On 13 August 1969 the Irish cabinet discussed the developing Bogside crisis. Neil Blaney, minister for agriculture, suggested sending the Irish army across the border in an attempt to provoke United Nations intervention and the consequent deployment of a UN peacekeeping force. After a brief discussion regarding possible outcomes, the cabinet wisely rejected military intervention, … Read more
Ought he to have known about that attempt to import arms? The answer is certainly ‘yes’. But the burden of evidence that I have examined leads me to conclude that he did not know. What was evident in those critical weeks was a catastrophic breakdown in the proven decision-making system in the civil service, military … Read more
If the myopia of the British Labour government in early August 1969 is hard to fathom, it is equally difficult to understand why Lynch felt he could start his annual leave only a few days before the predicted outbreak of open conflict in Derry and right across Northern Ireland. Detailed contingency plans needed to be … Read more
When Jack Lynch left Dublin on 9 August 1969 to begin his holidays in West Cork, he had cause to be both relieved and very apprehensive. Seven weeks earlier, on 18 June, he had led Fianna Fáil to a convincing general election victory. Lynch’s presidential-style leadership campaign echoed that of Éamon de Valera. Yet he … Read more
During late August 1969, shortly after the violence that had shaken Belfast and elsewhere, Irish army intelligence gave their assessment of the situation to the Dublin government: ‘. . . some element of [the] IRA was certainly in action in Belfast during [the] night of 14th August . . . as in [the] Bogside, [the] … Read more