Modern history from republican perspective

DR GARRET FitzGerald, in his address to the MacGill summer school, contends essentially that if the situation in the six counties had been left to the SDLP in the early 1970s, a civil rights-type solution could have been achieved.

The actions of the British army and the RUC especially the British army at Ballymurphy in April 1970, and during the Falls curfew of July that year when they killed four uninvolved civilians took the situation out of the hands of those who later formed the SDLP.

That a civil rights-type resolution could have been reached by the SDLP can be argued. Complete British government disengagement from Ireland and Irish national independence certainly could not.