Fianna Fail, Partition and Northern Ireland 1926-1971

By: Stephen Kelly

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

When the Troubles broke out in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, Fianna Fáil was hopelessly ill-prepared for the ensuing crisis. Between the emotive years of 1969 to 1971 Fianna Fáil was brought face to face with one of its most blatant contradictions – the gap between the party’s habitual pronouncements of its desire for a united Ireland and the reality that the party could offer no practical solutions to deliver this objective. Why had this gap developed? This book answers this question and many more, tracing the historical reasons for why Fianna Fáil failed to devise a realistic and long-term Northern Ireland policy from 1926 to 1971. As the violence engulfed Northern Ireland by the late 1960s the book explains why so many within Fianna Fáil believed that the use of physical force represented official Irish government policy. It also analyses Fianna Fáil’s relationship with Ulster Unionism and northern Nationalism, exposing the party’s long held apathy for both political movements. Significantly, the book is an examination of Fianna Fáil’s attitude to partition and Northern Ireland from cabinet level to the party’s rank and file.