ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the military aspect of the Northern Irish Troubles. No doubt an official history of the role of the armed forces and police will be produced but if precedent is a good guide it will be a long time before it appears. Meanwhile there will inevitably be authors championing the cause of one set of protagonists over another. Northern Ireland’s situation has been so pervasive, so polarising, in its effect that very few people, Irish or outsider, seem able to take a dispassionate view of what has occurred. In this respect, as the authors of this chapter, we consider ourselves to be no different to anyone else, for we too know where our sympathies lie. Nevertheless we have attempted in what follows to be objective, even if a deep and predictable prejudice against all forms of terrorism will be quite obvious in our analysis.
