I have been watching a documentary on the troubles last night and could not help but wander if ex-Yugoslavia style madness was possible in the late '60 and '70 with a PoD following the founding of UVF in 1966. Could the things escalate into a full scale insurgency/civil war with religious clensing? How would the goverment in UK react? Could Northern Ireland become UK's Vietnam?
Northern Ireland WI
- Thread starter Marko
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It wouldn't be a British Vietnam, the IRA for all their evil simply lacked the resources of the NVA, however it could very easily have gotten a lot worse. Enoch Powell and Tony Benn are the two best options, if either had become British PM the results would have been nasty, Powell because he would have cracked down in a very brutal, no holds barred manner unlike the very restrained OTL approach. Tony Benn would have supported a united Ireland which would have resulted in handing the Republic 1 million very angry and very heavily armed Ulstermen, which would probably have been even more bloody.
I remember reading the Tony Benn Diaries and there was a moment where a cab driver who had served in Northern Ireland mentioned him going out with a Catholic girl there and then she was killed by IRA men and mentioned the chaos and sectarianism there between both sides and Benn just thought "we've got to give it back to Ireland" as if he was just thinking that the problem would solve itself if it was the Irish doing it.
Powell's problem would be the opposite in that he'd assume that if the IRA are destroyed then he could move onto the sectarianism but finds that in taking down the IRA he let the Ulster paramilitaries have their merry way, he would also assume that all foreign interference was secretly aiding the enemy and may demand a "with us or with terrorism" attitude in the government.
Operation Armageddon was never a real possibility. The men who planned the operation knew themselves that they had no capability to fight Britain conventionally - Ireland had half a dozen old jets, some World War II surplus howitzers, a couple of armoured vehicles and were severely outmatched in manpower. Britain meanwhile had three thousand troops in Northern Ireland when the plan was put forward, backed by APCs and there were RAF Phantoms and Harriers close enough to deal with any Irish thrust at Derry or Newry. No sane Taoiseach would have allowed such an operation to go forward, since it would only result in the gutting of the Irish armed forces, the jeopardising of Ireland's application to the EEC and the worsening of the situation in the north
As for the OP, I suppose it is possible, but it would be difficult. Despite what some people on the American side of the pond occasionally seem to think the IRA never had the support or resources to turn Northern Ireland into something like Vietnam. Arachnid does make a good point though that Prime Ministers Powell or Benn could have made things a lot worse: Powell by cracking down harder on the IRA (in the process allowing the UVF and all those other lovely chaps to become a great deal worse), Benn by giving the Republic of Ireland (a state far less prepared to handle an insurgency like the one Britain faced) an even worse insurgency
On religious cleansing, one could argue that that did occur to some extent on a very local level. Take for instance my neck of the woods, Newry. Before the Troubles one person in five in Newry was Protestant, and Newry's protestant population was one of Ireland's oldest (with St. Patrick's Church in the town dating back to 1578). Nowadays (depending on who you ask) that population has fallen to something between 9% and 5%. People were forced to flee their homes due to sectarian violence all over the place - Belfast and Derry in particular. But, thankfully, it didn't happen on the scale seen on occasion elsewhere
What would be the reaction of UK armed forces if IRA or whatever the armed forces of nationalist/republican Irish would be called took control over parts of the country, setting up paralel institutions etc... sort of what KLA did in Kosovo and FSA now does in Syria. Will it be more of a Fallujah style crackdown or will the UK increase those 3 000 armed forces and just try to contain the spreading of such areas.
Thanks on all the anwsers so far and I would be glad if you guys could recomend some quality reading on the matter.
Thanks on all the anwsers so far and I would be glad if you guys could recomend some quality reading on the matter.
The IRA were never in a position to be able do that on the scale you suggest here.
The Stasi gave some help to the 'Official IRA', a 1969 Marxist breakaway from the IRA. The Provisionals were worried that having close ties with the Eastern Bloc would harm their American support.
Alex Richards
Donor
Having been to Newry, it certainly felt on edge (possibly being a drizzly day a couple of weeks after the end of the Marching Season didn't portray it in it's best light).
Certainly Dad felt very nervous leaving the car even in a manned car park, and the masses broken glass on the pedestrian route up from the city centre up to St. Peter's didn't help.
Mind you, between the district reorganisation stripping the Town Hall of all symbolic meaning and an abysmal road planning that's rendered the city centre into nothing more than a glorified roundabout in a busy road, Newry's hardly had the best of it.
Actually there were no go zones for brief periods in Londonderry and West Belfast where the writ of the British state did not run and the IRA did set up parallel institutions. Operation Motorman saw 27,000 troops end those no go zones with while killing only two people.
While I agree with Ulster's view of how Operation Armageddon would go (and the Vampires were the trainer versions so most likely even more outclassed,) let alone the issues the Republic would face in mustering the forces to do anything, I do wonder about the EEC issue. Both the UK and Ireland joined at the same time, so it would come down to what the continental nations would think of the issue.
The provisional IRA were a breakaway faction of the official IRA or stickies as they are known. Though not the main reason, but the reason for their increase was the fact when the loyalist mobs ran rampant the phrase was coined in catholic areas IRA I Ran Away.
It should be noted that at its height the Provos had a max strength of 3,500. The majority of whome were in prison. This was around the same size as the loyalist UVF but nothing compared to the other loyalist outfit the UDA with over 30,000 armed men. Much of the troubles was due to weak government in London who were more afraid of the unionists declaring UDI and going over to the Russians.
Mention has been made of two potential hard line possible PM's. Benn and Powell.
Had Benn been in power he would have united the island. Fine. Problem was the unionist government had deployed 15,000+ men to the border. The Irish army would've been defeated in bloody battle. Plus the fact that the unionists also had 4 fully trained infantry battalions and 2 armoured regiments in the British army who would fight for their homeland. In Carrickfergus there were over 200 AFV's available to the unionists.
Mr Powell is on the record as saying if the unionists wanted to be park of the UK then they should be fully integrated and only then would he have taken on the provos. For this attitude both the DUPAnd loyalist gangs possessed a deep dislike for mr Powell.
It should be noted that at its height the Provos had a max strength of 3,500. The majority of whome were in prison. This was around the same size as the loyalist UVF but nothing compared to the other loyalist outfit the UDA with over 30,000 armed men. Much of the troubles was due to weak government in London who were more afraid of the unionists declaring UDI and going over to the Russians.
Mention has been made of two potential hard line possible PM's. Benn and Powell.
Had Benn been in power he would have united the island. Fine. Problem was the unionist government had deployed 15,000+ men to the border. The Irish army would've been defeated in bloody battle. Plus the fact that the unionists also had 4 fully trained infantry battalions and 2 armoured regiments in the British army who would fight for their homeland. In Carrickfergus there were over 200 AFV's available to the unionists.
Mr Powell is on the record as saying if the unionists wanted to be park of the UK then they should be fully integrated and only then would he have taken on the provos. For this attitude both the DUPAnd loyalist gangs possessed a deep dislike for mr Powell.
Ironically, Tony Benn got along better with Ian Paisley then Powell ever did.