ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Heath's policy in Northern Ireland, and need to be conscious of this pressure-cooker environment and need to employ hindsight because, arguably, the Prime Minister can take the credit for having mapped out the parameters which have shaped policy towards the Anglo-Irish question in the intervening years. The great threat is violence in Northern Ireland and this agreement can lead to much closer cooperation between the two Governments in dealing with violence. Northern Ireland may not have been part of Powell's election concerns in 1970 but it would be foolish to imagine that he was not conscious of its significance to the 'identity' of the United Kingdom. The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the constitutional nationalist opposition, believed that too much emphasis was being placed on security, thereby alienating the Catholic community and acting as recruiting agents for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).
