Devlin is born into a highly political household in the Pound Loney in the Lower Falls of West Belfast on March 8, 1925, and lives in the city for almost all his life. His early activism is confined to Fianna Éireann and then the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and as a result he is interned in Crumlin Road Gaol during the World War II. He leaves the republican movement upon his release.
After the war, and in search of work, he spends some time in Portsmouth working as a scaffolder and in Coventry working in the car industry. In Coventry he becomes interested in Labour and trade union politics and briefly joins the British Labour Party.
Returning to Belfast in 1948 Devlin helps establish the Irish Labour Party there after the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) splits on the issue of partition. He later beats Gerry Fitt to win a seat on the city council. Later Catholic Action claims the Irish Labour Party is infested with communists and ensures the party is effectively wiped-out causing Devlin to lose his seat.
In the mid 1960s Devlin joins the revived NILP and beats Harry Diamond for the Falls seat in Stormont. Devlin then goes on, with Fitt, John Hume, Austin Currie, and others to found the SDLP in 1970. He is later involved, at the request of William Whitelaw, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in ensuring safe passage for Gerry Adams for talks with the British government in 1973. He is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1973 and Minister of Health and Social Services in the power-sharing Executive from January 1, 1974, to May 28, 1974.
In 1978 Devlin establishes the United Labour Party, which aims to be a broad-based Labour formation in Northern Ireland. He stands under its label for the European Parliament in 1979 but polls just 6,122 first preferences (1.1% of those cast) and thereby loses his deposit.
In 1987 Devlin, together with remnants of the NILP and others, establishes Labour ’87 as another attempt at building a Labour Party in Northern Ireland by uniting the disparate groups supporting labour and socialist policies but it too meets with little or no success. In 1985 he loses his place on Belfast City council.
Devlin suffers from severe diabetes and throughout the 1990s suffers a series of ailments as his health and sight collapse.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) issues a statement on July 28, 2005, announcing the end of its 36-year armed campaign and its resumption of disarmament. The campaign of armed conflict has a cost 3,500 lives, 1,800 of them at the hands of the Provisionals.
The IRA says its members have been ordered to pursue peaceful means and not to “engage in any other activities whatsoever” – a reference to the low-level paramilitary activities which have angered not just unionists, but the London and Dublin governments. The IRA gives no indication that it will disband.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams calls it an “emotional day” and, flanked by senior members of Sinn Féin, speaks directly to IRA volunteers by saying, “National liberation struggles have different phases – a time for struggle, a time for war, and also a time to engage, to put the war behind us all – this is that time.” He declares the IRA statement means the group is now committed to “purely peaceful and democratic methods” and calls it “a direct challenge to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to decide if they want to put the past behind them and make peace with the rest of the people of the island.”
The DUP reserves judgment, although an initial “holding statement” on their website from the party leader, Rev. Ian Paisley, criticises the failure to declare clearly they will end all criminal activity.
TaoiseachBertie Ahern says the British and Irish governments have worked for 11 years for this outcome. He says, “The war is over, the IRA’s armed campaign is over, paramilitarism is over and I believe that we can look to the future of peace and prosperity based on mutual trust and reconciliation and a final end to violence.”
Praising the “clarity” of the IRA statement, British Prime MinisterTony Blair says, “This may be the day when finally, after all the false dawns and dashed hope, peace replaces war, politics replaces terror on the island of Ireland.”
The IRA statement follows the release the previous night of IRA bomber Sean Kelly by the British government “on the expectation” of a move by the terrorist group.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in central Belfast on March 14, 1984. As the car containing Adams and four other leading Sinn Féin members leaves Belfast Magistrate’s Court, a vehicle pulls alongside and three Ulster Defence Association (UDA) gunmen fire approximately 20 shots into the car. Adams is shot in the neck and shoulder, Seán Keenan in the face, Joe Keenan in the body and hands, and Kevin Rooney in the body. Bob Murray is the only person in the car to escape without injury.
The republicans are in Belfast facing charges of obstruction after the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) attempt to remove an Irish tricolour from a Sinn Féin election cavalcade. After the shooting, Adams is rushed to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where he undergoes surgery to remove the three bullets.
The three loyalist death squad members who carry out the assassination attempt are arrested shortly after the attack by off-duty RUC and British soldiers who open fire on them before ramming their car. One of the UDA gunmen accidentally shoots himself in the foot during the escape attempt.
Following his release from the hospital later in the month, Gerry Adams says it is “quite obvious that British Intelligence were aware” of the operation and that “they wanted myself and my comrades out of the way.” Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Stormont Assembly member George Seawright expresses regret that Adams has not been killed. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the British Government remain tight-lipped while Will Glendinning of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland uses the attack to remind voters he was “totally opposed to the politics of Gerry Adams.”
A Sinn Féin statement released just hours after the attack says, “If the shooting was an attempt to drive us off the streets or underground, it has already failed.” The party says that such attacks are a constant danger, and that it is a testament to Sinn Féin that they continue their work despite such threats.
Paddy Devlin, Irish social democrat and Labour activist, former Stormont Member of Parliament (MP), founder of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and member of the 1974 Power Sharing Executive, is born in West Belfast on March 8, 1925.
Devlin lives almost all his life in Belfast and grows up in a highly political household. His early activism is confined to Fianna Éireann and later the Irish Republican Army (IRA). As a result, he is interned in Crumlin Road Gaol during World War II. He leaves the republican movement upon his release.
After the war he spends some time in Portsmouth and Coventry, where he becomes interested in Labour and trade union politics and briefly joins the British Labour Party. Devlin returns to Belfast in 1948 and helps establish the Irish Labour Party after the split of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP). He later defeats Gerry Fitt to win a seat on the city council. Later Catholic Action claims the Irish Labour Party is infested with communists which effectively wipes out the party and Devlin loses his seat.
In the mid 1960s, Devlin joins the revived NILP and beats Harry Diamond for the Falls seat in Stormont. Devlin then joins Fitt, John Hume, Austin Currie, and others to found the SDLP in 1970. At the request of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw in 1973, he becomes involved in ensuring safe passage for Gerry Adams to talks with the British government.
Devlin is a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 and Minister of Health and Social Services in the power-sharing Executive from January 1, 1974, to May 28, 1974.
In 1978, Devlin establishes the United Labour Party, which aims to be a broad-based Labour formation in Northern Ireland. He stands under its label for the European Parliament in 1979 but polls just 6,122 first preferences and thereby loses his deposit.
In 1987, Devlin and remnants of the NILP and others, establish Labour ’87 as another attempt at building a Labour Party in Northern Ireland by uniting the disparate groups supporting labour and socialist policies but it is met with little or no success. In 1985 he loses his seat on the Belfast City council.
Devlin suffers from severe diabetes and throughout the 1990s suffers a series of ailments as his health and sight collapse. Devlin dies at the age of 74 on August 15, 1999.
The 1981 hunger strike begins on March 1, 1981, when Bobby Sands, a former commanding officer of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and prisoner at Long Kesh prison, refuses food. Other prisoners join the hunger strike one at a time at staggered intervals, which they believe will arouse maximum public support and exert maximum pressure on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The movement initially struggles to generate public support for the hunger strike. The Sunday before Sands begins his strike, only 3,500 people march through the streets of west Belfast as compared to 10,000 marchers during a previous hunger strike four months earlier.
Five days into the strike, however, Independent Republican Member of Parliament (MP) for Fermanagh and South TyroneFrank Maguire dies, resulting in a by-election. There is debate among nationalists and republicans regarding who should contest the election, but they ultimately agreed not to split the nationalist vote by contesting the election and Sands stands as an Anti H-Block candidate against Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West. Following a high-profile campaign the election takes place on April 9, and Sands is elected to the British House of Commons with 30,492 votes to West’s 29,046.
Sands’ election victory raises hopes that a settlement can be negotiated, but Thatcher stands firm in refusing to give concessions to the hunger strikers. The world’s media descends on Belfast, and several intermediaries, including Síle de Valera, granddaughter of Éamon de Valera, Pope John Paul II‘s personal envoy John Magee, and European Commission of Human Rights officials, visit Sands in an attempt to negotiate an end to the hunger strike. With Sands close to death, the government’s position remains unchanged, and they do not force medical treatment upon him.
On May 5, Sands dies in the prison hospital on day 66 of his hunger strike, prompting rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Over 100,000 people line the route of his funeral, which is conducted with full IRA military honours. Margaret Thatcher showed no sympathy for his death.
In the two weeks following Sands’ death, three more hunger strikers die – Francis Hughes on May 12, and Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara on May 21. The deaths result in further rioting in Northern Ireland, particularly Derry and Belfast. Following the May 21 deaths, Primate of All Ireland Tomás Ó Fiaich criticises the British government’s handling of the hunger strike. Despite this, Thatcher still refuses to negotiate a settlement.
On July 28, following the deaths of Joe McDonnell (July 8) and Martin Hurson (July 13), the families of some of the hunger strikers attend a meeting with Catholic priest Father Denis Faul. The families express concern at the lack of a settlement and a decision is made to meet with Gerry Adams later that day. At the meeting Father Faul puts pressure on Adams to find a way of ending the strike, and Adams agrees to ask the IRA leadership to order the men to end the hunger strike. The following day Adams holds a meeting with six of the hunger strikers to outline a proposed settlement on offer from the British government should the strike be brought to an end. The strikers reject the settlement, believing that accepting anything less than their original demands will be a betrayal of the sacrifice made by Bobby Sands and the other men who had died.
On July 31, the hunger strike begins to break when the mother of Paddy Quinn insists on medical intervention to save his life. The following day Kevin Lynch dies, followed by Kieran Doherty on August 2, Thomas McElwee on August 8, and Michael Devine on August 20. On September 6, the family of Laurence McKeown becomes the fourth family to intervene and asks for medical treatment to save his life, and Cahal Daly issues a statement calling on republican prisoners to end the hunger strike.
A week later James Prior replaces Humphrey Atkins as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and meets with prisoners in an attempt to end the strike. Liam McCloskey ends his strike on September 26 after his family says they will ask for medical intervention if he becomes unconscious. It also becomes clear that the families of the remaining hunger strikers will also intervene to save their lives. The strike is called off at 3:15 PM on October 3. Three days later Secretary of State Prior announces partial concessions to the prisoners including the right to wear their own clothes at all times. The only one of their original five demands still outstanding is the right not to do prison work. Following sabotage by the prisoners and the Maze Prison escape in 1983, the prison workshops are closed, effectively granting all five of the demands but without any formal recognition of political status from the government.
Over the summer of 1981, ten hunger strikers die. Thirteen others begin refusing food but are taken off hunger strike, either due to medical reasons or after intervention by their families. Many of them still suffer from the effects of the strike, with problems including digestive, visual, physical and neurological disabilities.
The Docklands bombing, also known as the Canary Wharf bombing or the South Quay bombing, occurs on February 9, 1996, marking the end of the Irish Republican Army‘s (IRA) seventeen-month ceasefire.
At about 7:01 PM on February 9, the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonates a large bomb in a small lorry about 80 yards from South Quay Station on the Docklands Light Railway in the Canary Wharf financial district of London. The bomb, containing 500 kg of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and sugar and a detonating cord made of semtex, PETN, and RDX high explosives, is placed directly under the point where the tracks cross Marsh Wall.
The IRA sends telephone warnings 90 minutes prior to the detonation and the area is evacuated. However, two men working in the newsagents shop directly opposite the explosion, Inam Bashir and John Jeffries, are not evacuated in time and are killed in the explosion. Thirty-nine people require hospital treatment as a result of the blast and falling glass. A portion of the South Quay Plaza is destroyed, and the explosion leaves a crater ten metres wide and three metres deep. The shockwave from the blast causes windows to rattle five miles away.
Approximately £100 million worth of damage is done by the blast. The Midland Bank building is damaged beyond economic repair and is demolished. South Quay Plaza I and II are severely damaged and require complete rebuilding. The station itself is extensively damaged, but both it and the bridge under which the bomb is exploded are reopened within weeks.
The bombing marks the end of a 17-month IRA ceasefire during which Irish, British, and American leaders work for a political solution to the troubles in Northern Ireland. IRA member James McArdle is convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but murder charges are dropped. McArdle is released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in June 2000 with a royal prerogative of mercy from Queen Elizabeth II.
The IRA describes the deaths and injuries as a result of the bomb as “regrettable,” but says that they could have been avoided if police had responded promptly to “clear and specific warnings.” Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Paul Condon says, “It would be unfair to describe this as a failure of security. It was a failure of humanity.”
Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, speaks of the need to continue the peace process. British Prime Minister John Major says there is now “a dark shadow of doubt” where optimism has existed.
On February 28, Prime Minister Major and Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland John Bruton, announce that all-party talks will be resumed in June. Major’s decision to drop the demand for IRA decommissioning of weapons before Sinn Fein is allowed into talks leads to criticism from the press, which accuse him of being “bombed to the table.”
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seamus dubhghaill 