Secondly, when Thatcher came to power in 1979, IRA recruitment from within the nationalist community was at a high level. In the same year that the INLA assassinated Airey Neave, the IRA murdered Mountbatten in Sligo, and killed 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint. The ongoing protests for political status of prisoners had a high profile, and Thatcher took a hard line. The government and republican movement alike saw the H-block protests as a publicity battle. The authorities allowed the news media inside the Maze prison to demonstrate that it would be a model facility except for protests. Republicans sought support on the streets and in the U.S.A. which was an important source of funding.

In spite of the bloodiness of the IRA campaign in 1979, the first three years of Thatcher's government saw the greatest increase in support for republicanism in the history of the troubles. Most important were the deaths of 10 hunger-strikers in 1981 (as an example, over 70,000 people attended Bobby Sands' funeral), and the start of rumours of a government-backed shoot-to-kill policy in 1982. Paradoxically, the success of the 1981 election of Sands as an MP started republicans down the political route for the first time -- the start of the "ballot box and the Armalite" strategy -- alongside which relentless terrorism continued throughout the 1980s. Undermining growing political support for Sinn Féin (the republican political wing) was a primary concern in the Anglo-Irish Agreement signed by Britain and the Republic of Ireland in 1985.

Thatcher was always viewed by republicans as supremely intransigent in her dealings with Northern Ireland. After her rejection of the three options put forward by the New Ireland Forum in 1984 (Unitary State, Federal Ireland, Joint British-Irish rule), the IRA tried to assassinate her in a bomb attack. In fact, her public outspokenness against dealing with terrorists may have been accompanied by a more moderate private attitude. Certainly, just before leaving office she apparently sanctioned secret talks with the IRA after MI5 gave her information that the republican movement were considering a cessation of violence. Thatcher herself, though, has regularly denounced the peace process to which those initial talks eventually led. -- Peter Swords

Yet she was noticeably completely silent on the subject in the otherwise extremely wide-ranging Statecraft published just six months ago. I took this to be very judicious. The situation is much too precarious but pregnant with genuine possibilities for more from this past figure, whose government and closest friends and colleagues were so directly targetted (remembering the murder of her ex-private secretary Ian Gow as well as Neave), to be in any way wise. -- Richard Drake

It is not exactly fair to say that rd suggested that the death of Airey Neave fundamentally affected the outlook of Margaret Thatcher on Northern Ireland.

Note first that I used the word "hunch", as I went into a brief parenthesis. I talked about the difference I felt Neave might have made in the development and execution of N Ireland policy within the new administration. It was certainly his express aim to drive a wedge between civilians and terrorists. He may not have succeeded but it was a bold and brave thing to try. The social justice element was never lacking in his thinking on this. The INLA I believe understood this and very much wanted him out of the way, which could be taken as strong evidence that he was onto something. But my theories of the murder are extremely tentative and certainly might extend beyond the claimed "first cause", as recent books have I gather begun to claim. Certainly the importance of the assassination and its timing have I feel been neglected. "The matter isn't discussed publicly. In private, however, many remember Airey Neave ..." as it says in that remarkable article in Tory Party Shenanigans - Sources.

The point here though is that all this was about Neave. Thatcher's view must have developed as it went along and must indeed have been affected by the loss of the person long entrusted (at his own request) with this extremely tricky area. For I agree about the historical difficulty Conservative governments can labor under here, if people insist on their prejudices being governed by such unfavorable history (remembering how different the UK party scene was pre-WWI). -- Richard Drake

You may have noticed that I didn't actually try to answer the Airey Neave question. Based on the little I've read, it seems that Thatcher's outlook might well have been coloured by his awful death. If that was the case, then the INLA helped launch a decade of maximum terror and minimum communication between the republican movement and Her Majesty's Government. The only balancing act that Thatcher seemed to achieve was to almost equally incur the wrath of the Unionist camp who loathed her for what they saw as the treachery of dealing with the Dublin government (in the 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement) without consulting them first. -- Peter Swords

I noticed. I continue to believe that Thatcher was too wise and self-controlled to be completely dominated in what she went on to do by this one murder, even of one of her closent political friends and allies. However, such an atrocity, directly under the watchful eye of Winston Churchill's statue in Parliament Square, could hardly have got things off to a great start between the newly and democratically elected UK government and the extremes of the republican movement. How for example could Thatcher have taken a really soft line on militant republicanism when both her party and closest friends were outraged by this event? Would that not also have been being extremely soft on democracy and freedom itself? Such murderous constraints were applied in the most brutal way throughout her premiership. Think of Brighton, the paralysis of Tebbit's wife, the murder by a car bomb of Ian Gow and even the IRA's forlorn "explanation" (almost apology) after the mortar attack on John Major's new cabinet in 10 Downing Street in 1991 - "Er, sorry, we were really aiming for Thatcher". -- Richard Drake

Although I agree, your (possibly rhetorical) question goes in a different direction that perhaps misses the point somewhat. The IRA could never have expected Thatcher to take a soft line on militant republican activity, nor could they ever have been construed to be seeking it given the evidence you cite. What they wanted was a recognition that Britain was at war in Northern Ireland. This was a crucial point for republicans who sought to legitimise the troubles in this way, and to make the historical link (in the public perception) between the 1916 insurrection, the Anglo-Irish war of 1921 and the current crisis. Rememember that the IRA had undergone a serious internal rift in 1969-70 with one faction favouring armed conlict and the other pursuing a (Marxist) political approach. The resulting Provisional Army Council set about promoting their self-identification as the "historical" IRA, at war with a foreign power. Thatcher's resoluteness, as they saw it, in criminalising their activities was an affront to this self-perception. This was at the core of the publicity battle for hearts and minds in the blanket protests of the late 70's and the hungerstrikes of the early 80's. The echoes of this are still around in the to-ing and fro-ing over a Sinn Féin declaration that "the war is over". I think one reason for the particular antipathy between Thatcher and republicans was the early recognition on both sides that the "war" was hugely about propaganda (although it would be some time before both sides explicitly agreed that it could never be about military defeat). The IRA were right to fear Thatcher's line (in the House of Commons, reacting to a BBC interview with an INLA member shortly after Airey Neave's death) -- "We must try to find ways to starve the terrorists of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend." -- ps

This seems well judged Peter. The recent public Apology By The IRA to some at least of their civilian victims (details and reshaping gratefully received if it seems Worth Investment) represented I gather a very major crack in their edifice of revolutionary belief. Do you agree with that? It sure wasn't enough for Norman Tebbitt and given what happened to his wife and colleagues I can understand that too. But I take seriously those who say what a very big step it is symbolically for these guys. I guess the trick is getting inside the symbolic world of such a movement, without being duped. Thanks for this interaction. Peace Process must be worth a try in due course. In traditional fashion we start with a general page name but a very specific example of the topic, that of Ireland. At least that's how I'd do it. Ireland is not entirely trivial as specific examples go. -- Richard Drake

"...the historical difficulty Conservative governments can labor under here, if people insist on their prejudices being governed by such unfavorable history (remembering how different the UK party scene was pre-WWI)"

Though you have to remember that to some extent, and in some areas of politics, time stood still from that point (WW1) forward for the nationalist community. When the Northern border was drawn, a system of proportional representation was left in place by the British Government, ostensibly to protect the rights of minorities there. But this situation was rolled back early on, so that in the 1920 and 1924 local government elections the 40% nationalist minority went from a proportional share of the 80 local government councils to controlling just 2. This happened through a combination of abolition of PR, gerrymandering of constituency boundaries, and introduction of a rate-based franchise which excluded the poorer minority. Nationalist education suffered as a result of disenfranchisement and self-imposed segregation. At times of nationalist unrest (which until the 1960's tended to coincide with economic downturns), it was easy to tar the Ulster Unionists and the Conservative And Unionist Party with the same brush given their historical alliance (since the first Home Rule Bill in 1886). However, this was a lot more than just a matter of perception -- Ulster Unionist MPs took the Conservative Whip for over half a century until it was unilaterally withdrawn by Edward Heath at the time of the 1974 General Election (see also Heath And Ireland). -- Peter Swords

The point about time standing still is fully appreciated. Gladstone got this fully right, for me, at the time. Home Rule was of utmost urgency and importance. But of course he was defeated, not by the mass of the British people, but by the self-interest and ignorance of the House Of Lords. Many of the Tories of the time were a great fault, I for one would say. [And so did George V it seems.]

But my point also stands. Don't blame a party in 1979 for what it did in 1886. In those days, after all, Thatcher Would Have Been A Liberal. Historical simplificationism is always blind. -- Richard Drake