Northern conflict:The first week of 1976 seemed to indicate that the conflict in Northern Ireland had become more overtly sectarian than before, characterised as it was by ethnic slaughter.
On Sunday, January 4th, masked loyalists murdered five Catholics in two incidents at Whitecross, Co Armagh, and Ballydugan, Co Down.
Next day IRA gunmen stopped a bus carrying Protestant workers at Kingsmills, Co Armagh. After telling the Catholic driver to stand aside, the gunmen lined up the workers and, with at least four weapons, shot them down, killing 10. This atrocity was claimed by the Republican Action Force, just a cover name for a local unit of the Provisional IRA. Republican claims that their war was political and not sectarian seemed increasingly hollow.
Loyalist gangs did not disguise their aim to kill Catholics simply for being Catholics. One Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) unit operating from the Brown Bear Bar, known subsequently as the Shankill Butchers and led by Lennie Murphy, roamed north Belfast in taxis looking for "Taigs" to kill. Victims were often brutally tortured before being murdered. Among those slaughtered were Ted McQuaid, shot down on the Cliftonville Road on January 9th; Thomas Quinn, a roadsweeper, knifed to death in the Shankill on February 6th; Archie Hanna and Raymond Carlisle, shot in a lorry parked at the corner of Cambrai Street; and Francis Rice in Esmond Street on February 26th.
Even when arrested and incarcerated in the Maze, Murphy continued to direct operations. His gang, wearing balaclavas, entered the Chlorane Bar in Smithfield on the night of June 5th shouting: "All right, Prods to one side and Catholics to the other." Eight men were shot, five of them dying of their wounds.
By the end of 1976, 308 people died violently, the heaviest toll in all the years of the Troubles, with the exception of 1972. The British army inflicted far fewer deaths than during the previous years and in turn lost only 13 men by comparison with 108 in 1972.
Twenty-four police and 16 Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment lost their lives. Thirty paramilitaries died but the great majority of those killed were their civilian victims - a total of 220.
Northern secretary Merlyn Rees appeared anxious and tired. The Constitutional Convention, where the United Ulster Unionist Coalition (UUUC) had a clear majority, had rejected powersharing outright. It would be reconvened in February but the prospect of an acceptable compromise seemed slight. Meeting Rees at Stormont on January 5th, UUUC leaders were in no mood to revise their majority report.
Harry West saw "no point in the convention's being recalled . . . The memories which the loyalist population had of the destructive tactics of the leading members of the SDLP were still too vivid for the electorate at large to tolerate the inclusion of such men in government."
Ian Paisley added that "the loyalist community simply would not tolerate any further concessions to republicans - the wilder men on the Protestant side would take over and the drift would be towards civil war".
Reg Empey believed that community relations had "deteriorated seriously in recent years, largely because the stability which had been gradually established over more than 40 years had been upset - most of all by HMG's intervention".
Empey added that the government was "dealing with two irreconcilables - no middle course was possible and the majority would have to be backed". Recalling the brief life of the power-sharing executive in 1974, Empey concluded that "the SDLP problem was: having once been sergeants how could they accept the rank of corporal - that they would keep up their demands until they saw that they were not going to win".
On January 8th, Rees entertained SDLP leaders at dinner in Stormont House. The official record of the discussion observed that:
"SDLP feared that the combined influence of Dr Paisley and Mr (Ernest)Baird, both of whom were essentially religious bigots first and politicians second, would make it extremely difficult to get a second constructive stage to the convention."
The refusal of the UUUC to consider powersharing - other than to invite opposition members to chair some committees - convinced Rees that the convention should be wound up completely. On March 4th, he wrote to the chairman, Sir Robert Lowry, explaining that "the debates which have taken place have made it plain that no progress has been made, or is likely to be made, in the convention on reaching agreement on proposals which would command sufficiently widespread acceptance throughout the community in Northern Ireland to provide stable and effective government".
Noisy, undignified scenes accompanied the final convention meeting on March 3rd. The British government faced the reality that direct rule - originally intended to last one year only when it was introduced in 1972 - would continue for a long time.
The assassination in Dublin of Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to the Republic, and of Judith Cook, a Stormont civil servant on July 21st, grimly demonstrated the IRA's ruthlessness and reach.
On Tuesday, August 10th, two four- wheel-drive vehicles pursued IRA men in a stolen car at Finaghy in south Belfast. Shot dead, the driver Danny Lennon crashed into the pavement. Here Anne Maguire and her four children were walking near their home. Andrew, six weeks old, and Joanna were killed instantly; and John, aged two and a half, died next day. Severely injured, Anne Maguire remained unconscious for several weeks. Next day her sister, Maireád Corrigan, and Betty Williams, who had witnessed the tragedy, founded the Peace People.
On August 12th, more than 1,000 women gathered at Finaghy Road North where the children had died, placed flowers and sang Hail, Queen of Heaven. Two days later several busloads of women from the Shankill joined another peace rally at the same place. Twenty thousand attended a peace rally in Belfast's Ormeau Park on August 21st. Other large peace rallies followed all over Northern Ireland in the ensuing weeks, in many places in the Republic, and in London.
Could the Peace People maintain their momentum? Could they stop the bloodletting? At one of their regular meetings on September 7th, senior civil servants debated this item:
"(1) The future of the women's peace movement and whether, if it showed signs of flagging, it should be allowed to die.
"It was accepted that it could not be seen to be given overt assistance by government nor could it by its nature move towards a political stance. The fact was that it was simply opposed to violence and had no political connections. If the movement was to live and achieve some credibility there had to be seen to be improvements in the environment flowing from it."
Roy Mason replaced Rees in September. In contrast to his predecessor, this former coal miner was bombastic and pugnacious, theatrically affecting the style of a paternalistic colonial governor. In fact the contrast between Rees and Mason was largely one of style. Rees had already abandoned hope of a constitutional arrangement acceptable to London and Dublin, stepped up military action in south Armagh and begun the process of "Ulsterisation" - the replacement of regular troops by armed police and members of the Ulster Defence Regiment.
At the end of February, Rees had announced that those convicted of paramilitary offences were no longer eligible for "special category status". Furious riots had erupted in west Belfast. Because of their refusal to support their campaign, militant nationalists vilified the SDLP and, on August 9th, Gerry Fitt forced the withdrawal of republicans attacking his home on the Antrim Road only by pulling a pistol.