London overview: British policy on the North centred on the desire not to be seen as an imperial power fighting a national liberation movement, writes John Bew.
In 1975 British strategy towards Northern Ireland was centred on a policy of a "distancing" of its influence in the North, documents released at the National Archives in London reveal.
Despite an uneasy "truce" between the British army and the Provisional IRA, 1975 was one of the worst years of the Troubles, with 247 violent deaths, many of them sectarian murders.
Still overshadowed by the collapse of the power-sharing institutions in May 1974, the key determinant of British policy was the desire not to be seen as an imperial power fighting a national liberation movement.
This "hands-off" approach to the mechanics of local politics was the necessary counter-balance to the "extreme delicacy of hand" which the British were eager to maintain in secret negotiations with the IRA.
"Distancing" emerged as a default policy in the absence of any practical alternatives. Nevertheless, the vacuum caused by the collapse of the Sunningdale agreement allowed the cabinet committee on Northern Ireland to consider a number of future policy options throughout 1975.
These ranged from British withdrawal to complete integration with Westminster. British prime minister Harold Wilson continued to be driven by concern about the cost of Northern Ireland to the British exchequer. The only new policy proposal to gain any momentum was the suggestion of "dominion status" for Northern Ireland. Encouraged by a growing anti-British separatism among loyalists, one foreign and commonwealth office policy paper discussed the option of an independent Northern Irish state, in control of domestic legislation but still attached to the British Commonwealth.
The effects of majority unionist rule were to be tempered by British and Irish governmental guarantees to protect the rights of Northern Irish Catholics.
However, two major obstacles to any radical new policy initiative were identified. The first was familiar - how to strike a deal which would be broadly acceptable to both communities within Northern Ireland. The lessons of Ulster Workers' Council (UWC) strike, according to a brief prepared for the cabinet committee, "had surely shown that the loyalists could never be brought to swallow . . . 'interference' from the South in underwriting a settlement". But without the "Irish dimension", there was no answer to what another official called "the $64,000 question" - how to protect the minority community.
Secondly, the significant input of the British embassy in Dublin and the foreign and commonwealth office pointed to problems specific to the political situation in the Republic. While the Cosgrave government had shown "a welcome realism about the fate of Northern Ireland", a foreign and commonwealth office brief in November concluded that it was "very doubtful" that they could endorse dominion status "in the face of an emotionally aroused public opinion".
In the immediate future, it was feared that the Irish people "would dislike any solution which seemed to perpetuate partition and to foreclose indefinitely any possibility of the reunification of North and South".
In particular, any revision of the Irish Constitution of 1937 was deemed unworkable, "whatever the pious hopes in this direction that may be voiced from time to time by more enlightened Irish ministers such as Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien".
"Article 2", [ which made a territorial claim on the North] reaffirmed one official at the Dublin embassy, "is an article of faith for Fianna Fáil and, like the belief in the Trinity, a mystery to be accepted, not explained".
Irish freedom of manoeuvre was further restricted by the perceived fragility of the Irish State.
The Irish government "have enough internal problems on their hands", notably "in attempting to deal with more massive inflation and unemployment than we ourselves are suffering", to be burdened with further concerns about the security of the North.
There was also another problem. The Irish State could not guarantee "effective protection for the Northern minority", without substantial British assistance. But it was only in a "Doomsday scenario" in the North that British officials would seriously consider Irish suggestions about UN peacekeeping troops. Such was the sense of instability that the number two at the embassy in Dublin speculated that anything more than a diplomatic "distancing" of British influence in the North might bring about "more or less permanent instability in the whole of Ireland".
In the worst case scenario, if Dublin was burdened with increased responsibility for law and order in the North, it might see a "collapse of its authority in the South, leaving the field open to extremists, even to the extent of some sort of extreme left wing take over". One official talked about the danger of "a Portugal on our doorstep".
The effect of "overflow" violence from across the Border was regarded as a serious possibility throughout 1975. While the British cabinet committee was informed that the prospect of another UWC strike was "improbable", they nevertheless reported "a steady stream of enquiries and admonitions" from the Irish government, who were concerned that the British had no contingency plan for this event. Irish foreign minister Dr Garrett FitzGerald is painted as an increasingly frantic figure in these discussions, until cut short by a "brusque reply" from Harold Wilson.
The greatest divergence between the Irish and British government's position in 1975 was in their respective attitudes to Sinn Féin. While the British might "sometimes be tempted to regard extreme republicans in the North as potential politicians struggling to change the nature of terrorist organisations", acknowledged an embassy official, "in the eyes of the Dublin government, the IRA are an armed conspiracy bent on subverting the very fabric of the State".
Nevertheless, for the British, there was a fundamental "contradiction" in the Irish position which they would eventually have to face. According to a foreign and commonwealth office memo, "if the extremists are to be induced to give up their violent role", the corollary of this was "that they must be allowed to seek a political one to replace it".
The PIRA ceasefire had allowed the British government to begin 1975 with some renewed optimism. At its height, this had precipitated some inter-departmental speculation that the PIRA might be induced to accept an independent Ulster because, "in the tradition of Wolfe Tone, the republicans have always been prepared to regard and accept the North as in some sense different and separate but still no less Irish".
Ultimately, the realities of 1975 imposed a more sober analysis. Discussions with Sinn Féin had no end in themselves, the British felt, unless they provided "a vehicle for those of republican sentiment to enter the political process".
As early as April, some officials revealed to the cabinet committee that their primary focus was "not so much on attempting to shore up the ceasefire" as in winning the blame game when it finally collapsed.
By October 1975, the British were gearing themselves up for "a return to full-scale violence".
"The brutal fact", concluded the British embassy in Dublin, was that militant republicanism "has to be opposed rather than appeased".
There was "no basis for composing with the PIRA", concluded a foreign and commonwealth brief, "except on a firm undertaking [which, to be credible, would have to be endorsed by parliament] to withdraw from Northern Ireland, and that such an undertaking could not possibly be given".