The Troubles
The Troubles , Na Trioblóidí in Irish , scarred Northern Ireland for roughly thirty years, from the late 1960s to 1998. More than 3,500 people died. Of them, 52% were civilians: shopkeepers, teenagers, families asleep in their beds. The conflict left no corner of Northern Irish society untouched, and its reverberations crossed into the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.
At its core, this was not a religious war, even though it divided along the lines of Protestant and Catholic. It was a political struggle over a fundamental question: should Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom, or join a united Ireland? Unionists and loyalists , mostly Ulster Protestants , fought to stay in Britain. Irish nationalists and republicans , mostly Catholics , wanted to leave. That division, planted in the soil of 17th-century plantation settlements and centuries of colonial policy, erupted with devastating force in the late 1960s.
How did a civil rights march end in a thirty-year war? Who were the people who carried out the bombings, the hunger strikes, the assassinations? And what finally brought it to an end? The answers reach back to 1609, run through the bloodiest single day of the entire conflict, and arrive at a hotel in Brighton, a hotel restaurant in Comber, a cenotaph in Enniskillen, and ultimately, a peace agreement that reshaped what it meant to govern a divided society.
In 1609, Scottish and English settlers known as planters were given land taken from the native Irish in the Plantation of Ulster. That act of dispossession set in motion a chain of conflict that would echo for centuries. Two bloody religious wars followed , the Irish Confederate Wars of 1641 to 1653, and the Williamite War of 1689 to 1691 , both ending in Protestant victories. The Penal Laws that followed curtailed the religious, legal, and political rights of Catholics and Protestant Dissenters alike, cementing Anglican dominance in Ireland.
As those laws were gradually phased out in the late 18th century, new tensions emerged over land. Catholics, newly permitted to rent and buy, competed with Protestants who had long held economic advantages. Protestant "Peep o' Day Boys" and Catholic "Defenders" emerged as opposing factions. Reformist impulses among Protestants collapsed, replaced by hardening sectarianism.
The Act of Explanation of 1665 gives a glimpse of how the word "troubles" already carried weight in this period , the Irish Parliament used it to describe the upheavals of the previous generation. The Orange Order, founded in 1795 to uphold Protestant faith and loyalty to the heirs of William of Orange, dates from this same era and remains active to this day. Each layer of history added another grievance, another loyalty, another reason to distrust the neighbour across the street , and all of it was still alive, barely beneath the surface, when the 1960s arrived.
On the 20th of June 1968, nationalist Member of Parliament Austin Currie squatted in a house in Caledon, County Tyrone, to protest housing discrimination. The local council had allocated the property to an unmarried 19-year-old Protestant , Emily Beattie, secretary to a local Unionist politician , instead of either of two large Catholic families with children. One of the RUC officers who forcibly removed Currie was Beattie's own brother. The incident lit a fuse.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had already been campaigning on multiple fronts: an end to job discrimination, an end to gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, one person one vote in local elections, and reform of a police force that was over 90% Protestant and widely accused of sectarianism. The RUC's Special Powers Act allowed police to arrest without charge, ban publications, and search without a warrant , and it was used almost exclusively against nationalists.
On the 5th of October 1968, a civil rights march in Derry was banned by the Northern Ireland government. When marchers defied the ban, RUC officers surrounded them and beat them indiscriminately and without provocation. More than 100 people were injured, including nationalist politicians. The incident was filmed by television news crews and broadcast around the world, triggering two days of rioting in Derry.
On the 1st of January 1969, People's Democracy began a four-day march from Belfast to Derry. At Burntollet Bridge, the marchers were ambushed by about 200 loyalists armed with iron bars, bricks, and bottles , including some off-duty police officers. That night, RUC officers rampaged through the Bogside area of Derry, attacking homes and residents. Residents sealed off the Bogside with barricades, briefly creating "Free Derry" , a no-go area for the security forces. The civil rights movement had collided head-on with the state.
On the 12th of August 1969, the loyalist Apprentice Boys of Derry were permitted to march along the edge of the Bogside. Taunts turned into stones and petrol bombs. The RUC, backed by loyalists, tried to storm the Bogside using CS gas, armoured vehicles, and water cannons. Nationalists held them off for three days in what became known as the Battle of the Bogside.
In Belfast, loyalists invaded nationalist districts, burning houses and businesses , described at the time as the worst assaults on Catholic areas since the 1920s. The RUC deployed Shorland armoured cars mounted with heavy Browning machine guns. One Shorland opened fire on a block of flats in a nationalist district, killing nine-year-old Patrick Rooney, who was shot in the head while asleep in bed by a bullet that passed through two walls. He was the first child killed by police in the conflict.
On the 13th of August, Taoiseach Jack Lynch made a television address condemning the RUC and declaring that the Irish Government "can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse". He called for a United Nations peacekeeping force and said that Irish Army field hospitals were being set up near Derry. Some interpreted the speech as a threat of military intervention. Secretly, Lynch ordered the Irish Army to plan for a possible humanitarian intervention , a plan codenamed "Exercise Armageddon" that was rejected and remained classified for thirty years.
British troops were deployed in Derry and Belfast on 14 and the 15th of August under Operation Banner, which would become the British Army's longest operation. Ten people had been killed during the riots. Between July and the 1st of September, 505 Catholic and 315 Protestant families were forced to flee their homes. The Irish Army set up refugee camps near the border. On the 10th of September, the British Army began constructing the first "peace wall" , a barrier intended to keep the Falls and Shankill communities apart. It was described as temporary. It still stands today.
Bloody Sunday fell on the 30th of January 1972. Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment , known as "1 Para" , opened fire on an anti-internment rally in Derry organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, shooting dead thirteen unarmed men. A fourteenth man died of his injuries some months later. Fifteen other civilians were wounded. It was the largest number of civilians killed in a single shooting incident during the entire conflict.
The killing transformed Catholic opinion. Recruitment to the Provisional IRA surged. The Provos had already split from the older IRA in the late 1960s, committed to armed struggle in a way the older organisation had abandoned. In 1972, the Provisional IRA killed approximately 100 members of the security forces, wounded 500 others, and carried out approximately 1,300 bombings, mostly against commercial targets. On Bloody Friday, the 21st of July, they detonated 22 bombs in the centre of Belfast, killing nine people. Ten days later, a triple car bombing in Claudy killed nine civilians.
That year, nearly 500 people were killed , just over half of them civilians , the worst single year of the entire conflict. British troop concentrations reached a ratio of 1 to 50 of the civilian population, described as the highest ratio in the history of counterinsurgency warfare. The British government responded in March 1972 by suspending the Stormont parliament and introducing direct rule from London.
Between 1971 and 1975, 1,981 people were interned without trial; 1,874 were Catholic or republican, and 107 were Protestant or loyalist. Interrogation methods used by police and army were ruled illegal by a British government inquiry in 1972. Among nationalists, internment was not just an injustice , it was a recruiting tool, and the evidence showed that very few of those initially detained were actually republican activists.
From 1972 onward, paramilitaries convicted of offences were tried in juryless Diplock courts and treated as ordinary criminals. More than 500 republican prisoners in the Maze prison refused to accept that designation. They launched the "blanket" and "dirty" protests, refusing prison uniforms and smearing their cells with excrement. Those protests culminated in hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981, demanding restoration of political status.
In the 1981 hunger strike, ten republican prisoners died of starvation , seven from the Provisional IRA and three from the Irish National Liberation Army. The first to die, Bobby Sands, was elected to Parliament on an Anti-H-Block ticket while still on hunger strike. His election agent, Owen Carron, won the seat after Sands's death. Over 100,000 people attended Sands's funeral mass in West Belfast, and thousands more attended the funerals of the other hunger strikers.
The hunger strikes demonstrated something the Provisional IRA had not previously considered: the potential power of electoral politics alongside armed struggle. Sinn Féin, which had become the Provisional IRA's political wing, began contesting elections in both Northern Ireland and the Republic for the first time in the wake of the strikes. In 1986, Sinn Féin recognised the legitimacy of the Irish Dáil, causing a small group of members to break away and form Republican Sinn Féin. The ballot box, which had seemed irrelevant to those committed to armed struggle, was now part of the strategy.
On the 12th of October 1984, the IRA detonated a 100-pound time bomb in the Grand Brighton Hotel, where Margaret Thatcher and other politicians were staying for the Conservative Party conference. The bomb exploded in the early hours of the morning, killing five people including Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, and injuring 34 others. Thatcher escaped. The attack made vivid what the Provisional IRA's "Long War" strategy meant in practice: a sustained campaign of violence, indefinitely prolonged, capable of reaching anywhere in Britain.
Three years later, on the 8th of November 1987 in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, a Provisional IRA time bomb exploded during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony near a cenotaph at the heart of the parade. Eleven people were killed , ten civilians and one RUC officer , and 63 were injured. Former school headmaster Ronnie Hill was seriously injured, slipped into a coma two days later, and remained in that condition for more than a decade before dying in December 2000. The unit that carried out the bombing was disbanded.
The outrage at Enniskillen was near-universal, including within the republican community. But the violence did not stop. In March 1988, three IRA volunteers were shot dead by the SAS at a Shell petrol station on Winston Churchill Avenue in Gibraltar, in what became known as Operation Flavius. At their funeral in Belfast's Milltown Cemetery, loyalist Michael Stone threw grenades into the crowd and opened fire, killing three people including IRA volunteer Kevin Brady. At Brady's funeral, two plain-clothes British Army corporals , David Howes and Derek Wood , drove into the funeral cortege. The crowd, believing them to be loyalists repeating Stone's attack, pulled them from their car. They were killed by the IRA. Three funerals, two additional killings, one within days of the other: this was the recursive logic of tit-for-tat violence that the Long War had produced.
On the 31st of August 1994, the IRA declared a ceasefire. Six weeks later, the loyalist paramilitaries, temporarily united in the "Combined Loyalist Military Command", reciprocated. In 1995, the United States appointed George J. Mitchell as Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. He was recognised not as a token appointment but as representing President Bill Clinton's genuine personal investment in the peace process.
The ceasefire collapsed on the 9th of February 1996, when the IRA detonated a bomb in the Canary Wharf area of London, killing two people, injuring 39, and causing £85 million in damage. On the 15th of June 1996, the IRA bombed central Manchester , the largest bomb attack in Britain since the Second World War , causing an estimated £411 million in damage. Over 200 people were injured; the attack avoided fatalities only because of a telephone warning and the rapid response of emergency services.
The last British soldier killed during the Troubles was Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, shot dead by the IRA's South Armagh sniper at a checkpoint near Bessbrook on the 12th of February 1997. The IRA reinstated its ceasefire in July 1997. Talks produced the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of power-sharing. It included acceptance of the principle of consent, commitments to civil and political rights, police reform, paramilitary disarmament, and early release of paramilitary prisoners.
In August 1998, a Real IRA bomb in Omagh killed 29 civilians, the most killed by a single bomb during the entire conflict. The bombing , carried out by a splinter group that rejected the Agreement , turned much of the remaining support for dissident republicans against them. The Police Service of Northern Ireland replaced the RUC, required to recruit at least a 50% Catholic quota for ten years. The Diplock courts were eventually removed under the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. The peace walls built in 1969 as temporary barriers remain in place.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
How many people were killed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland?
More than 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles. Of those deaths, 52% were civilians, 32% were members of the British security forces, and 16% were members of paramilitary groups. Republican paramilitaries were responsible for 60% of total deaths, loyalist paramilitaries for 30%, and security forces for 10%.
What caused the Troubles in Northern Ireland?
The Troubles grew from a political and nationalist struggle over the status of Northern Ireland , whether it should remain part of the United Kingdom or join a united Ireland. The immediate trigger was a civil rights campaign by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association against discrimination in housing, employment, and voting rights. That campaign was met with violence from loyalists and suppression by the RUC, escalating into three decades of armed conflict.
What was Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland?
Bloody Sunday occurred on the 30th of January 1972 in Derry, when soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment shot dead thirteen unarmed men at a civil rights rally. A fourteenth man died of his injuries months later, and fifteen other civilians were wounded. It was the largest number of civilians killed in a single shooting incident during the Troubles, and it significantly increased Catholic support for the Provisional IRA.
What ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland?
The Troubles are generally considered to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The Agreement restored self-government to Northern Ireland on a power-sharing basis and included commitments to civil rights, police reform, paramilitary disarmament, and early release of paramilitary prisoners. Both IRA and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires preceded the Agreement, beginning in 1994.
Who was Bobby Sands and what was his role in the Troubles?
Bobby Sands was a Provisional IRA prisoner in the Maze prison who led the 1981 hunger strike demanding restoration of political status for republican prisoners. While on hunger strike, he was elected to Parliament on an Anti-H-Block ticket. He died of starvation, becoming the first of ten republican prisoners to die in the strike. Over 100,000 people attended his funeral mass in West Belfast.
What was the worst single bombing of the Troubles?
The Omagh bombing of August 1998 killed 29 civilians, the most killed by a single bomb during the Troubles. It was carried out by the Real IRA, a splinter group that rejected the Good Friday Agreement. The bombing widely discredited dissident republican groups in the eyes of many who had previously supported the Provisional IRA's campaign.
All sources
258 references cited across the entry
- 1webBeginning of the TroublesUlster University
- 2webFrequently Asked Questions – The Northern Ireland ConflictMartin Melaugh — Ulster University — 3 February 2006
- 3bookHistorical Dictionary of the Northern Ireland ConflictGordon Gillespie — Scarecrow Press — 2008
- 4bookBehind the Mask: The IRA and Sinn FéinPeter Taylor — TV Books — 1997
- 5bookA Farewell to Arms? Beyond the Good Friday AgreementMichael Cox et al. — Manchester University Press — 2006
- 6webAbstracts of Organisations – 'U'Martin Melaugh — Ulster University
- 7webSutton Index of Deaths – Status SummaryMalcolm Sutton — Ulster University
- 8magazineViolence in the TroublesSeamus Kelters — February 2013
- 9bookReligion, Identity and Politics in Northern IrelandClaire Mitchell — Ashgate Publishing — 2013
- 10bookExplaining Northern IrelandJohn McGarry et al. — Wiley-Blackwell — 1995
- 11bookNorthern Ireland and the Politics of ReconciliationCambridge University Press — 1994
- 14webGlossary of Terms on Northern Ireland ConflictMartin Melaugh et al. — Ulster University
- 15bookThe politics of Northern IrelandJoanne McEvoy — Edinburgh University Press — 2008
- 16bookMaking Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern Ireland ConflictDavid McKittrick et al. — Penguin Books — 2001
- 17bookThe Northern Ireland Conflict: A Beginner's GuideAaron Edwards et al. — Oneworld — 2012
- 18bookThe Politics of Northern Ireland: Beyond the Belfast AgreementArthur Aughey — Routledge — 2005
- 19bookHope Against History: The Course of Terrorist trouble in Northern IrelandJack Holland — Henry Holt and Company — 1999
- 20bookHistorical Dictionary of the Northern Ireland ConflictGordon Gillespie — Scarecrow Press — 2007
- 21bookThe Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland: Peace Lectures from the Institute of Irish Studies at Liverpool UniversityMarianne Elliott — Liverpool University Press — 2007
- 22bookWhen Reason Fails: Portraits of Armies at War: America, Britain, Israel, and the FutureMichael Goodspeed — Greenwood — 2002
- 23bookNorthern Ireland: The Troubles: From The Provos to The DetKenneth Lesley-Dixon — Pen and Sword — 2018
- 24bookSevered States: Dilemmas of Democracy in a Divided WorldRobert Schaeffer — Rowman & Littlefield — 1999
- 25newsSpecial Branch officer's insider view of Northern Ireland's 'secret war'Mark Rainey — Johnston Publishing (NI) — 12 November 2016
- 26newsWho Won The War? Revisiting NI on 20th anniversary of ceasefiresPeter Taylor — 26 September 2014
- 27newsTroubles 'not war' motion passed18 February 2008
- 28bookThe Northern Ireland peace process: ending the troubles?Thomas Hennessey — Palgrave Macmillan — 2001
- 29bookArmed Struggle: The History of the IRARichard English — Oxford University Press — 2005
- 30bookRepresenting the Troubles in Irish Short FictionMichael L. Storey — The Catholic University of America Press — 2004
- 31bookRethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and ExplorationsRichard Jenkins — SAGE Publications — 1997
- 32bookThe State: Historical and Political DimensionsRichard English et al. — Routledge — 1998
- 33bookOrange Parades: The Politics of Ritual, Tradition and ControlDominic Bryan — Pluto Press — 2000
- 34newsThe Troubles: How 1969 violence led to Army's longest campaign14 August 2019
- 35webOperation Banner
- 36webSutton Index of DeathsMalcolm Sutton — Ulster University
- 37webSutton Index of Deaths: Crosstabulations (two-way tables)Ulster University
- 38newsNorthern Ireland: Eighty-one 'punishment attacks' in past yearGerry Moriarty — 5 August 2019
- 39newsSouth East Antrim UDA: 'A criminal cartel wrapped in a flag'21 March 2021
- 41webSurveillance recorded 'South East Antrim UDA drugs conversation', court is toldAlan Earwin — 25 March 2021
- 42webPolice seize suspected drugs in operation linked to the South East Antrim UDA14 October 2022
- 43newsDrugs seized in searches linked to South East Antrim UDA4 September 2018
- 45webDraft List of Deaths Related to the Conflict (2003–present)Ulster University
- 46bookThe Anglo-Irish War: The Troubles of 1913–1922Peter Cottrell — Osprey Publishing — 2006
- 47bookRepresenting the Troubles in Irish Short FictionMichael L. Storey — CUA Press — 2004
- 48newsOut of trouble: How diplomacy brought peace to Northern Ireland17 March 2008
- 49newsProfile: The Orange OrderBBC News — 4 July 2001
- 50web‘In the hands of an armed mob’ – The Belfast Riots of 1864John Dorney — 2020-04-09
- 51bookIrish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in IrelandRichard English — Pan Books — 2006
- 53bookAtlas of the Irish RevolutionNYU Press — 2017
- 54bookFamilies at WarPeter Taylor — BBC — 1989
- 55bookArmed Struggle: The History of the IRARichard English — Oxford University Press — 2003
- 57journalFacts and Figures of the Belfast Pogroms G.B. Kenna 1922 | Niall MeehanNiall Meehan — 1 January 1970
- 58webHistory Ireland4 March 2013
- 59bookThe I.R.A. at war, 1916–1923Peter Hart — Oxford University Press — 2003
- 60webCAIN: Issue: Discrimination - Quotations on the topic of DiscriminationUlster University
- 61bookFormations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern IrelandUniversity of Chicago Press — 1991
- 62bookMaking Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern IrelandViking — 2012
- 63webRevisiting the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement: 1968–69 – The Irish Story3 December 2018
- 69bookNorthern Ireland: Conflict and ChangeJonathan Tonge — Longman — 2002
- 70bookPolitics UKVarious — Longman — 2006
- 71bookCounter-Terrorism Policy And Human Rights: Terrorism Bill and related matters: Oral and Written EvidenceJoint Committee on Human Rights, Parliament of the United Kingdom — The Stationery Office — 2005
- 72bookThe Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal and the Search for PeaceTim Pat Coogan — Palgrave Macmillan — 2002
- 74bookFighting for Ireland?: The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican MovementM. L. R. Smith — Routledge — 2002
- 75bookPolitics in the Streets: The origins of the civil rights movement in Northern IrelandBob Purdie — Blackstaff Press
- 77interviewSixteen of us in one small houseRTÉ Archives — 27 August 1969
- 78webCaledon Housing ProtestCampaign for Civil Rights
- 79webSubmission to the Independent Commission into PolicingServe.com
- 80webThe Derry March: Main events of the dayMartin Melaugh — Ulster University
- 81bookThe Most Contrary RegionRex Cathcart — The Blackstaff Press — 1984
- 83bookProvos The IRA & Sinn FéinPeter Taylor — Bloomsbury Publishing — 1997
- 84webChronology of the Conflict: 1969cain.ulst.ac.uk
- 85bookLoyalistsPeter Taylor — Bloomsbury Publishing — 1999
- 88bookThe Nationalists of Northern Ireland 1918-1973Enda Staunton — The Columba Press — 2001
- 89bookProvos The IRA & Sinn FéinPeter Taylor — Bloomsbury Publishing — 1998
- 90bookGreat Irish SpeechesRichard Aldous — Quercus Publishing PLC — 2007
- 91bookA Short History of IrelandJohn Ranelagh — Cambridge University Press — 1994
- 92newsArmy on Armageddon alertJames Downey — 2 January 2001
- 93bookNorthern Ireland Yearbook 2005Michael McKernan — Stationery Office — 2005
- 94bookLost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland TroublesDavid McKittrick — Mainstream Publishing — 2004
- 95bookBear in Mind These DeadMalcolm Sutton — Beyond the Pale Publications — 1994
- 96bookFrom Mediation to Nation-Building: Third Parties and the Management of Communal ConflictJoseph R Jr. Rudolph — Lexington Books — 2013
- 98bookUp off their knees: a commentary on the civil rights movement in Northern IrelandConn McCluskey — Conn McCluskey and Associates — 1969
- 99webInterfaces
- 100journalPower, Perception, Group Relationships, and Conflict Dynamics: Loyalist Paramilitary Violence and Its Effects Within the Republic of Ireland During the Troubles, 1969–1998Dale William Henry Pankhurst — 2025
- 101bookArmed Struggle: The History of the IRARichard English — Oxford University Press — 2004
- 102newsMcGurk's bar bombing – A dark night in the darkest timesBBC News — 21 February 2011
- 103webSutton Index of DeathsMalcolm Sutton
- 104bookBrits: The War Against the IRAPeter Taylor — Bloomsbury Publishing — 2001
- 105bookThe Provisional IRAPatrick Bishop & Eamonn Mallie — Corgi Books — 1987
- 106bookThe Hunger StrikesR.K. Walker — Lagan Books — 2006
- 107bookExecutive Measures, Terrorism and National Security: Have the Rules of the Game Changed?David Bonner — Ashgate — 2007
- 108news10 people shot dead in Ballymurphy were innocent, inquest finds11 May 2021
- 109webCAIN: Events: 'Bloody Sunday' – Names of Dead and InjuredDr Martin Melaugh
- 110bookBloody Sunday and the Rule of Law in Northern IrelandDermot Walsh — Gill & Macmillan — 2000
- 112webCAIN: Violence: List of Significant Violent IncidentsDr Martin Melaugh
- 113bookThose Are Real Bullets, Aren't They?Peter Pringle and Phillip Jacobson — 2000
- 114webInternment – Summary of Main EventsCain.ulst.ac.uk
- 115bookThe Long War – The IRA and Sinn FéinBrendan O'Brien — O'Brien Press, Ltd. — 1995
- 116bookThe Secret Army: The IRAJ. Bowyer Bell — Transaction Publishers — 1997
- 117newsBloody Friday: What happenedBBC News — 16 July 2002
- 118webIndex of deaths from the conflict in Ireland: 1972Malcolm Sutton
- 121webIRA bomb in Claudy was indefensible, says Martin McGuinness31 July 2012
- 122bookInside The IRA: Dissident Republicans And The War For LegitimacyAndrew Sanders — Edinburgh University Press — 2012
- 123bookA Secret History of the IRAEd Moloney — Penguin Books — 2002
- 124news1972: Official IRA declares ceasefireBBC News — 30 May 1981
- 125journalCounterinsurgency force ratio: strategic utility or nominal necessityRiley M. Moore — 1 October 2013
- 126webCAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1972Dr Martin Melaugh
- 127newsUK urged to Release Dublin and Monaghan Bombing Files17 May 2017
- 128newsBritain's secret plan to pull the Army out of Northern IrelandChris Ryder — 12 August 2019
- 129newsWilson weighed up direct rule in NorthRachel Donnelly — 3 January 2000
- 130newsEvery Briton Now a Target for Death1 December 1974
- 131newsWilson had NI 'doomsday' planBBC News — 11 September 2008
- 132newsWilson clearly wanted to disengage from the NorthRichard Bourke — 3 January 2005
- 133journalThe 1974–5 Threat of a British Withdrawal from Northern IrelandGarret FitzGerald — 2006
- 134newsM62 bomb blast memorial unveiled4 February 2009
- 135newsShooting of Co Tyrone farmer by British soldier in 1974 'unjustified'21 January 2021
- 136newsPaddy McElhone: Farmer shooting by Army unjustified, inquest rules21 January 2021
- 137newsMan released over 1975 Shankill pub bombingBBC News — 2 March 2012
- 138webMountainview Bar PlaqueUlster University
- 139newsBalcombe Street Gang to be freedJohn Mullin — 10 April 1999
- 141web1978 La Mon bombing commemorated in Belfast16 February 2003
- 142news1979: Soldiers die in Warrenpoint massacreBBC News — 27 August 1979
- 144bookThe Secret Army: The IRAJ. Bowyer Bell — Transaction Publishers — 1997
- 145journalThe Canadian Dimension to the Northern Ireland ConflictAndrew Sanders and F. Stuart Ross — January 2020
- 146news1982: IRA bombs cause carnage in LondonBBC News — 20 July 1982
- 148newsOn This Day: 12 October 1984BBC News — 12 October 2000
- 149newsRUC and IRA chiefs' lives feature in national biographyBBC News — 5 January 2012
- 152newsNorthern Ireland | IRA bomb victim buriedBBC News — 30 December 2000
- 154newsDeal bombing 25th anniversary rememberedBBC News — 13 July 2014
- 157webSoldiers hurt in IRA attack on helicopter12 February 1990
- 158bookHeroes of the SkiesMichael Ashcroft — Hachette UK — 2012
- 159bookBandit Country:The IRA and South ArmaghToby Harnden — Coronet Books — 2000
- 160webHouse of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Jun 1993Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster — Parliament of the United Kingdom — 8 June 1993
- 161webTerror plot reminiscent of IRA attacks7 December 2017
- 162newsUS policy and Northern IrelandBBC News — 8 April 2003
- 163newsA Break in the Irish Impasse30 November 1995
- 164newsBBC On This Day 1996: Docklands bomb ends IRA ceasefireBBC News — 10 February 1996
- 166newsNorthern Ireland shootings: The last soldier murderedJohn Bingham — 9 March 2009
- 167webExplainer: Real IRA and Continuity IRA10 March 2009
- 168webHC 502 Cover
- 169newsNew feud rips apart the UDAHenry McDonald — 30 July 2006
- 171reportMinistry of Defence Annual Report and Accounts 2006–2007Ministry of Defence — 23 July 2007
- 172newsIRA 'has destroyed all its arms'BBC — 26 September 2005
- 173webBBC
- 175newsSupport in Republic during Troubles 'key for IRA', book claimsJohn Manley — The Irish News — 6 April 2019
- 176bookUVF – The EndgameHenry McDonald and Jim Cusack — Poolbeg Press — 1997
- 177webRevealed: how Scots loyalists sent gelignite to paramilitaries. Secret memo says explosives were shipped in small boatsThe Herald — 30 December 2005
- 178newsInside story: Why the IRA never attacked ScotlandNeil Mackay — The Herald — 12 October 2019
- 179newsArms Smuggling Is Said to Aid Protestants Less Than the I.R.A.Bernard Weinraub — 5 February 1976
- 180bookUnderstanding Shadows: The Corrupt Use of IntelligenceMichael Quilligan — Clarity Press — 2013
- 181newsLibyan leader Gaddafi's IRA support revealed in secret Irish State PapersPaddy Clancy — Irish Central — 31 December 2021
- 182newsExtent of Libyan backing for IRA 'shocked' BritishDavid McCullagh, Conor McMorrow and Justin McCarthy — RTÉ — 28 December 2021
- 183newsLibya: Extent of Gaddafi's financial support for IRA stunned British intelligenceMiddle East Eye — 28 December 2021
- 184newsThe IRA, the US and Colombia's 50 years of violencePaul Hosford — TheJournal.ie — 11 March 2015
- 186newsThe army's secret opinionNew Statesman — 13 July 1979
- 187bookInside the IRA: Dissident Republicans and the War for LegitimacyAndrew Sanders — Edinburgh University Press — 2011
- 188newsCanada let IRA members slip through, sources sayAndrew Mitrovica — The Globe and Mail — 13 October 2001
- 189bookThe Counter-Insurgency Myth: The British Experience of Irregular WarfareAndrew Mumford — Taylor & Francis — 2012
- 190bookUnderstanding Civil War: Evidence and Analysis · Volume 2Nicholas Sambanis and Paul Collier — World Bank — 2005
- 191bookUnderstanding Terrorist FinanceT. Wittig — Palgrave Macmillan — 2011
- 192newsSinn Féin raised $12 million in the United StatesPamela Duncan and Simon Carswell — The Irish Times — 5 March 2015
- 193bookLessons of Case Studies for Strengthening International Mediation and Arbitration to Prevent Deadly Conflict1997
- 194thesisDiasporas, Ethnic Conflict, and Traumatic EventsChristopher P. Cunningham — Northeastern University Department of Political Science — April 2013
- 195bookThe Media and the MilitaryP. Jesser et al. — Palgrave Macmillan — 1997
- 196bookTerrorism in Ireland (RLE: Terrorism & Insurgency)Taylor & Francis — 2015
- 197bookBridge in the Parks: The Five Eyes and Cold War Counter-IntelligenceDennis G. Molinaro — University of Toronto Press — 2021
- 198bookCold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism Around the WorldStewart Bell — Wiley — 2008
- 199journalThe Political Economy of the Provos: Inside the Finances of the Provisional IRA – A RevisionIsabel Woodford and M.L.R. Smith — Taylor & Francis — 2018
- 200journalAnti-Terrorist Finance in the United Kingdom and United StatesLaura K. Donohue — Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation — 2006
- 214newsStevens Inquiry: Key peopleBBC News — 17 April 2003
- 217newsObituary: Brian Nelson17 April 2003
- 218bookEnemies and Passing Friends: Settler ideologies in twentieth-century UlsterPamela Clayton — Pluto Press — 1996
- 224webThe Barron ReportJoint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights Houses of the Oireachtas — Oireachtas — 2003
- 226webSmithwick Report
- 227newsIrish police colluded in IRA murdersBBC News — 3 December 2013
- 228newsIrish police colluded in murders of RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan, report findsAgencies — 3 December 2013
- 231webThe DisappearedICLVR
- 233webThe DisappearedIndependent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains
- 234webDisappeared issue 'a festering wound' says McGuinnessBBC News — 5 November 2013
- 235newsUndercover soldiers 'killed unarmed civilians in Belfast'BBC — 21 November 2014
- 236newsAmnesty wants probe into British army 'death squad'Michael McHugh
- 237newsBook reveals Adams, McGuinness were on British Army death squad hit listIrishCentral.com — 18 November 2013
- 238newsUndercover Northern Ireland soldiers accused of killing unarmed civiliansOwen Bowcott — 21 November 2013
- 240newsMichael McGoldrick, 64, Activist in Ulster, Dies6 April 2006
- 241newsPolice hold six over loyalist turf war deathsAngelique Chrisafis — 5 August 2005
- 242news1998: Children die in Drumcree protestsBBC News — 12 July 1986
- 243journalSystemic sectarianism in Northern IrelandRupert Taylor — 2024-11-29
- 244webNorthern Ireland still divided by peace walls 20 years after conflict13 January 2020
- 245newsSeven in 10 nationalists agree with Michelle O'Neill that there was 'no alternative' to IRA's campaign of violence, new poll revealsSuzanne Breen — 19 August 2022
- 246webSutton Index of Deaths: Year of the deathUlster University
- 247webJohn M. Gates, Ch. 11, The Continuing Problem of Conceptual Confusion – Title3 January 2007
- 250webSutton Index of Deaths: Summary of Organisation responsibleUlster University
- 251journalChildren of the Troubles:The Impact of Political Violence in Northern IrelandOrla T. Muldoon — 2004
- 252journalNavigating Risk: Understanding the Impact of the Conflict on Children and Young People in Northern IrelandBrendan Browne — 2014
- 254webSutton Index of Deaths: 1975Ulster University
- 257newsI.r.a. Sets Off Bomb at Belgian Concert29 August 1979
- 259webNorthern Ireland Society – Security and DefenceMertin Melaugh et al. — Ulster University
- 260webNorthern Ireland Human Rights Commission responds to Legacy JudgmentNorthern Ireland Human Rights Commission — 2024-02-28
- 261newsOn an island still tormented by the Troubles, Britain's Legacy Act is making things worseFintan O’Toole — 2024-05-11
- 262newsHilary Benn is new Northern Ireland secretaryRaymona Crozier — 2024-07-05
- 263webUK and Irish Governments announce legacy framework to enable truth for families of the TroublesNorthern Ireland Office — 19 September 2025