With Stormont's demise and militant republican capacity to kill and maim showing no signs of diminishing, it was a bleak time in Northern Ireland.However, despite the grim situation, the seeds of a political settlementwere being planted. Jonathan Bardon examines cabinet papers released in Belfast.
Brian Faulkner, prime minister of Northern Ireland since March 1971, had operated on two assumptions: that internment would bring republican violence under control and that the British government would never dare to close down the democratically-elected regional government. He never abandoned the first assumption and the second was dramatically shattered on March 22nd, 1972.
No policy shift can be detected after Bloody Sunday: meeting the following morning, the cabinet reviewed "events in Londonderry on the previous day in which 13 civilians had been killed in riots following an attempted republican march in defiance of the government ban". Ministers agreed to a statement "stressing the dangers of defiance of the march ban".
The government continued with routine business without any sense that the Stormont regime was on trial for its life. Ministers accepted the raising of the school leaving age to 16; approved, amongst others, the Employer's Liability (Defective Equipment and Compulsory Insurance) Bill, and discussed such matters as bar facilities in civil service canteens, town and country planning, Belfast's proposed urban motorway, and creating of a single fire authority for Northern Ireland.
In the wake of Bloody Sunday Mr Faulkner was summoned to Downing Street on February 4th. There Mr Edward Heath pressed hard for the quickening pace of reform, the phasing out of internment and a broadening of the base of the region's government. Mr Faulkner does not seem to have conveyed any sense of alarm or urgency to his colleagues. Internment was working, he believed.
"In Belfast the IRA are particularly short of leadership, experience and technical skill in the use of explosives" and there had been a "severe dislocation of command and communication systems".
Mr Faulkner resisted the British government's urgings that Catholics be brought into the Northern Ireland cabinet by right, though he had invited Mr Gerard Newe to be his minister of state. He would go no further than proposals made the previous autumn to invite Catholics onto parliamentary committees. In a letter approved by his colleagues on February 16th, Mr Faulkner explained to Mr Heath: "It has to be reckoned that a political settlement within the context of Northern Ireland is anathema to the IRA, and that intimations of impending radical changes can too easily bolster the standing and morale of that organisation."
The previous September he had agreed to seek for the minority an "active, permanent and guaranteed role" in public affairs but this "did not imply the reservation of cabinet positions for minority interests". He continued: "I again made it clear. . . speaking for myself, I could not contemplate government on a PR basis or any step which would involve the inclusion of republicans in a Northern Ireland cabinet."
Mr Faulkner was digging in his heels at a time when even the most moderate nationalists had withdrawn from Stormont and other public bodies, when Mr Maurice Hayes had resigned as Chairman of the Community Relations Commission and when (contrary to Mr Faulkner's belief) the Provisional IRA was firmly united under Mr Seán MacStiofáin's leadership and enlisting recruits on an unprecedented scale. In a further letter to Mr Heath on March 1st, Mr Faulkner offered a referendum on the Border and talks with the Taoiseach, Mr Jack Lynch, "to reach a solemn and binding agreement on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland . . . and action on the suppression of illegal organisations".
He could "see no reason" why the Republic would not accept such an arrangement. He also proposed expansion of the Northern Ireland Commons from 52 MPs to "about 80", nationalist representation on parliamentary committees and the appointment of more Catholics to public bodies. "If the minority are to play the part we would wish to see," he added, "they themselves must be willing to act more responsibly and constructively than many of them have done in he past." Internment must stay but his government proposed "to issue a more comprehensive explanation of the need for, and operation of, internment than we have done to date". His inflexibility over Mr Heath's proposals was undoubtedly strengthened by rising loyalist anger. Mr Bill Craig and other hard-liners had launched Ulster Vanguard which advocated a semi-independent Northern Ireland and staged a series of mass rallies in which Craig openly threatened the use of force "to liquidate the enemy".
Militant republican capacity to kill and maim showed no signs of diminishing. The Official IRA, in a botched revenge attack on the Parachute Regiment's headquarters in Aldershot, killed five women, a Catholic chaplain and a gardener on February 22nd. Then, three days later, the Officials came close to murdering Mr John Taylor, minister of state at the ministry of home affairs. The Provisionals' bombing campaign intensified, one of the most horrific incidents being the no-warning bombing of the Abercorn restaurant in the centre of Belfast on March 4th in which two young women were killed and at least 130 injured. Mr Heath was rapidly concluding Stormont was part of the problem. The Northern Ireland government ministers seemed unaware - partly because Mr Faulkner did not make them aware - that the axe was about to fall unless radical decisions were made.
When the cabinet met on March 14th ministers were content to discuss partial vehicle curfews, selective parking bans and ways of compensating Protestant families driven out of the Garrison and Roslea areas. On March 21st the cabinet discussed the prime minister's visit to Downing Street scheduled for the following day. It was agreed not to offer more than had been outlined in Mr Faulkner's letters to Mr Heath on February 16th and March 1st. "We are opposed to any measure to create by statutory means an entrenched position in the cabinet for members of the Catholic community" and to PR elections for Stormont "which we consider intrinsically unworkable".
In Downing Street the following day, Mr Faulkner was told bluntly his proposals for change were utterly inadequate. Westminster intended to take over control of law and order. It took hours to convince the Northern Ireland premier that Mr Heath was not bluffing. At the cabinet meeting next day the ministers agreed they had no choice but to resign - 51 years of devolved government had come to an end.
The parliament of Northern Ireland met for the last time on March 28th. A huge column of loyalists converged on the majestic drive before Stormont. Tempestuous cheers greeted Mr Faulkner and Mr Craig, so recently estranged, when they appeared together on the balcony of the parliament buildings.
Direct rule was not an IRA objective and, following the failure of secret talks in London on July 7th, the Provisionals returned to war reinvigorated. Meanwhile, new secretary of state, Mr William Whitelaw, was preparing the ground for a new political settlement to include power-sharing and an Irish dimension.
Jonathan Bardon is author of A History of Ulster and is a lecturer in the School of History, Queen's University Belfast