Brian Hanley on ‘A Missed Opportunity for Peace?’ in 1975. Talk at the Loyola Institute, Trinity College, Dublin, on December 9th, 2024.

Firstly I want to thank the organisers for the opportunity to speak on this subject. I broadly agree with Niall Ó Dochartaigh’s analysis about the seriousness with which the Provisional IRA leadership approached these talks.* I think the sincerity of both Ruairí Ó Bradaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill regarding the potential of contacts with northern Protestants has been underestimated, perhaps because of the later political trajectory of both men (they were founding members of the Continuity IRA).

I also think at least some of their contemporaries in the 1974 IRA leadership wanted to call a halt to the war. Nevertheless I think that any talks process would have been fraught and faced severe pressures, even if the Special Branch had not interrupted the initial meeting. Loyalism had just brought down power sharing the previous May (during which 33 people had been killed by bombs in Dublin and Monaghan) and was in no mood for compromise.

Indeed groups such as the UVF and the UDA escalated their campaigns during 1975, which were particularly intense in Belfast and parts of rural mid-Ulster. That the Provisionals declared a ceasefire was obviously significant, but a modern audience might take for granted that this meant most violence ceased. But it did not. Over 260 people would be killed during 1975.

The Loyalists, as I mentioned, actually increased their activities. Pubs in nationalist areas were routinely bombed and Catholics targeted on their way to work or at their homes. July saw the Miami Showband massacre, which involved serving UDR soldiers as well as the UVF. Bomb attacks south of the border continued as well, with people killed at Dublin Airport and in Dundalk.

Republicans were under huge pressure to respond and it is clear that the Provisional IRA, at least, did so on several occasions, carrying out clearly sectarian retaliations against Protestant civilians in Belfast. The IRA also continued their attacks in England, particularly in London.

Nationalist areas also saw two bouts of inter-republican feuding; during the spring the Official IRA moved against a recent breakaway group which was becoming the INLA. There were shootings across the country but the worst violence was in Belfast where five were killed and dozens injured.

The city was traumatised again in November when the Provisionals (formally on ceasefire remember) launched a major assault on the Officials. Ultimately 11 people (including a six-year old girl) would be killed and over 50 wounded, in what the Irish Times called the ‘worst fighting between republicans since the Civil War.’

The violence also reflected severe divisions within the Provisionals about their ceasefire. In South Armagh the local Provos killed several British soldiers during 1975. A significant group of IRA prisoners, including Gerry Adams and Brendan Hughes, were sceptical about the ceasefire and saw it as a British ruse to weaken (in their view) an out of touch and mainly southern leadership.

But a further problem with these talks was the hostility of the Irish government to them. The Fine Gael/Labour administration believed it faced an existential threat from republican subversion and events during 1974 had only intensified that feeling. Armed robberies, largely carried out by republicans, were occurring on a near daily basis, with uniformed Gardai shot at or otherwise assaulted.

Bombs were left close to business premises owned by Irish government ministers. There were breakouts from both Mountjoy and Portlaoise prisons. The humiliation was increased by the chart success of songs celebrating these events.

Portlaoise saw recurring clashes between prisoners and staff, with troops firing rubber bullets to quell a riot there in late 1974. The army was routinely used to back up Gardai and fatal tragedies were only narrowly averted on a couple of occasions when soldiers opened fire at check points. During 1975 however a republican prisoner would be shot dead during another attempted escape at Portlaoise, while that prison also saw a 44-day hunger strike.

Most significantly as far as the government were concerned, in March 1974 the Provisional IRA had murdered Senator Billy Fox in Monaghan. For leading members of Fine Gael, not least Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave, this raised the spectre of the Civil War. Though many members of the cabinet differed on detail (few were as ideologically anti-nationalist as Labour’s Conor Cruise O’Brien) they all believed that the major threat to the state came from the Provos. (Though ironically the Justice Finlay report into state security that year had actually identified the Officials as the main threat.)

The government response, increased security, censorship and what critics saw as a dismissive attitude towards civil liberties further divided southern opinion. The Irish government also considered that ‘perfidious Albion’, in the shape of the British Labour government might just withdraw and leave them to deal with the fall-out from a resulting civil war.

A Garda intelligence assessment during 1975 drew parallels with the Palestinian refugee crisis in Lebanon in the event of the British pulling out, with northern nationalists pouring south. The Chief Superintendent who complied the report suggested that these refugees might blame the south for failing to defend them.

Similarly the Defence Forces felt that a major upgrading was needed in case they would ultimately (and they were serious about this) have to make incursions across the border to both protect nationalists and ensure safe passage for refugees. This was not a prospect the government savoured.

It was also sadly true that the widespread southern sympathy for northern nationalists, evident between 1969-72, had dissipated. Now more and more southerners felt that ‘the North’ should be left to its own devices. While not all would have agreed with Cruise O’Brien that northern nationalists were ‘tough, violent and virtually ungovernable’ they were more likely to fear the consequences of a British withdrawal rather than celebrate it. All of these factors, unfortunately, made a successful outcome of the Feakle talks unlikely.

• see Niall Ó Dochartaigh’s paper below at https://www.truthrecoveryprocess.ie/newsupdates/everyone-trying-the-ira-ceasefire-1975-a-missed-opportunity-for-peace