Dublin's Doomsday plan (1974)

international | crime and justice | news report Thursday January 06, 2005 06:00 by Brendan Quinn

News Special: Dublin's Doomsday plan (released this week under the thirty year rule by Department of justice and Home Office)
The year 1974 was one of the most tumultuous of the Troubles. The power-sharing executive took office in January - only to be toppled by the Ulster Workers' Council strike five months later, and 303 people were murdered, including 206 civilians. Just-released Irish state papers reveal how the Republic's government considered 'Doomsday' plans to recruit 100,000 troops in case British withdrawal prompted widespread civil war in Ulster.

TOP secret 'Doomsday' plans were drawn up by the Dublin government 30 years ago in case British withdrawal prompted a civil war, and - in the worst-case scenario - led to an Irish army takeover of Northern Ireland.

Made public for the first time yesterday by the Republic's National Archive, secret files from 1974 indicate there was widespread alarm that Harold Wilson's new Labour Government would change its policy, and opt to pull out.

Drawn up in the wake of the collapse of the five-month-old Sunningdale power-sharing administration - brought down by the Ulster Workers' Council strike in May - the report shows senior officials were not expecting an "abrupt" withdrawal.

However, statements following the collapse of Sunningdale indicated that a rejection of British proposals for a settlement "must inevitably lead to a reappraisal of the whole Great Britain-Northern Ireland relationship", according to one of the files.

After a visit to Britain, an SDLP delegation told members of the Dublin government "there is a smell of it (withdrawal) in the air".

The report says "impressions from a meeting between the Taoiseach and Mr Wilson in April this year, and the views of a number of elected representatives from Northern Ireland, tend to bear out the view that feeling at constituency level in the UK in favour of withdrawal is a great deal stronger than it is expressed to be, in public, by British ministers".

It was against this background that then-Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave's Fine Gael/Labour coalition cabinet ordered, in July 1974, that a special Northern Ireland unit of senior officials should be beefed-up to make emergency plans.

According to the newly released documents, the unit drew up scenarios for a number of different border routes re-partitioning the island, how to deal with possible widespread civil strife in Northern Ireland triggered by a withdrawal, and the capacity of the Irish army to intervene.

A discussion paper said there was general agreement that an army move into Northern Ireland "could only be contemplated in a situation where inter-communal fighting was already so widespread that intervention could not make matters worse".

A full takeover would involve over 100,000 troops - compared with the Army's 11,300 strength in 1974. Of that 11,300 the report conceded that 5,500 were frontline troops with the rest making up support elements such as administration, stores and army bands.

The unit's report concludes with a warning that the belief a British withdrawal will be followed by unity "is not well-founded".

"It is more likely that a British withdrawal, if it is abrupt, would be followed by an attempt, possibly successful, to establish an independent state in Northern Ireland, initially over the entire six counties but, ultimately, over these areas now dominated by the majority there."

The report shows strategies were drawn up for dealing with a flood of Catholic refugees streaming across the border (including billeting them on Southern families), the economic implications of widespread civil strife, and how any enlarged Republic would be financed after re-partition.

It also considered an approach to the UN to have it administer Northern Ireland under a trusteeship for a limited period of, perhaps, 10 years.

The Inter-Departmental Unit (IDU) was chaired by Dermot Nally from the Taoiseach's office and included senior officials from Foreign Affairs, Finance, Defence and Justice.

Working with the 1971 census results in drawing up possible border lines for any new partition, the IDU was concerned about the large Catholic minorities in Belfast and Lisburn, and Protestant majorities in border areas like Castlederg and Enniskillen.

To deal with the situation, it considered "cantonment and enclave" solutions as used for Greek and Turkish areas following conflict in Cyprus, or making "a solid Catholic bloc" in west Belfast the subject of what is termed "a west Berlin-type situation".

Of the four partition scenarios drawn up, the minimum affected 161,000 Catholics and 132,000 Protestants if all of Co Fermanagh, Londonderry, Newry and parts of counties Armagh, Down and Tyrone became part of the Republic. In a maximum scenario that involved further parts of counties Londonderry, Tyrone and Armagh becoming part of the Republic, it would have involved 249,000 Catholics and 252,000 Protestants who lived in the areas.

The maximum scenario would have left 230,000 Catholics and 1.1m Protestants living in the remaining areas of Northern Ireland.

A Mr P Colwell, of the Department of Justice, ruled out any IRA takeover south of the border, saying the security forces would be in a position to deal with that. However, there was no doubt the IRA would attempt to gain control of areas just north of the border with the "overt or tacit" support of local people.

The IRA, he noted, would be unlikely to make any "enduring attempt" to take or hold areas deeper within Northern Ireland - even where there were no strong republican sympathies.