How the Troubles Came to Northern Ireland

P. Rose

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9780230288676
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

In a new book about Northern Ireland historian Peter Rose argues that if Harold Wilson's government in the late sixties had pursued a different policy the province might have been spared The Troubles. Wilson had promised the Catholics that they would be granted their civil rights. However, new evidence suggests that Westminster was deliberately gagged to prevent MPs demanding that the Stormont administration ended discrimination in the province. Had the government acted on intelligence of growing Catholic unrest, it could have prevented the rise of the Provisional IRA without provoking an unmanageable Protestant backlash. The book draws upon recently released official documents and interviews with many key politicians and civil servants of the period to examine the failure of British policy to prevent the troubles.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword to the Paperback Edition
• General Editor’s Preface
• Author’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Chronology
• Introduction
• 1 ‘Leave it to Terence’: the Labour Government, October 1964–March 1966
• 2 The ‘Crucially Difficult Year’, April–August 1966
• 3 Putting off the Evil Day, September 1966–May 1967
• 4 The Phoney Peace, May 1967–March 1968
• 5 The Road to Londonderry, April–October 1968
• 6 ‘History is against Us’, November 1968–April 1969
• 7 To the Top of the Agenda, May–August 1969
• 8 Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index