Losing Control, 1958–1972

Abstract

At the start of 1959, when Sean Lemass became Ireland’s prime minister, Northern Ireland’s UUP looked fully in control, having quickly defeated an IRA campaign that had begun in 1956 and sputtered out in 1961. Yet just over a decade later the UUP’s control collapsed under the pressure of a civil-rights movement and its consequences. How this unexpected set of events unfolded and led to renewed British direct rule is explained in this chapter. The consequences of the British welfare state are emphasized. Northern Irish Catholics demanding equal rights with British citizens proved to be the key that unwound the UUP’s system of control. The UK Labour government of 1964–70 proved more sympathetic to Northern Irish Catholics than its predecessors had been in 1945–51 for reasons that are explained in this chapter and the next. Paradoxically, improved relations between the Southern and Northern governments preceded the erosion of the UUP’s control of the North.