How the Troubles Came to Northern Ireland

This book draws upon recently released official documents and interviews with many key politicians and civil servants of the period to examine the failure of British policy to prevent the troubles. Peter Rose argues that if Harold Wilson''s government in the late 60s had pursued a different policy, Northern Ireland might have been spared the troubles. Wilson had promised Catholics civil rights. However, new evidence suggests that Westminster was deliberately gagged to prevent MPs from demanding that the Stormont administration end discrimination in the province. Had the government acted on intelligence of growing Catholic unrest, it could have prevented the rise of the Provisional IRA without provoking an unmanageable Protestant backlash.