ABSTRACT
Any assessment of the role of the British Army in Northern Ireland is bound to provoke eontroversy. It has been and remains a highly emotional issue, not least beeause many have lost their lives, their families or their friends in the violenee and, unlike other eonfliets, it is not yet over. This work has examined the broad role of the British Army in Northern Ireland. In partieular it puts forward the view that the Army has been internal to both the origins and the evolution of the modern eonfliet. SpeeifieaIly, it teIls a story of how troops have been used in a eomplieated and volatile eonfliet during aperiod in whieh British poliey has not always been dear. It points to the military-politieal diffieulties of policing a 'loeal' eonfliet with soldiers. More importantly, it argues that the British Army has had to operate in diffieult eireumstanees, partieularly sinee the mid-1970s when a politieal determination developed in Westminster to down grade the British involvement in Ireland. The British Army was then eaught between a publie eommitment by the British Government to the Protestant aim of remaining in the United Kingdom and the reality of avirulent Republiean form of nationalism whieh had inexorably worn Westminster down. The role of the Army in the eonfliet in Ireland therefore ean only be understood in the eontext of what has been essentially a question of managing a partial retreat from Ireland.
