ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the different policies employed by the British government to manage the conflict in Northern Ireland over a thirty-year period. It also analyses nature of the conflict and its conflicting interpretations, the most significant British policies and assesses their efficiency: conflict-management approaches aimed at containment and at resolving the conflict. The explanations of the Northern Ireland conflict vary widely between and within the two principal communities in Northern Ireland. Internal explanations, in contrast, see the roots of the conflict in a variety of factors within Northern Ireland itself by focusing on the implications of economic, religious and/or cultural conditions in the province. The government's approach to security issues was subsequently vindicated, when the initially favourable situation for the implementation of the Sunningdale Agreement began to change dramatically early in 1974. The failure of Sunningdale meant the reintroduction of direct rule, an outcome that many in the Unionist community preferred to power sharing.
