State papers: Officials asked to redraw Border, secret files show 

A scenario examined was the possibility of military intervention to prevent the emergence of an independent Northern Ireland through trying 'to subdue loyalist resistance and to dominate the entire Protestant population of Northern Ireland'. File picture :RollingNews.ie

Secret documents by the Irish government examined possible scenarios which might arise from a British withdrawal from the North, including a major redrawing of the Border.

Newly released files from the National Archives show civil servants were ordered by the Government in July 1974 following the collapse of the Sunningdale power-sharing agreement to outline various political scenarios which might follow.