Margareth Thatcher and Ireland

It is well known that Margaret Thatcher disliked Ireland. There are several events that led up to this dispute. Some events played a bigger role than others. Here are some of them:

One of the first events was about a month before she was elected to become Prime Minister. It was the assasination of Airey Neave, her spokesman in Northern Ireland that was possibly going to become Secretery of State in Northern Ireland. It was revealed that INLA (the Irish National Liberation Army) that was behind the car bomb that killed Airey Neave. This made Thatcher focus more on ensuring the security forces in Northern Ireland than creating lasting peace.

Another key event was the hunger strike. This was in 1981. A group of prisoners that had murdered the Queen's cousin for IRA in the Maze said they should be given prisoners-of-war status. Thatcher strongly rejected their request. She said "Crime is crime is crime. It is not political, it is crime", which shows in a clear way her opinion on this. The prisoners decided to go on a hunger strike until they were approved of their prisoners-of-war title. This ended with 10 prisoners dying. This made the hatred towards Thatcher to increase among republicans, especially because it is suspected that she was given an offer to end the hunger strike before anyone died.

Thatcher's relation to Ireland worsened. In 1984 the IRA tried to kill Thatcher by bombing the hotel she was staying at during the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. Five people were killed (among those was a Conservative MP) and dozens injured but Thatcher got away without a scratch. The IRA claimed the responisbility and Thatcher was even more motivated to crack down the IRA and republican terrorism. The sitaution between Thatcher and Ireland was once again worsening.

In 1985 the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed. The agreement gave the Irish Government an advisory role in the North's government but there would be no change in the constitutional position of the North until the majority of people in the North wanted it. Now Thatcher was criticized by unionist who thought that the agreement would give the Republicans a way to reunify with the North. This now made nationalists and unionalists hate Thatcher.

Thatcher never stopped being tough on republicans and their terrorism. She put in a broadcasting ban up until IRA's ceaserfire in 1994 to stop republicans from getting publicity.

Her actions in the issue between her and Ireland and Northern Ireland played a big part after she left 10 Downing Street, for example in the Good Friday Agreement.

Thatcher will always be remembered as hated by republicans, much because of her action in the hunger strike. Even now after her death she is seen in an unfavourable way by the republicans and many irsihmen and maybe she always will.