Madam, – In his article on the Irish Army’s document of September 1969, Interim Report on Planning Board on Northern Ireland Operations, the so-called Operation Armageddon, Tom Clonan quotes a passage referring to “the threat of retaliatory punitive military action by UK forces on the Republic” (Opinion, August 31st). If the Irish Army had indeed invaded Northern Ireland the retaliatory action would in all probability not have come from the United Kingdom alone. Article 5 of the Nato treaty stipulates that “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all . . .”; the treaty provides for the possibility of armed action by all Nato members in defence of any one member attacked by a non-member of the organisation.
If the Irish Army’s contingency plans for operations in Northern Ireland had been acted on 40 years ago, then they would probably have had to face not only British troops but the soldiers of the army of the United States. It is odd that this obvious point appears not to have been considered by the staff officers of the Irish Army in 1969; and it certainly has not occurred to those journalists who have written recently about “Operation Armageddon”. It is no less odd that the planners of the Irish Army seem not to have taken into account (so far as one can tell from press summaries of the document) that any incursion by their troops – however brief or slight – would only have exacerbated sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Did they not care? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – My stomach swelled with laughter reading Tom Clonan’s article. Reading terms like “element of surprise”, and “motorised cavalry . . . lighting strikes,” could represent a scene from Monty Python. I was 11 years old, living on the Curragh, when my father was mobilised with the entire camp. After the order was given by Jack Lynch to head North to create field hospitals along the Border, soldiers in their No 1 uniforms (soldiers did not have combat uniform) headed to Dublin in convoy formation. I counted 30 lorries and seven Landsverk second World War armoured cars. There were a couple of half-track Bren gun carriers, and a few Churchill and Comet tanks in the workshops being fixed. Thankfully the “plan” of attack was not realised because the British would have resided, yet again, in the Curragh and hundreds would have died at the hands of a capable war machine. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Irish government could have done something that would probably have mitigated any need to plan for an “invasion” or rescue mission for Northern Ireland.
In early 1968, the Campaign for Social Justice and six residents of Northern Ireland filed a suit before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against the British government for the violation of human rights of the residents. After reviewing the cases, the court accepted their legitimacy and requested that Britain answer the charges. The ruling gave considerable impetus to the civil rights movement in Ireland.
The Campaign for Social Justice and the residents did not have the resources to pursue this further; they could not go up against a well-financed government team of lawyers. An appeal was made to the Irish government to help with the costs or to take over the cases on its own. No help was given. The British Labour government was very embarrassed about this and tried to use its influence to quash the proceedings.
There is a good chance that had the cases continued, the British government would have been forced to implement meaningful reforms sooner rather than later, and a lengthy, violent conflict could have been avoided. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Tom Clonan (Opinion, August 31st), appears to have become confused between his operations and his exercises.
According to the then director of intelligence, Col M Hefferon, the Interim Report of Planning Board on Northern Ireland Operations’ dated September 27th, 1969, to which your columnist refers, was seen by a member of that board to have been given “rather cavalier treatment” by some of the officers in the chief of staff’s branch and quickly “buried”.
Exercise Armageddon was a proposed two-sided war game. Details of it are written in longhand in a five-page document. The document carries no date, no signature and no clear indication of its source. There was no “Operation Armageddon”. – Yours, etc,