Ambivalent and treacherous, the "Micks" in Northern Ireland were little better than their "Prod" counterparts who only had hatred and a desire for vengeance in their hearts. That was the critical analysis of the two communities in 1970 prepared by Mr Oliver Wright, a senior British official attached to the Northern Ireland Cabinet office, released at the Public Record Office yesterday.
For the first time since it was established in 1972, the Northern Ireland Office released some of its secret documents. These shed light on the attitudes of civil servants toward the "two tribes".
In his final letter to the British government on March 6th, 1970, after spending six months seconded to Northern Ireland, Wright described Northern Irish society as "tribal".
In his appraisal of the two communities, he said the "natives" and Scots Calvinist colonists "stranded by partition" liked each other "about as well as dog and cat, Arab and Jew, Greek and Turkish Cypriot, separated from birth by ghettos and by educational apartheid".
Although "more sinned against than sinning," he observed, Catholics were far from blameless when it came to Northern Ireland's problems.
And in language rarely used in official British circles, he wrote: "In true Irish fashion the Micks have enjoyed provoking the Prods as much as the Prods have enjoyed retaliating. It makes the Prods' blood boil - and all Irish blood boils at very low temperature - to see the Micks enjoying the superior material benefits of the British connection while continuing to wave the Tricolour at them."
Protestants didn't escape Wright's waspish tongue either. Many were driven by a desire for hatred and vengeance and too many looked to "the one man with charisma in Ulster, a man of God, the Rev Ian Paisley, to give it to them".
It was no surprise that Ulstermen seemed naturally pessimistic. "They have a lot to be pessimistic about," he added.
In 1970 Britain's ambassador to Ireland said the Taoiseach, Mr Lynch, deserved his reputation for political and personal integrity but expressed concern about the future of his party leadership.
In another document, a note to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office intended as part of a briefing for the prime minister, Edward Heath, Sir John Peck observed that Lynch enjoyed support for his "peace policy, the practice of Fianna Fáil closing its ranks" when in trouble and his skilful political attitude.
But he noted that Lynch's political survival depended on many factors, including reform in Northern Ireland and that the Arms Trial should not end in "acquittals or a farcical denouement . . ."
Britain's most senior army officer delivered a devastating critique of the RUC at the start of the Troubles, describing it as "behind the times", "poorly led", and with a "sadly inefficient special branch". Gen Sir Geoffrey Baker, chief of the general staff, who visited Northern Ireland as the Labour government sent in troops, was shocked at what he saw. The RUC special branch, he said, was "badly organised and run, with the result that speculation and guesswork largely replace intelligence". Moreover, the RUC only told NI ministers what it deemed fit they should hear, said Sir Geoffrey.
- (Guardian Service)