Northern Ireland

Question 1

What happened to Airey Neave in 1979?

Answer 1

• Shadow Tory NI Secretary was killed by the INLA via a car bomb.

Question 2

What other IRA attacks took place in 1979?

Answer 2

• Lord Mountbatten was killed along with several others on his boat off the coast of Ireland.
• 18 British Soliders were killed in Warrenpoint - the largest British loss of life in NI.

Question 3

Why were there hunger strikes in the H-Block of the Maze prison?

Answer 3

• IRA prisoners wanted to be granted Special Category Status as they had been classed as criminals since 1976.

Question 4

Who was Bobby Sands and his impact?

Answer 4

• Led the hunger strikes protests in 1980.
• On strike, Sands was nominated as a Sinn Fein candidate in the Fermanagh by-election and he won the seat.
• He died a few weeks later along with nine other protestors before the strike was called off in 1981.

Question 5

What was the impact of the hunger strikes?

Answer 5

• Thatcher claimed they were unsuccessful as their main aim, Special Category Status, was not granted.
• However, many saw Sands and the other strikes as martyrs and Thatcher was vilified further due to her intransigence. Extremist attacks increased on both sides.
• Electoral success increased for Sinn Fein under new president Gerry Adams, who believed the ‘ballot box and the gun’ could be used as a twin-track strategy.

Question 6

What attack happened in 1982 and 1983?

Answer 6

• A bomb in Hyde and Regent Parks respectively killed 11 soldiers demonstrating in London. (1982)
  A bomb exploded outside Harrods in London, killing 5 and wounding several. (1983) The English Department of the IRA were starting to become more active after Thatchers apathy to the terrorists.

Question 7

What was the Brighton Bombing?

Answer 7

• 1984 IRA attempt to kill Thatcher at the Conservative party conference.
• 5 were killed, 31 injured, national outrage.

Question 8

What was the Anglo-Irish Agreement?

Answer 8

• Signed 1985, set up permanent intergovernmental cooperation betweeen the UK and ROI.
• It was an attempt to enhance the security cooperation between the two countries.
• It also aimed to strengthen moderate nationalists like the SDLP and the Alliance against Sinn Fein.

Question 9

What was the reaction to the Anglo-Irish agreement?

Answer 9

• Republicans opposed because it confirmed NI was a part of the UK.
• Involved the Irish gov. in NI so caused a furious loyalist backlash.
• 200,000 people attended a Belfast protest rally against the agreement led by DUP leader Ian Paisley.
• A new paramilitary unionist group, the Ulster Resistance, was set up in reaction in 1986.