Northern Ireland - The British Army Melted Away, Rather Than Marched Away

British army's Northern Ireland role ends tonight

Tuesday, 31 July 2007 08:45

The British army's 38-year role supporting the police in Northern Ireland officially ends at midnight tonight.

A garrison of 5,000 soldiers will remain, but they will be deployed in other countries, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Operation Banner began when troops arrived at Belfast Docks in the late summer of 1969, with no notion they were commencing what would become the longest continuous military operation in British history.

They were first mobilised because the then police force, the RUC and the B Specials, were unable to deal with growing unrest.

As the troubles deepened and guns came out, the British Army became participants in the conflict.

Of the almost 4,000 victims of the troubles, one fifth were British soldiers or members of the RIR or UDR.

In 1972, there were 27,000 members of the British armed forces in Northern Ireland.

Gradually the numbers were reduced. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 established the conditions to end Operation Banner.

As a consequence of the end of its role on the ground in Northern Ireland, the British army will stand down the home service battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment.

Army ending its operation in NI

The British army's operation in Northern Ireland will come to an end at midnight on Tuesday after 38 years.

Operation Banner - the Army's support role for the police - has been its longest continuous campaign, with more than 300,000 personnel taking part.A garrison of 5,000 troops will remain but security will be entirely the responsibility of the police.

British troops were sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 after violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants. When the first soldiers were deployed in August 1969, commanders believed they would be in Northern Ireland for just a few weeks. But the Army quickly became involved in what came to be known as Operation Banner.

A total of 763 military personnel were killed during the campaign.

At the height of the Troubles, there were about 27,000 soldiers in Northern Ireland. From Wednesday, there will be no more than 5,000.

New era for NI as Operation Banner comes to an end

The British Army's military operations in Northern Ireland will come to an end at midnight tomorrow after 38 years.

Operation Banner is the Army`s longest continuous campaign in its history with more than 300,000 personnel serving and 763 directly killed by paramilitaries.

From Wednesday, all that will remain is a peacetime garrison housing 5,000 troops who will be housed in the north, but not on active operations there, and available for deployment anywhere in the world.
Security will become entirely the responsibility of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the British soldiers will have limited responsibilities to support them.

In a statement to MPs, Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth said: "This marks the beginning of a new era for the UK Armed Forces in Northern Ireland when, as with other parts of the country, the military will become very much part of the community.

"The impact of the commitment since 1969 has been considerable on both the military themselves and on the MoD civilians supporting them.

"They and the community at large have suffered both death and injury.

"We should take this opportunity to remember the commitment, bravery and sacrifice of all those who have served over so many years in helping deliver the current, more settled and more optimistic circumstances."

Last night families of soldiers killed in Northern Ireland during the conflict gathered for a service of remembrance days before the end of the military peacekeeping mission.

Overview

The Troubles consisted of about 30 years of repeated acts of intense violence between elements of Northern Ireland's nationalist community (principally Roman Catholic) and unionist community (principally Protestant). The conflict was caused by the disputed status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom and the domination of the minority nationalist community, and alleged discrimination against them, by the unionist majority. The violence was characterised by the armed campaigns of paramilitary groups. Most notable of these was the Provisional IRA campaign of 1969–1997 which was aimed at the end of British rule in Northern Ireland and the creation of a new, "all-Ireland", Irish Republic.

In response to this campaign and the perceived erosion of both the British character and unionist domination of Northern Ireland, loyalist paramilitaries such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) launched their own campaigns against the nationalist population. The state security forces — the British Army and the police (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) — were also involved in the violence. The British government's point of view is that its forces were neutral in the conflict and trying to uphold law and order in Northern Ireland and the right of the people of Northern Ireland to democratic self-determination. Irish republicans, however, regarded the state forces as "combatants" in the conflict, using alleged collusion between the state forces and the loyalist paramilitaries as proof of this. The "Ballast" investigation by the Police Ombudsman has confirmed that British forces, and in particular the RUC, did collude with loyalist paramilitaries, were involved in murder, and did obstruct the course of justice when such claims had previously been investigated,[1] although the extent to which such collusion occurred is still hotly disputed, with Unionists claiming that reports of collusion are either false or highly exaggerated and that there were also instances of collusion between the authorities in the Republic of Ireland and Republican paramilitaries. See also the section below on Collusion - Security Forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

Alongside the violence, there was a political deadlock between the major political parties in Northern Ireland, including those who condemned violence, over the future status of Northern Ireland and the form of government there should be within Northern Ireland.

The Troubles were brought to an uneasy end by a peace process which included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations and the complete decommissioning of their weapons and the reform of the police and the corresponding withdrawal of Army troops from the streets and from sensitive border areas such as South Armagh and Fermanagh as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement (commonly known as the "Good Friday Agreement"). This reiterated the long-held British position, which had never before been fully acknowledged by successive Irish governments, that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom until a majority votes otherwise. On the other hand, the British Government recognised for the first time, as part of the prospective, the so-called "Irish dimension": the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent.[2] The latter statement was key to winning support for the agreement from nationalists and republicans. It also established a devolved power-sharing government within Northern Ireland (which had been suspended from 14 October 2002 until 8 May 2007), where the government must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties.

Though the number of active participants in the Troubles was relatively small, and the paramilitary organizations that claimed to represent the communities were sometimes unrepresentative of the general population, the Troubles touched the lives of most people in Northern Ireland on a daily basis, while occasionally spreading to Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. In addition, at several times between 1969 and 1998 it seemed possible that the Troubles would escalate into a full-scale civil war — for example in 1972 after the Bloody Sunday, or during the Hunger Strikes of 1980-1981, when there was mass, hostile mobilisation of the two communities. Many people today have had their political, social, and communal attitudes and perspectives shaped by the Troubles.