Who Started the Northern Irish Troubles? The Spark of 1966
The story that the IRA began the Troubles for freedom’s sake collapses under the facts: loyalists carried out the first bombings, murdered the first Catholics in 1966, and even killed the first RUC officer — years before the Provisional IRA existed.
The Northern Irish Troubles are often described as an inevitable explosion of sectarian hatred, a centuries-old feud that finally boiled over in the late 1960s. This is a lazy caricature. The reality is far sharper: the violence of the Troubles was not fated by history, but triggered by deliberate political decisions, targeted intimidation, and the lethal actions of a small but determined set of players—beginning in 1966.
A False Dawn and an Unmarked Anniversary
By the mid-1960s, Northern Ireland had been under Unionist control since its creation in 1921. The Protestant-dominated Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) had ruled uninterrupted, presiding over a one-party state where gerrymandering, job discrimination, and an overwhelmingly Protestant police force (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) kept Catholics politically marginalised. Yet this was also a time when economic modernisation and Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister, Terence O’Neill’s cautious reforms hinted at a reduction in governmental racism.
But anniversaries have power, and 1966 marked the 50th year since the Easter Rising. Across Ireland, republicans commemorated the rebellion, and in Northern Ireland these events—many of them entirely peaceful—were perceived by hardline Unionists as a direct threat to the state’s survival. That perception was cultivated and exploited by certain politicians and preachers.
The Paisley Factor
Central to the tension was the Reverend Ian Paisley, a sectarian bigot, a firebrand Free Presbyterian minister whose entire career was built on anti-Catholic rhetoric. From his pulpits and rallies, Paisley thundered against O’Neill’s reformism and Catholic “encroachment,” painting even symbolic gestures of conciliation as treachery. His People’s Union movement and later the Protestant Unionist Party became magnets for hardline Protestant anger.
Paisley’s agitation coincided with the re-emergence of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), which had originally formed in 1912 to resist Irish Home Rule. In April 1966, the UVF declared itself active once more, vowing to strike against the “enemies of Ulster”—by which they meant republicans, socialists, and the Catholic community at large.
The first murders, bombings and shootings of the troubles were carried out by the UVF. The summer of 1966 saw the UVF’s bungled operation that burnt alive a 74-year-old protestant civilian Matilda Gould after a petrol bomb was thrown into her Belfast home. In June, two Catholic men—John Scullion and Peter Ward—were shot dead in separate incidents. These killings were not reprisals; they were sectarian attacks intended to provoke fear and polarise communities.
The UVF at this stage was tiny and amateurish, but its actions had an outsized impact. Sectarian murder had returned to Northern Ireland, ending a long post-war period of relative peace. Unionist Prime Minister O’Neill banned the UVF, but the damage was done: the reappearance of loyalist violence deepened Catholic distrust of the state, especially given the slow pace of prosecutions and the fact that the RUC was viewed as inherently biased.
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) quickly grasped a brutal truth of propaganda warfare: if you can commit an act of violence and have the public believe your enemy did it, you win twice — once on the street, and again in the narrative. In the early Troubles, the UVF and other loyalist groups used false flag attacks to smear the IRA, undermine reform movements, and harden Protestant resistance to change.
The UVF’s False Flag Operations: Manufacturing a Myth North and South
From its re-emergence in the Ulster Volunteer Force understood that in a propaganda war, the most effective weapon isn’t always a gun — it’s a lie dressed as truth. Their speciality became the false flag attack: loyalist violence disguised as republican action, calculated to inflame fear, discredit opponents, and provoke state crackdowns.
The core aims were simple:
- Smear the Civil Rights Movement as a republican front.
- Convince the Protestant majority that an IRA offensive had begun.
- Draw the Republic into the conflict by creating the illusion of cross-border republican aggression.
1969: The Bombing Campaign in the Republic
In 1969, before the Provisional IRA even existed, a series of bomb attacks shook the Republic of Ireland. Loyalist hands planted the devices, but the blame — and political fallout — landed squarely on supposed republicans.
- Wolfe Tone Monument, Bodenstown – Damaged in a loyalist bombing intended to outrage nationalist sentiment and imply an “anti-Irish” faction at work.
- Daniel O’Connell Monument, Dublin – Another symbolic nationalist target attacked to mimic sectarian vandalism by republicans.
- RTÉ Studios, Donnybrook – Bombing disrupted the state broadcaster, presented in some accounts as republican censorship or protest, but in reality an attempt to stir suspicion of IRA hostility to free media.
- Ballyshannon Power Station, County Donegal – Sabotage of a key electricity source. This attack backfired for the UVF when the bomber Thomas McDowell was badly burned by electricity. ESB workers found the dying UVF man on top of a transformer. He and others had laid 76 kilograms of gelignite against the main transformers. The bungled attack exposed it as a loyalist operation, blowing the cover off the false flag and embarrassing Stormont.
These operations aimed to suggest that republicans were not only attacking “Ulster” but also undermining the Republic itself — a narrative designed to poison cross-border solidarity and cast the IRA as a destabilising force on both sides of the frontier.
Parallel Campaign in the North
At the same time, the UVF was running a similar deception within Northern Ireland:
- Spring–Summer 1969 Infrastructure Bombings – Loyalists hit power stations, waterworks, and transport links, presenting the attacks as IRA sabotage.
- Propaganda Effect – Unionist politicians warned that the IRA was already waging war, justifying harsh security measures and bolstering hardline resistance to reform.
The First RUC man to be killed in the Troubles
In October 1969, RUC Constable Victor Arbuckle was shot dead on the Shankill Road during disturbances. He was killed by loyalists — not republicans — yet many in the Protestant community assumed, and were encouraged to believe, it was an IRA killing. Arbuckle is thought not to have been the intended target. It was yet another bungled operation as he was standing next to a catholic officer, who was probably the intended target.
Why It Worked
The UVF’s early false flags succeeded because:
- Institutional Bias – Stormont’s government and the RUC were predisposed to believe and publicise IRA culpability.
- Public Fear – Protestant anxieties about “Rome Rule” and republican insurrection primed them to accept the loyalist narrative without question.
- Press Compliance – Much of the local media reported the official line, rarely challenging it.
The exposure of the Ballyshannon Power Station attack as a UVF job was an exception — but it didn’t undo the damage already done by the other incidents.
Propaganda Victory
By late 1969, loyalists had:
- Planted the first bombs of the Troubles — in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.
- Killed the first Catholics (Peter Ward and John Scullion).
- Accidentally killed a Protestant (Matilda Gould) in a bungled arson attack.
- Shot dead the first RUC officer of the Troubles (Victor Arbuckle).
And yet, thanks to the success of their false flags and the IRA’s later campaign, the enduring public myth still paints the conflict as an IRA-led onslaught from day one.
The Paisleyites
The history of Paisleyite attacks on Catholics and their homes is both a record of physical violence and of deliberate incitement — because in the case of Ian Paisley, the violence often came from mobs he had primed, rather than from his own hand. His career from the mid-1950s onward is marked by a pattern: fiery, demonising speeches about Catholicism, calls to resist “Papist” encroachment, followed within hours or days by loyalist crowd violence, house-burnings, and intimidation.
The Making of Paisleyism
The Reverend Ian Paisley was the loudhailer through which the Northern Irish state’s racist and sectarian poison found its voice.
- 1951–1956: Ian Paisley founds the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, an explicitly anti-Catholic denomination. From the pulpit and later from street rallies, he mixes fundamentalist preaching with sectarian politics, labelling Catholicism as “the Antichrist” and the Pope as “the Scarlet Woman of Rome.”
- Mid-1950s: Paisley begins to lead public protests against any ecumenical events between Protestant and Catholic clergy, denouncing them as “sell-outs.”
First Mobilisations – Late 1950s to Early 1960s
- 1959: Paisley helps found the Ulster Protestant Action (UPA), a loyalist pressure group aimed at defending Protestant employment and political dominance.
- UPA meetings regularly denounce Catholic workers as “interlopers” in shipyards and factories, echoing the expulsions of the 1920s.
- While UPA did not openly call for attacks, intimidation of Catholic workers increased after rallies.
Early Street Confrontations – 1960s
- 1964 – Tricolour Riots, Belfast:
- A small nationalist election office in Divis Street displays the Irish tricolour.
- Paisley demands its removal under the Flags and Emblems Act. When police hesitate, he threatens to march on the office.
- Loyalist crowds, inflamed by his rhetoric, clash with nationalists; rioting lasts two days, with Catholic homes in nearby streets attacked.
- Outcome: Police remove the flag, but the violence cements Paisley’s role as a street agitator who can summon mobs.
- Mid-1960s – Anti-O’Neill Rallies:
- Paisley leads vociferous protests against Prime Minister Terence O’Neill’s reformist gestures toward Catholics.
- These rallies often end with Catholic-owned property being vandalised, particularly in Belfast and County Antrim.
The 1966 Turning Point
- Paisley v. Civil Rights:
- As the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising is commemorated, Paisley organises counter-parades and preaches that Catholics are engaged in a “Rome-rule conspiracy.”
- In April, the re-formed UVF announces itself with attacks on Catholic civilians. While Paisley denied being a member, there was ideological overlap and a shared target list.
- That summer, loyalists murder three people two of them Catholics in Belfast Matilda Gould, John Scullion, Peter Ward — the first sectarian killings in decades. The UVF leader, Gusty Spence, was part of a Protestant Action group culture that Paisley’s rhetoric had energised.
Protestant supremacist violence started with the formation of the state of Northern Ireland.
Belfast Pogroms
The 1920–1922 violence in Northern Ireland—often euphemistically called “riots” in older Unionist histories—was, in reality, a sustained campaign of sectarian intimidation and expulsion.
Republicans call them the Belfast Pogroms, a term that was used at the time by Catholic clergy and nationalist newspapers, because what happened was not random rioting: it was targeted, organised, and devastating to the Catholic minority in Belfast.
Context: War and Partition
- Ireland in 1920 was in the middle of the War of Independence. Belfast was a majority-Protestant industrial city, heavily dependent on shipbuilding, engineering, and linen.
- The shipyards and heavy industries were strongly unionist, with workforce and management linked to the Orange Order and loyalist clubs.
- Partition was looming: the Government of Ireland Act (1920) was creating Northern Ireland as a separate political entity. Unionist leaders were determined to ensure that the new state began with solid Protestant dominance.
The First Trigger: July 1920 – Shipyard Expulsions
- On 21 July 1920, following the IRA killing of Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Smyth in Cork (a senior RIC officer from Banbridge), Protestant mobs in Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard, Workman Clark, and Sirocco Works forcibly expelled Catholic workers.
- The expulsions were organised in advance by loyalist activists, including shop stewards. Lists of Catholic and “rotten Protestant” workers (meaning Protestants sympathetic to labour politics or Irish nationalism) were circulated.
- Over 6,000 workers were driven from their jobs in a matter of days; the numbers swelled to over 10,000 over the following weeks as intimidation spread to other industries.
Escalation: Street Killings and House Burnings
- After the shipyard expulsions, loyalist gangs began attacking Catholic neighbourhoods in Belfast, particularly the Falls Road, Short Strand, and Ardoyne.
- Catholic-owned shops and homes were burned; many families fled with only what they could carry.
- The violence spread sporadically across Ulster: nationalist enclaves in predominantly Protestant towns like Lisburn and Banbridge were attacked and burned out.
- The RIC and later the newly formed Ulster Special Constabulary (“B-Specials”) were overwhelmingly Protestant and often colluded with or failed to intervene against loyalist gangs.
Tit-for-Tat but Asymmetric Violence
- IRA units in Belfast did respond, assassinating police officers and targeting loyalist figures.
- However, the casualty balance was stark: Catholics suffered the majority of deaths, injuries, and property destruction.
- From July 1920 to July 1922, in Belfast alone, over 450 people were killed, about two-thirds Catholic in a city where Catholics made up only about one-quarter of the population.
- More than 11,000 Catholics were driven from their jobs and thousands from their homes.
The Role of the Specials
- The B-Specials, formed in late 1920 as an all-Protestant auxiliary police force, quickly earned a reputation for sectarian brutality.
- Their patrols in Catholic areas often coincided with, or immediately preceded, attacks by loyalist mobs.
- Nationalist leaders, including Joseph Devlin MP, accused the Northern government of using the Specials as a de facto loyalist militia.
State Response and Myth-Making
- Unionist leaders such as Sir James Craig portrayed the violence as “two communities fighting” or as a defensive reaction to the IRA.
- In practice, the state took no serious action against the organisers of the shipyard expulsions, and few loyalists were convicted for the killings or burnings.
- This impunity entrenched Catholic belief that the new Northern Ireland state was for Protestants only and prepared to use force to keep it that way.
Why It Matters
The 1920–1922 pogroms set the template for sectarian division in Northern Ireland:
- Catholics were excluded from key industries.
- The security forces were perceived as partisan.
- Violence could be used to alter the demographic and political balance without meaningful state sanction.
When the Troubles reignited in the late 1960s, many older Catholics could vividly remember being burned out of their homes or losing their livelihoods in those early years of the Northern state. The fear and mistrust were not inherited folklore—they were lived experience.
Part II – Northern Irish people inspired by the black civil rights movement in 1960s America.
https://falsehistory.ie/myth-1-the-lies-that-lit-the-fuse-part-ii/
