O’Brien warned state could be embroiled in war with loyalists

ON September 26, 1974 there was embarrassment in Government circles when the contents of a memorandum prepared by Conor Cruise O’Brien for the Administrative Council of the Labour Party was leaked. It was an assessment predicting the distinct possibility of civil war.

This would become a virtual refrain for O’Brien over the next quarter of a century. If the loyalists obtained an overall majority in the forthcoming Convention elections and declared themselves a Provisional Government and incorporated the loyalist paramilitary groups as their security forces, he warned the British might either acquiesce in what was happening, or they might be drawn into military conflict with the loyalists.

This could result in the British forces being fired on by both the Protestant and Catholic communities, and the British might then consider their overall position untenable and withdraw from the North.