London overview: The British state papers for 1974 reveal the government under Harold Wilson straining to come to terms with the collapse of the most ambitious political settlement to date in Northern Ireland.
There were two predominant reasons for the collapse of the power-sharing executive in May of that year, according to British assessments. First, the Provisional IRA's campaign of violence had contributed hugely to the political failure. But second, in the opinion of senior British ministers and officials, diplomatic intransigence inspired by the Republic's constitutional claim to jurisdiction over Northern Ireland should share some of the blame for the disaster.
The mood at 10 Downing Street had been upbeat as the Northern Ireland executive took office on the first day of the new year. On December 30th, 1973, the British prime minister, Edward Heath, had written to the head of the Northern Ireland executive, Brian Faulkner, expressing his high hopes. The members of the executive had been able to "rise above the historic problems of Northern Ireland", enthused Heath.
But soon those "historic problems" were to revive. The Sunningdale Agreement, concluded on December 9th, 1973, had seen the Irish government accept that the status of Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom could not be changed without the consent of a majority in the North. However, almost immediately, that commitment was compromised as the legality of the Irish position was challenged in light of Articles 2 and 3 of the Republic's Constitution.
It would be of "enormous value" if the Taoiseach could show publicly that his original commitment to the UK status of Northern Ireland had been genuine, Heath wrote to Liam Cosgrave on January 10th. To be "perfectly frank", Heath went on, Irish ministers seem to have been wanting to give the impression to the press that Northern Ireland was "now part of the Republic".
Faulkner had by this stage been forced to resign as head of his own party on account of the Ulster Unionist Council's rejection of the Sunningdale package. Within a fortnight he was adding his weight to the pressure from Heath on the Southern government in a meeting with Cosgrave on January 16th. "There was not a hope of proceeding to the formal conference and ratifying the Sunningdale agreement, including the proposals for the Council of Ireland, unless the status issue could be cleared up", he is recorded as having emphasised to Cosgrave.
It was Cosgrave's contention that continuing uncertainty over Northern Ireland's status was actually the fault of the Irish media. But the "plain fact" of the matter was that the Irish government accepted the reality of Ulster's UK status "and that's that", as Cosgrave put it to Faulkner.
Events were soon to progress from bad to worse. An attempt by the Garda to arrest 15 Provisional IRA suspects had been bungled in early January. Insufficient evidence had forced the Southern authorities to release 14 of those arrested straight away. As the minister for foreign affairs, Garret FitzGerald, confided to the British ambassador, the Irish government was "ashamed". But the Taoiseach duly blamed the SDLP. Political pressure from that quarter had apparently forced the government to pressurise the Garda for results, and so the police had been forced to "lift" the suspects far too early, as Cosgrave explained his embarrassment to Faulkner. But far larger crises loomed.
Most conspicuous on the horizon was the British general election, and the extremism it would generate in its wake in Northern Ireland. As the election neared, the loyalist opposition to Faulkner gained momentum. By early March, a minority Labour government under Harold Wilson had taken power at Westminster, and the Protestant opponents of the Sunningdale agreement had been further strengthened.
The campaign against Sunningdale was led by the Ulster Workers' Council, and by the middle of May the UWC had secured decisive leverage over the Executive. A strike among Protestant workers co-ordinated by the UWC and supported by paramilitary loyalism ensured that power and initiative would be ceded to the opponents of Sunningdale and, on May 28th, the executive bowed to the inevitable and resigned.
Three days later the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees, wrote to the British prime minister: "As I indicated to you from the start of our taking Office, and regrettable though it may be, it was only a matter of time before the Executive fell".
"The effect on popular opinion of the IRA bombing campaign" had been such as to fuel Protestant alarm over Sunningdale, Rees went on, but it was the suspicion about Southern Irish intentions that underlay the unionist disposition toward alarm.
There was now, as Rees put it, "a growing feeling that the British cannot solve the Irish problem". The parties in Northern Ireland should do something for themselves. The SDLP would have to come to terms with reality as it now stood instead of hankering, as they were inclined to do, after "an English Nanny" who would do their bidding.
British policy now sought to broker a settlement in Northern Ireland without encouraging "aspirations" toward either Britishness or Irishness among the population. In the words of a secret memorandum to Harold Wilson from late October, this meant that Britain "must abandon the political trimmings required by the Irish government". After all, as Rees expressed the judgment of the British at this time, the Irish government "would settle for altering its constitution etc. if it could win a referendum. What it is afraid of is a spread of lawlessness from the North".
Accordingly, the British expected the Irish to acquiesce in a new policy whereby Britain would secure its long-term presence in Northern Ireland while still being able to describe her ongoing involvement as "withdrawal" should the need arise.
In other words, Britain would seek as much as was possible to disengage from the internecine politics of Northern Ireland. But her involvement would continue through the control of finance and of law and order, although even here the primary role in security would gradually be handed to the RUC.
Such disengagement could be called "withdrawal" for the purpose of negotiating with the Provisionals. But beneath the subterfuge lay the true intention of digging-in for the long haul. A "Top Secret" policy document from the middle of December 1974 spelt out the new reality: "we have a further considerable period of direct rule ahead of us".