On This Day / October 12, 1971

Summary: On This Day – 12th October 1971, Alliance politician Bob Cooper linked the rise of the Provisional IRA to failed reforms and insecurity, while Roy Bradford warned of economic bankruptcy. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.

Alliance on Rise of IRA | On This Day – 12th October 1971

THERE are two security problems in the North – the IRA and the clear threat of Protestant extremist who take the law into their own hands.

This was stated last night by Mr Bob Cooper, joint chairman of the Alliance Party’s political committee in Warrenpoint. ‘Northern Ireland has now been adjudicated politically bankrupt.

Reforms which should have started years ago have proved to be too little and too late.

Threats have been used to force reforms and threats are being used to prevent them.

The Government apparently bows to whatever threat appears most dangerous to its own position. This is not government by consent…

‘Without immediate and far-reaching reform there will be no security. The Government should appreciate that it was its failure to give security to Catholic ghetto areas in 1969 which created the Provisional IRA.

The Provos rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of Bombay Street.

‘Security must be totally nonpolitical. When you ask why so many Catholics in the urban ghettos put up with the IRA, the only answer you get is that the IRA is misguidedly seen as a security against armed attack and intimidation…’

Minister Warns of Bankruptcy

MR Roy Bradford, Stormont Minister of Development, has forecast that the North would be faced with economic bankruptcy in a matter of weeks if the present troubles did not end.

Speaking on BBC, he said that if the extra troops being brought in did not get on top of the situation, the Government would have to think of going much further.

When asked what he meant, he said it would mean putting more effort into the security precautions.

Mr Bradford continued: ‘There is a civil disobedience campaign organised with the express purpose of destroying our administrative structure and our society.

These same rents and payments will be recovered through the courts.’

Orange Order Still Decides – CRA

SOUTH Derry Civil Rights Association in a statement said that, despite all the talk of reforms, the Orange Order still decided who worked where.

The statement referred to recent appointments in the area all filled by Unionists.

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: native of Co Donegal, Bob Cooper had left the Young Unionists to join Alliance.

Like Conn McCluskey, he saw Unionism’s resistance to reforms and the subsequent violence of 1969 as having created PIRA.

Frankly acknowledging the abject failure of internment, Roy Bradford hinted at even greater coercion.

Significantly, at this moment, Faulkner was pressing General Tuzo for an all-out assault on the ‘no-go’ areas in Belfast and Derry – something the general rejected.)

On This Day – 12th October 1971

Further Reading on Irish History:

List of other On This Day columns

Other resources: National Library of Ireland Irish News CAIN Archive

About Eamon Phoenix

About the Eamon Phoenix Foundation