Northern Ireland: 1975 saw the emergence of the deadly INLA and Shankill Butchers and a marked rise in paramilitary feuding, writes Jonathan Bardon.
At Stormont, the Information Policy Co-ordinating Committee met on February 3rd, 1975, to consider "Propaganda Overseas". A temporary IRA ceasefire over the festive season had ended on January 16th.
"The chief problem lay in the United States where highly-coloured IRA propaganda found a receptive market amongst the ethnic Irish". Could some businessmen with Ulster connections provide "a moderate presence on local radio stations and TV"? There was a risk that they "might put over a militant Protestant view".
Others "might well be considered stooges". Large broadcasting networks there "have blatant IRA spokesmen or apologists on making the most outlandish allegations . . . that the great 'British Jackboot' is preventing the people of Northern Ireland joining up with their neighbours in the South".
Nevertheless, encouraged by the release of 52 internees, the IRA on February 9th announced an indefinite ceasefire. Not enough men in the movement had faith in this cessation, however, and the killing went on.
The INLA emerged as a small but deadly militant republican group, while idle Provisionals became involved in a squalid tit-for-tat sectarian murder campaign with the UVF and UDA. Lennie Murphy led a squad of psychotic UVF killers, soon to become known as the Shankill Butchers, to spread fear throughout north and west Belfast every night.
Meanwhile, republican slaughtered republican and loyalist murdered loyalist in a marked rise in paramilitary feuding.
Secretary of State Merlyn Rees had full bipartisan support at Westminster for a constitutional convention "to consider what provisions for the government of Northern Ireland would be likely to command the most widespread acceptance throughout the community there".
Having got approval for his plan in July 1974, Rees waited 10 months to call elections, probably to give Brian Faulkner, leader of the power-sharing unionists, time to organise.
On May 1st, 1975 voters went to the polls. Even as late as this, the Labour government hoped that power-sharing and the Irish dimension would not play a major part in the election campaign. London was whistling in the wind. Faulkner barely scraped home on the ninth count and his new party won a miserable five seats. The SDLP was reduced by two to 17 seats, while the UUUC won 47 out of a total of 78 seats - 58.4 per cent of voters had backed the intransigent loyalists.
When the convention opened on May 8th, like his predecessors and most of his successors, Rees was confronted with the phenomenon of the double veto. Collective nationalist action had pulled down the Stormont regime; and now that pro-power-sharing unionism (reasonably sturdy in 1973) had all but vanished, the loyalist phalanx - still basking in its May 1974 victory in pulling down the power-sharing Executive - had a solid mandate to oppose partnership government.
The inventive secretary of state trotted out details of constitutional arrangements in places ranging from Newfoundland to Australia. The convention's chairman, Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Lowry, displayed tact and made no attempt to propose, let alone impose, solutions. It was all to no avail.
Blood-letting in the summer underscored the desperate need for solutions. On July 17th, four soldiers were killed by a Provisional bomb at Forkhill. Then on July 31st, UVF men posing as a security patrol near Newry murdered three members of the Miami showband from Dublin.
That the ceasefire was now a complete fiction was demonstrated in Belfast on August 10th. At Dunville Park, the Provisionals engaged in a gun battle with the British army which resulted in the deaths of two children and the wounding of eight other people.
On August 13th, the IRA attacked a bar in the Shankill, killing five and wounding almost 40 others. On September 1st, four Protestants were shot down by Provisionals at an Orange Hall in Newtownhamilton.
Meanwhile, negotiations during the convention's recess were not getting far. The chairman reported: "It was clear to him that there was no give with either UUUC or SDLP." The situation was complicated by the liking some UUUC members had for Northern Ireland independence.
In his meeting with Lowry on August 22nd, Bill Craig, the Vanguard leader, "considered that there had been too much talk by UUUC in the convention about independence. He thought this was a last resort, but the Isle of Man could be examined".
Four days later Gerry Fitt met Lowry and "expressed gloom at the prospects of the convention". He considered that "most of the Labour party and many Conservatives were keen to disengage from Northern Ireland once the convention had failed to provide a solution . . . He foresaw that such a step would be economically disastrous and would result in the slaughter of many Catholics".
A further meeting on August 27th convinced Lowry that something must be done for the SDLP. John Hume and Paddy Devlin "were both pessimistic and depressed by the failure of the talks to make progress".
The following day the chairman met the civil servants and the minutes record: "Agreed that SDLP were in low spirits and needed to be built up - chairman to cheer them up . . ."
On August 29th, Lowry then met the UUUC negotiators: "Mr Craig reported that the talks had reached an impasse . . . They had considered how best to wind down the talks in a seemly way. The SDLP had insisted on power-sharing in government and had refused to talk about anything else. The UUUC could not and would not concede".
Nevertheless, while the Vanguard leader said he was "implacably opposed to forced coalition", he did concede that "a voluntary coalition was a different thing".
Lowry saw Rees on August 29th. "While the chance of agreement existed," the chairman wrote in his note for the record, "I asked the secretary of state . . . to remove the impression of despair". Craig indeed was bending somewhat and suggested a temporary acceptance of power-sharing while the security crisis persisted.
For his heresy, Craig was roundly castigated by his colleagues. After sundering his own party, he was then expelled from the UUUC and propelled rapidly into political oblivion. This was an outward and visible sign of a bitter leadership struggle that did much to fracture the loyalist coalition, already divided by conflicting argument for total integration with the United Kingdom and an independent Northern Ireland.
Nevertheless, on November 7th, the intransigents held together sufficiently to endorse the convention report by 43 votes to 31. This recommended a return to majority rule, the only variation from the former Stormont regime being proposals to allow parliamentary committees to have opposition - that is, Catholic - chairmen. Naturally, this had no chance of being accepted by Westminster.
The detonation of bombs all over Northern Ireland on September 22nd further exposed the hollowness of the Provisionals' ceasefire. This prompted loyalist revenge killings, 12 in one day on October 2nd. Between the end of October and November 11th, 10 people were killed in the feud between the Official IRA and the Provisionals.
The ceasefire had never applied to the British mainland. The year witnessed a succession of bomb attacks and murders in England. Among the dead was Ross McWhirter, co-editor of the Guinness Book of Records.
A Daily Telegraph opinion poll in December showed that 64 per cent of people in Britain wanted troops withdrawn from Northern Ireland, compared with 34 per cent in 1972.