by things such as Bloody Sunday, as were its population. I mean, the British embassy in Dublin got burned down shortly after by protesters. because of bloody Sunday. But the second point is, I think it was an attempt at this point where Edward Heath had the Northern Ireland's Sectorate Estate,

William Whitelaw came in, and William Whitelaw, Phil Conservatives, and said, we've got to make an effort to try and appease the moderate part of the Irish Catholic community. So that included a party that then existed called the Social Democratic and Labor Party, the FDLP, was later led by John Hume, who some litters may know, who was a noble peace-fries winner for the peace protest. And their argument, these are largely, the SDLP were the main, and throughout most of the conflict, about 60% the Irish Catholic population backs them.

And they did want United Ireland in a longer term, but in the short term, they accepted there'd have to be some agreement where Northern Ireland was there in the UK, but the civil rights issue needed to be sorted. An Irish Catholic part of the population needed to be given some political autonomy within the Northern Ireland area. There's attempt to appease them getting rid of stolen because they didn't like it either. it was attempt to peace the Irish government because the Irish government and the SDLP

pretty much on the same hymn sheet on terms of what they thought of the situation and it was, yeah, the British government's attempt to try and, yeah, woo or win them over to some kind of more reconcilatory political initiative in Northern Ireland which is actually the trial with power sharing overall. Did the British government do things on the ground

around social housing, employment rights, things like that, that did address some of those civil rights issues? Yes, and acts were put through from the late 60s into the 70s and 80s about some of the discrimination that had happened. And, you know, largely for majority, like 50 to 60 percent, the Irish Catholic community were fairly content with that and the changes that been made. And then there's a question like, okay, why doesn't this solve the conflict? Why does, you know, the IRA's campaign continue right into the 1990s? Some of that was just essentially the damage you've been done, partly by what happened with things such as by the Sunday or internment we talked about and the whole like civil rights problems in the first place.

And it was hard to reconcile some people back to changes that were then later made. But the second point as well is that actually in the 70s and large parts of the 80s, some of the act that came in, things to do with examples, quotas at work, institutions, etc., with public or private employment, about, you know, how much of the workforce should be Irish Catholic background or the Protestant and how do you monitor there? At first, the British government didn't necessarily in all these areas make it a statutory, it made it, you know, recommendations by acts of parliament. And actually later on, the Irish government, SDP, and then later on, Sinn Féin, but probably the IRA pushed that, no, this has to be made by legislation. It has to be put in and a monitor by the Ombudsman that there's not discrimination going in. So, yes, they did make those changes quite early on in the convict, but probably too late from the just, you know, placating the majority of the civil rights movement view.

But then there were still disputes going on really into the 90s about things like fair employment and non-sectarian appointment of people into businesses or public institutions, that that should be statutory and it should be actually made illegal by organisations to do that. And I guess the other problem is that it's very easy to start wars, it's very difficult to end them. And they take on a dynamic of their own. And once you get tip-for-tat violence, bombings, assassinations, some of those political disputes can be forgotten and the war just has its own dynamic. Definitely. And I think some of the events we talked about on all sides, really, some of the, you know, kind of stand out largely in the scrobinate measures by, say, the British Security Services at the beginning or the British Army specifically, I Bloody Sunday, that has a last and impact. And then on the, you know, vice versa, some of the things, for example, the IRA do or Protestant paramilitaries do. So UVF or Oster Volunteer, also Defense Association is another big one, UDA. Some of the things these do then can lead to inspirations of violence.

from the other side. And I think the key thing, when we look at like Irish republicanism, it allowed the IRA to sustain what it did for so long and the motivation to do so, I mean, there were people in the movement who were long-term Irish Republicans, and they had been since, you know, the 1920s for their families and they felt their partition was wrong, and that go back to 1918, that Sinn Féin, the IRA,

they would say legitimately, or Sinn Féin at that point, won the Westminster election, and they said they were going to declare independent republic, and the British government got rid of it, and then didn't allow for Ireland to be a republic and the treaty negotiations in the 20th, so was that. But actually for a lot of people who joined the IRA in Sinn Féin, their view of anti-partitionism comes really from the civil rights dispute.

And that, plus the way the civil rights movement was treated, largely by the union, this government, later on, by British forces they would have seen involved in that. There's a debate now, like in history where the FDLP, so John Hume's old party would say, Sinn Fain today claims it was part of the civil rights. rights movement. It wasn't the United Island movement. It's trying to rewrite history. And then Sinn Féin would counter that and say, well, we partly were at civil rights

movement. And I think the truth of this is actually just in my view, somewhere in between because of the fact that in fairness to most people who would be in the IRA and Sinn Féin, the difference between them and the SDRP, the SDRP people believe we can work with the British government, we can work with the British government, we can work with the Irish government within the Northern Ireland state in the short term, at least, have civil rights, and therefore the United Ireland thing could be parts or later. But in an IRA and Sinn Féin viewpoint, civil rights in the United Island were the same thing. They thought you can't have civil rights living in any

part of the British state on the island of Ireland. So you have to have United Island. And that's essentially just a different type of opinion they had. It explains why, you know, were some people willing to, you know, sustain the IRA's campaign as long as they did. There'll be more on Down Snow's history about the troubles in Ireland coming up after this. The best spouse for a Habsburg is another Habsburg. That was the motto and the master plan of the family

that through strategic marriages and, inbreeding, didn't just gain power. They became Europe. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and in a new series on Not Just the Tudors, I'm coming face to face with the emperors, kings and queens who shaped the continent, not to mention their own jaw lines. Power, scandal and naked ambition. Delve into the dynasty that ruled half the known world

on not just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. The rivalry between these two visions would define nationalist politics throughout the troubles. And in many ways it was as better as the conflict with unionism. The SDLP's condemnation of violence and focus on equality in here and now clashed with Sinn Féin's defence of the IRA's armed resistance. As Thomas said, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the SDLP was the dominant nationalist party in it took part in negotiations like the Sunningdale Agreement in 1973, which proposed a power sharing and a council of Ireland. Sinn Féin and the IRA opposed all that fiercely. The unionist opposition opposed it too. In fact, they killed it.

bizarrely, the irony is in the long run, the SDLP's vision would prevail, and Sinn Féin have been the beneficiaries, because Sinn Féin eventually succeeded at the ballot box, and have had a stake in ruling Northern Ireland ever since. But that all came from their acceptance of a path that was much closer to the one that John Hume and the SDLP had always advocated for. But in the early 1970s, that was very far from certain. The years that followed saw the violence reach a terrifying crescendo. me ends up fighting a massive campaign of counterinsurgency, one of the biggest deployments since the Second World War in its own territory. You're supplying police stations at place like Cross

McGlen, which I've been to a couple of times, had to be done by helicopter. I mean, it's just an extraordinary thing. And the IRA detonated on the 21st of July, 972, 22 bombs in Belfast in one day. What's an idea here? When does this really look like a hot war? Yeah, I would definitely say 1972 is definitely the kind of standout moment of this So there's a couple of reasons for that First of all, that in the two main cities

And certainly in like counter-insurgency doctrine British Army, the American army would use places like Vietnam You know, the belief was, I don't necessarily think this is actually Accra, but the general belief was you start having real problems When in the capital city of the major cities You've got an armed uprising by insurgents Because again, if these groups takeover cities, certainly in terms of PR on an international level, it looks like you've lost total control. So, yeah, there was certainly an ethos very early on.

We cannot allow, if possible, the IRA to grow and establish the campaigns in the cities. But then some of the things we just talked about, like Bloody Sunday, certainly in dairy, it allowed the IRA to mushroom and grow in dairy city. And unlike Peter Taylor's books, when he's done some really fascinating work about different aspects of the conflict. But I think he says, I can't remember the exact figure, but there's about 20 out of 150 shops left in Derry City Centre by 1975, because the IRA totally blitzed the city centre consistently. So in a sense, it caused more problems. So 1972, we really see that starting to rise in the city. The conflict spread, didn't it? I mean, there was some attempt by loyalists to strike targets in the Republic of Ireland. and then there were IRA attacks in Britain itself. How were they attempting to change things in Northern Ireland

by reaching beyond the borders? Okay, yeah. So we're doing loyalists first because you mentioned that. So Loyalists, British Protestant paramilitary. Their ethos of attacking places in the Republic of Ireland was simple enough that they felt it would have an effect on the IRA. They felt that anyone who might be backing Sinn Féinni IRA and the Republic it will get a message, don't, because we can come down there and attack you.

It was also aimed at the Irish government. There was a standout example of a loyalist attacks with something called the Dublin, Monaghan, Monaghan, in May 1974. 30 plus people die in bombings in Dublin and Monaghan. Monaghan is the town by the border on the same day. This is actually the largest number of people killed in single linked incidents on the whole of the conflict on a single day. But there were quite a few of these loyalist attacks,

and they're often not known about around the border areas. And I'm more sad about it as well as actually the Irish citizens who died that their own government in the 70s and 80s and the Republic of Ireland just kind of forgot about them. And I think from my own work, it's just a sense that if you complain or push back too much, and these loyalists might visit rain down more violence from the north to the south. And I do think those types of attacks did lead to the Irish government, yeah, backing off a little bit in terms of wanting some political influence in Northern Ireland, probably to the mid-80s. That's why Loyalists did it, because that was the purpose of it, is to put the Irish government off directly having a say over Northern Irish affairs. And then the second question, right, so the IRA's campaign in England, I mean, the IRA's thinking with this is that we've got to remember this is an area before 24 hour news. Now, a bomb in like County Toronto, Fermanagh today probably would make like BBC New 24 other news outlets or Sky News, etc.

Now, back then when you just had the 9 o'clock news, because of the daily kind of grinded, the conflict. These attacks just didn't really resonate anymore, certainly on like British media. So the thinking for them was, he used to have a phrase of Republicans used as like one bomb in England was worth 10 in Ireland. So in other words, that particularly if you were attacking places like in London and economic target, it would grab attention. The IRA's like overall thinking with the conflict key here as well. And you didn't necessarily, particularly from the late 70s, have to escalate what you're doing. If you just kept killing British soldiers, all you see, officers hit an economic targets, etc. Eventually, they believed that, you know, people in England,

Scotland, Wales and Britain would press their government to leave, would say we should leave here because the cost is not worth it. You know, in this thinking, partly where they picked this up from was the Vietnam War and that what was happening between like the Vietnam Kong and the American army. Of course, the situation is a bit different there because of America as a conscript army of Vietnam. It overlooked that a little bit. But that was a genuine belief. that it would lead the UK public to wanting to leave, that England and Scotland and Wales public to say, let's just put it out and just leave Northern Ireland to it.

By the time we get to the mid-90s, it's got galloping ahead here, I'm afraid, folks. Obviously, you've got the Birmingham pub bombings. We've got Margaret Thatcher targeted in Brighton, which kills five people. She was incredibly lucky to escape with her life. But by the mid-1990s, you've got these really big bombs.

City of London, the Canary Wharf bomb. We now know that they were really very, very close to a, a genuine ceasefire and peace negotiations while that was going on. So that was the IRA demonstrating strength whilst in those negotiations. Yes. And what it all goes back to, and we see this fascinatingly in backchannel talks that were going on in the background between Sinn Féin leaderships like Jerry Adams, Martin Gaines, Jerry Kelly, and the British government. And this would be done by intermediaries, 5, somewhere my 6, and then Republicans have their own intermediaries as well. But what we see in the back and forth is, in the 90s, fascinatingly, when John Major's

government would say, well, if you have a ceasefire, we can talk about these things much more at length and in more detail and really hammer some of the point down, Republicans get very suspicious and they'll say, well, what's on offer here? What is on offer if we call a ceasefire in the 90s? And they keep referring back to 1975 and they said, they'd say to the British government, And don't forget, we haven't forgot that you messed us about in 1975. What they're referring to, there was a couple of IRA's seat fires. There was one in 1972, and William Whitelaw undercover, et cetera, flew the IRA and Republican leadership over to London, talks in Chelsea, and the talks just broke down quite quickly.

In 1975, there was another attempt to build the conflict involving the Republican movement at that point, Harold Wilson's government. And they had quite lengthy negotiations over most of 1975, the end of 1974, was back channel talks, between Irish Republican representatives and then British government representatives, again, largely MI5 or MI6. And what was discussed at those points, there was discussions about, you know, would Northern Ireland potentially become like an independent state, or would it become part of the Commonwealth, you know, to try and keep unionists and Republicans happy? Was there a midway measure? But the Republican leadership at that point, who negotiated that ceasefire,

generally didn't tell very much to the grassroots. They just told the IRA volunteers or Sinn Féin kind of grassroots members were sorting this out and we'll get some form of British withdrawal or disengagement if they kept calling it. So when that didn't materialise, the leadership who later took over, so again people like Martin McGuinness or Jerry Adams for the overall Republican leadership, there was a lesson from them from that and they genuinely believed we've been led up the garden path by the British government in 1975

and we had pleaded with them that we'd really wanted peace. And that is true. If we look at the documents, the Republican leaders in 1975 were definitely saying to the British government, we want this to stop. You've got to give us more towards, you know, an objective Irish unity. But the Republican leadership he took over later, he said like Jerry Adams, might be going to, et cetera, generally believe that if you appeared desperate like that, but of course, in their view, the British government sat back and thought,

well, we're not going to have all these headaches. We'll have to have talking to the IRA. which at that point didn't have a political mandate. So if they're that desperate, they're clearly losing. So we'll just, yeah, continue as we are with a security strategy. And so when you get into the 90s, that's the thinking that, you know, you have to, when you go to talks, you can make it clear you want peace. You also, to an extent, talk like war and conflict at the same time

and enact that to make sure the person opposite you doesn't think that, yeah, you're desperate and yourself or anything. Why do we see peace in the mid to late 90s? What changed? The American attitude changes? Do people just war-weary? What's the reason? Yeah, I think in my view, the key factor is an armed and political stalemate between all sides.

And in terms of the kind of hot conflict, what's actually happening on the kind of military front, the IRAs continues to persist. And it's running a low-level intensity campaign, has piqued and trust at certain times and stand-out events, they're able to conduct. So that's a problem for like the British government, the Irish government, unionists and other players in the conflict and peace process because you think, well, this isn't going to stop. We can enact some more security measures. But if we enact things that are overt too much again and a non-discriminatory, we end up by bloody Sundays or internments again. And then the IRA gets more support. So they were just kind of stuck. And particularly if, you know, the British government decides it doesn't want to go, I don't know, and do something that we've seen in recent years like, I don't know, Sri Lankan government did. the Tamil Tigers and have an outright conflict where a lot of civilians die, but then you're in big trouble with international organisations because it's probably broken en masse like human rights rules, etc. So that was part of it. The other key part of it is what was happening on the political front. Schimphain's winning roughly in Northern Ireland, about 35 to 40% the Irish Catholic vote consecutively from 1981. Now, to put that in context, when people voted for Schimphane in the 80s

the 90s. They were absolutely categorically, if you vote for the Sinn Féin, you vote for the IRA. It wasn't as if people didn't know this was happening. When you think about it, that's actually in a sizable minority of that population backing Sinn Féin. So that was a real headache for like the British Irish government unionists, because let alone have they got this persistent IRA campaign, you know, they're not going to go away in politics. They're there all the time. And if you wanted a permanent as possible political solution, you probably have. had to involve Sinn Féin in the IRA because of the percentage of support it had. And I just think that, but if you flip it on the other side for Sinn Féin in the IRA,

yes, they've got a sizable minority support. Yes, they can assist with the IRA's campaign. Where are these things going to? Other ways are just stuck in perpetual conflict. So I think for everyone, really, you just reach this stalemate situation where trying to work our political solution seemed the kind of optimum solution to go for. And I think the last point I would say as well, just with Sinn Féin is, you know, Ultimately, one of the things they wanted, they got out of the political settlement, is that the British government accepted that some form of Irish self-determination was allowed in future. And it wasn't exactly in the end of what we get in the peace agreement as Sinn Fény

IRA wanted, because they wanted the 32 county, the whole of Ireland, the vote as one unit, which, of course, the British government units weren't going to accept. But the British government did accept and say, yes, in the future, both parked of Ireland separately, but concurrently, same-day referendum, but they have to both say, yes, could they have a unification boat, and it's not a Western business business, what the decision of that referendum is other than to implement whatever the decision was. And that was quite key. So, you know, with loyalism as well and republicanism, they did have, you know, nationalist or separatist objectives that are things that are tangible that governments can negotiate with. We should say the peace process was

certainly not smooth and there was the actual worst single instant of the troubles Omar bombing in August 98 that killed 29 people. That was a splinter group, so called Real IRA. But let's finish if we can and what bits of peacemaking? So what things are in that Good Friday Agreement that were innovative or new?

And you mentioned the big one there, which is just that essential recognition by Westminster of the sovereignty of the people of the island of island to make that eventual decision. Was there anything else clever? You know, people living in Northern Ireland could be Irish citizens or whatever it might be. What are the bits that stand out to you in that agreement?

I would say, you know, number one, as we said, reiterating that, self-determination is really key. Because if part of the IRA's purpose was about getting Irish self-determination, you solved that. It wasn't exactly as they wanted, but they could still sell it to their own movement, that we've got that. So I think the self-determination point was really key because it means that for the governments involved, the Irish and British governments can argue to group to maybe, you know, still use violence or want to use violence, that an armed method, but well, but there's a democratic path to do this. So I think that's a key point. Second key point, the power sharing set up, two points to this, because it ensured that you tried to get all the parties working together. Now, in fairness to Northern Ireland

government, as we've probably seen, it collapsed as quite a lot over, say, the last 25 years, etc. Now, there are backup options that if the government collapsed it is, it usually goes to direct rule under Westminster, and then the Irish government, because the various agreements between the British and Irish government in the 80s, it's allowed to have a say on what, you know, consults the role with the British government. You generally keep kind of satisfaction for both in the main communities in Northern Ireland in that period, but there's also an incentive there because you want to get rid of direct role, then you have to out-share again. That probably means you have to compromise. And so that seems quite a sensible system of government.

Definitely the point that you said as well about allowing people dual nationality and people can in Northern Ireland be British, Irish or other, and they can choose what they want to do. maybe see this sometimes in sport. You'll have people who are born in Northern Ireland or play for like the Republic of Ireland or people sometimes less though. These sometimes do get it. People in the Republic might play for Northern Ireland. And I think that's important because people then don't feel like their identity and their culture is being diminished or you know, being put second place to a dominant culture. I think that's really key. I think just the fourth element as well is really important about the Good Friday Peace Agreement in Northern Ireland.

It tried to, and the reason I think it succeeded where other attempts failed in Northern Ireland in the 70s in particular, it tried to include as many parties as possible, including those with the paramilitary wings, so like the IRA and the loyalists. You know, when you try to include as many people at the table as possible and take all views and then based on mandates to try and work out compromising solutions, no one's exactly really satisfied with what you get, but no one's mega disappointed either because they fill their viewpoint. that you've been listened to. And I think it just shows that, yeah, trying to have an inclusive process, it can help to try and remedy some of the grievances that are there. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, that's all, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening. That's the long and

complicated story of the troubles from the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. As you've just heard, though, this is an ongoing story. There are future chapters yet to be written. But as they're now written, I hope you'll have a reasonable understanding of the context. These two episodes are giving you a strong foundation for what's coming next. Thank you to our amazing guest, Tireless. What a legend, Thomas Lehi. Thanks to all for listening. If you want some more explainers to help you make sense of the history that has shaped our world, make sure you hit follow in our podcast player to get more like this from me on Dan Snow's History. Thank you very much for listening, as always. That's all, folks.

Thank you.