Tag: SDLP

On December 9th of 1973, a communiqué was issued from a meeting between representatives from the SDLP, UUP, Alliance Party, the Republic of Ireland, and the British government. Commonly known as the Sunningdale Agreement, this document proposed a new structure for devolved government in Northern Ireland, attempting to establish a power-sharing administration between unionists and nationalists for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history.¹

Vague in its treatment of issues such as Northern Ireland’s constitutional status and the specific powers of the new executive, Sunningdale was primarily concerned with the “Irish Dimension” of the new government – the role of the Republic of Ireland in Northern Ireland’s new devolved structure.² Arguably the agreement’s most important (and controversial) proposal was its establishment of a Council of Ireland, a body that would be composed of representatives in equal numbers from the Irish and Northern Irish governments.³

Although leading politicians from both sides of the sectarian divide like the SDLP’s John Hume and the UUP’s Brian Faulkner were key players in Sunningdale’s negotiations and publicly supported the agreement, it was met with intense opposition from the unionist community. According to Faulkner, these unionists saw the Council “as a half-way house to [Irish] unity, or a form of all-Ireland Parliament.”⁴ After the new power-sharing government took office at the beginning of 1974, unionist outrage formed a united front seen in the electoral success of the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) – an anti-Sunningdale conglomerate made up of three unionist parties (DUP, Ulster Vanguard, and elements of the UUP) that won 51.1% of the vote in the February 1974 General Election.⁵ Ultimately, unionist opposition proved too great an obstacle for Sunningdale to overcome, as the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) strike in May of 1974 prompted the resignation of Faulkner and the unionist ministers from the executive, leaving the agreement dead in the water.⁶

The circumstances surrounding Sunningdale’s failure are of great interest to scholars of the Northern Irish conflict, particularly in light of the successful negotiation of a power-sharing government in 1998 through the Good Friday Agreement (described as “Sunningdale for slow learners”⁷ by Seamus Mallon, former leader of the SDLP). Ripeness theory of conflict resolution offers some valuable insights into this matter. As Eamonn O’Kane⁸ outlines, a society experiencing internal conflict is considered “ripe” for successful conflict resolution when all parties involved perceive that they are in a mutually hurting stalemate (a situation where continued conflict hurts both sides and victory cannot be achieved through escalations of violence) and also believe in the viability of a negotiated solution.

When viewed through this lens, there are several indications that Northern Irish society was far from being “ripe” for resolution at the time of Sunningdale’s negotiation. Republican paramilitaries, a group notably absent from Sunningdale’s negotiating table, increased their levels of violence in the early 1970s,⁹ an escalation that contributed to a death toll of almost five hundred people in 1972 (the greatest number of annual deaths of the entire conflict).¹⁰ This surge in republican violence pushed the SDLP to frame Sunningdale as a step toward a united Ireland in order to consolidate nationalist support for the agreement,¹¹ indicating that nationalist anticipation of rapid structural change may have been overly optimistic compared to what was realistically possible through Sunningdale’s attempt at compromise-based power sharing.¹²

For unionists, anxieties regarding the fast-changing political landscape ran high in the early ‘70s. Unionists had seen fifty years of political dominance come swiftly crashing down with the collapse of the unionist-dominated Stormont Parliament in 1972, and the proposed solution of sharing power with the SDLP “promised little and threatened much”¹³ to the security of unionists in the future. This apprehension toward Sunningdale manifested itself through 1974’s February General Election and the May UWC strike.¹⁴ In short, despite the apparent readiness of the British and Irish governments to reach a deal, neither unionist nor nationalist communities were truly prepared for a negotiated settlement at the time of Sunningdale, resulting in the agreement’s failure.

1. McCann and McGrattan 2017, 3.
2. “Appendix: The Sunningdale Agreement (December 1973).”
3. “Appendix: The Sunningdale Agreement (December 1973),” 192.
4. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, as cited in McCann and McGrattan 2017.
5. “Appendix: The Sunningdale Agreement (December 1973).”
6. Gillespie 2017, 35.
7. McCann and McGrattan 2017, 6.
8. O’Kane 2006, 270.
9. McCann and McGrattan 2017, 14.
10. McKittrick and McVea 1995, 76.
11. McCann and McGrattan 2006, 14.
12. Aughey 2017, 38.
13. Aughey 2017, 48.
14. Gillespie 2017.

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Artifact #1: “Ulster Talks Open with Partial Accord” – New York Times article by Richard Eder, December 7, 1973

Journalist Richard Eder reports on the early days of Sunningdale’s negotiations in this 1973 article for the New York Times. After outlining the meeting’s setting and key players, Eder describes the primary task of the Sunningdale committee as establishing “an institutional link between the two parts of Ireland,” reflected in the proposed Council of Ireland. Although he acknowledges that the mere presence of nationalists and unionists at the negotiating table reflects considerable progress in efforts to bring about a peaceful, compromise-based resolution to the conflict, much of the subsequent portions of the article point out the challenges that had already begun to manifest themselves before the final agreement had been settled.

Eder primarily focuses on three aspects of the negotiations for the remainder of the article: the differing visions between nationalists and unionists regarding the strength of the Council, the constitutional status of Northern Ireland with respect to Ireland and the UK, and the controversial issue of police reform. These questions are described by Eder as among “the most difficult” that remained for the committee to decide.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the outcome of Sunningdale failed to agree upon a solution to any of these three controversial issues. While a structure for the Council was decided, the details of its responsibilities and authority were deferred to future deliberations, as were the details of police reform.¹ Northern Ireland’s constitutional position also remained unclear after the negotiations had concluded, reflecting several glaring weaknesses in the final agreement.²

Finally, Eder briefly comments on the difficulties facing Brian Faulkner to sell the agreement to the unionist community in light of hardline groups that initially opposed the compromise efforts, foreshadowing widespread unionist backlash to Sunningdale that would grow increasingly public in the months to come.

1. “Appendix: The Sunningdale Agreement (December 1973).”
2. McCann and McGrattan 2017.

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Artifact #2: “Dublin Letter: Fickleness for Faulkner” – Article in Fortnight Magazine by Irish News correspondent Dennis Kennedy (December 14, 1973)

“Kennedy regularly criticized the insouciance of Irish governments, insouciance at ideological odds with its constitution’s claim to sovereignty over the six counties of Northern Ireland.”

Arthur Aughey, “Understanding aspiration, anxiety, assumption and ambiguity: the anatomy of Sunningdale,” 2017.

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The attitude of the Irish government toward Ulster during the negotiations of Sunningdale is made up of an interesting combination of historical nationalism mixed with relative ambivalence regarding the fate of Northern Ireland.

In a series of “Dublin Letters” published in the magazine Fortnight,¹ journalist Dennis Kennedy details the Irish government’s positions regarding Northern Ireland at various points throughout ‘73 and ‘74. The selected “letter” from December 1973 focuses primarily on the Irish government’s perceptions of the UUP’s Brian Faulkner, stating that Faulkner’s participation in Sunningdale has transformed him from a villain into an aspiring “United Irishman” in their eyes. Kennedy recounts how Sunningdale’s establishment of a Council of Ireland was seen by the Irish as a step toward unification and a de-emphasis of Ulster’s “Britishness.”

The Republic interpreted the approval of Sunningdale by Faulkner and the British government as an indication that unionists would go along with the agreement as it stood entering 1974, meaning that the Republic’s constitutional claim to the territory of Northern Ireland would not need to be altered in order for the agreement to be successful.² In other words, “there was little incentive for the Irish government to assume that it had not succeeded in negotiating the appropriate solution to the crisis.”³

Kennedy also points out that certain Irish representatives were beginning to believe that any future united Ireland would probably not be the “romantic, holy Catholic, Gaelic Ireland” that so many Southern nationalists had long dreamed would rise after a long, bloody conflict with the imperialist British government, diminishing some of unification’s symbolic attractiveness. These sentiments reveal the Republic’s attitude regarding the Northern Irish problem to be more superficial in the ’70s than it might appear at first glance.

1. Kennedy 1973.
2. Aughey 2017.
3. Aughey 2017, 45.

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Artifact #3: John Hume’s Address to the Northern Irish Assembly (December 14, 1973)

“The language which has been issued [by Sunningdale’s opponents] is the language of the past. These people speak the politics of the past. They preach the politics of confrontation and conflict, politics which we know, to our cost, lead only to the grave.”

John Hume, former leader of the SDLP, address to Northern Irish Assembly (December 14, 1973), CAIN archives

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As a founding member and the leading voice of the SDLP, John Hume was one of the most influential political figures in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, playing a major role in the negotiations of both the Sunningdale and Good Friday Agreements.

After the Sunningdale communiqué was released, John Hume spoke to the Northern Irish Assembly to advocate on its behalf in December of 1973.¹ In the selected excerpt from his address, Hume’s assessment of the arguments against Sunningdale is outlined in the highlighted portion from the first page. There, it is clear that Hume and the SDLP see opponents of Sunningdale as perpetuating “politics of confrontation and conflict.”

Hume’s assumptions that Sunningdale’s opponents lacked unity or a cohesive counterproposal to Sunningdale are also on full display in his comments from the first page. If unionists lacked a united front as Hume believed, they would have been unable to mount a successful campaign against the agreement. Hume’s statements reflect the overconfidence of nationalist aspirations for the agreement² and give strength to arguments that “Hume had overplayed his hand in the negotiations” of Sunningdale.³

Some general unionist and loyalist objections to the agreement are also present in the transcript through the highlighted interjections of Miss Coulter, Mr. Hutchinson, and Mr. Laird. These comments illustrate three unionist perspectives concerning Sunningdale: anxiety regarding the agreement’s potential implications for future unification efforts, a belief that the agreement fundamentally favored nationalists, and objections from loyalists about not being included in the negotiations.

1. Hume 1973.
2. Aughey 2017.
3. McCann and McGrattan 2017, 11.

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Artifact #4: Interview with DUP Representative Gregory Campbell (1995) from Perceptions: Cultures in Conflict by Adrian Kerr (1996)

“The fall of Stormont was one of the major events for the Unionist community. A bastion against a united Ireland had been taken away, and by a government that six weeks before had indicated that there was no possibility of such an action. That was a blow to the Protestant psyche, the removal of such a bulwark. The problem with the Sunningdale arrangement . . . was that any action the British government undertook that was seen to be flying in the face of what the people of Northern Ireland wanted was always going to cause suspicion. Any initiative that is undertaken in any region of the world where there is conflict, if it is seen to be in opposition to a sizable number of people, let alone the majority of people, is always going to fail, or at least flounder. Sunningdale was the first of a number of occasions where the government said ‘it doesn’t really matter what the Unionist community wants, this is what we think is best for them’. That’s the way the Unionist community looked at Sunningdale. There was indignation about it, and particularly over the Council of Ireland aspect. Hugh Logue, a prominent member of the SDLP, described the Council of Ireland as a Trojan Horse that would trundle us into a united Ireland. Understandably, that was the end of any possibility of success for the Sunningdale agreement as far as we were concerned.”

Gregory Campbell (1995)

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Although this interview¹ with Gregory Campbell occurred more than twenty years after the collapse of Sunningdale’s executive, it provides some critical insights into the mindset of the unionist community at the time of the agreement and in the years since.

Campbell discusses the heightened symbolic importance for unionists of Stormont’s collapse as a “bastion against a united Ireland” that had seemingly disappeared in the blink of an eye. Alongside his assertion that Sunningdale’s negotiation was viewed as a betrayal of the unionist population by the British government – a perception that would have been strengthened by longstanding unionist insecurities concerning their own “Britishness” due to the UK (unofficially) keeping Northern Ireland at arm’s length throughout its history – Campbell’s testimony demonstrates the widespread sense of apprehension among unionists regarding the speed with which the political landscape of Northern Ireland was changing in the early ‘70s.

Additionally, Campbell talks about the influence of the SDLP’s rhetoric on unionist perceptions of the agreement when he mentions former SDLP Assembly Leader Hugh Logue and his comment that the proposed Council of Ireland was “the vehicle that would trundle unionists into a united Ireland.”² Aimed at consolidating nationalist support for the agreement, this kind of rhetoric from SDLP leaders further exacerbated unionist suspicions of Sunningdale’s potential to bring about Irish unification. As Campbell says, comments like Logue’s solidified the unionist camp against the agreement.

1. Campbell 1995.
2. Logue in Gillespie 2017, 26.

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Artifact #5: Footage of IRA Bombing of the Ulster Bus Depot (July 21, 1972)

This video consists of footage from a bombing of the Ulster Bus Depot on July 21, 1972. Although it appears that the bus depot was cleared of civilians, this infamous date in Northern Irish history (known as Bloody Friday) is remembered for its 19 IRA bombings at various locations across Belfast, killing seven civilians and two members of the security forces. ¹

The events of Bloody Friday demonstrate the deadly consequences of a rise in republican violence in the years surrounding the negotiation of Sunningdale. Prompted in large part by actions of the British government such as Bloody Sunday – a nationalist civil rights march in (London)derry where British soldiers shot and killed 13 nationalist protesters² – and the widespread internment of nationalist civilians during the early ‘70s, the republican cause was reinvigorated by the radicalization of many nationalists.³ Even as unionist resistance to Sunningdale grew in March, a renewed IRA offensive contributed to the highest numbers of security incidents and bombings in a single month that year.⁴

The growth in popular support among nationalists for militant republican groups such as the IRA led the SDLP to “adopt a more dynamic language, which portrayed the negotiation of a new political settlement as an incontrovertible process towards a united Ireland.”⁵ The need to frame Sunningdale as a sectarian victory for nationalists and, more importantly, as a definitive loss that would be unacceptable to the unionist community demonstrates the absence of adequate support for moderation in the agreement among republicans and nationalists.

1. BBC 2022a.
2. BBC 2022b.
3. McCann and McGrattan 2017.
4. Gillespie 2017.
5. McLoughlin 2007, as cited in McCann and McGrattan 2017, 14.

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Artifact #6: ‘Dublin is just a Sunningdale away’ Unionist Campaign Poster and Slogan (February 1974)

The unionist campaign during the General Election of February 1974 focused exclusively on the issue of Sunningdale, attempting to unite the “fragmented” unionist monolith in support of the United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC). This pro-unionist poster from the election states the UUUC’s slogan: “Dublin is just a Sunningdale away.” The poster’s lack of imagery and plainly stated message embodies the simplicity of the UUUC’s single-issue platform, simultaneously associating Sunningdale with an inevitable push for Irish unification while positioning itself as a crucial vote against such a push.

Notably, the poster and slogan do not promote any one unionist party, instead imploring voters to more generally “vote unionist.” At first glance, this might appear a contradiction – after all, Brian Faulkner and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) played a significant part in Sunningdale. This element of the UUUC’s messaging is significant for two reasons: first, it emphasizes the coalition-building effort of the UUUC, drawing on voters from three separate unionist and loyalist parties. Additionally, the phrase “vote unionist” sets Faulkner and other UUP leaders ideologically apart from the rest of the unionist community because of their role in negotiating Sunningdale.

Using this type of messaging, the UUUC won 11 of the 12 available Northern Irish seats in Westminster in February 1974, marking what appeared to be a major victory for the anti-Sunningdale movement.¹ However, once it became apparent that the UUUC’s success in the election would have no impact on the implementation of Sunningdale’s power-sharing executive, leaders of the newly formed Ulster Workers’ Council began to suspect that alternative measures must be taken.²

1. Gillespie 2017.
2. Gillespie 2017.

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Artifact #7: “You Sold Us Down the River” – Song by Tommy Sands (1974)

“You took away our parliament, you gave them all they asked,
And you sold us down the river in the end.”

Tommy Sands, Elm Grove Music 1974

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Tommy Sands, a songwriter and activist who focuses on depicting both sides of the Northern Irish conflict, wrote “You Sold Us Down the River” in 1974 after speaking with a Protestant neighbor about the recent changes to Northern Ireland’s political landscape.¹ The song reflects unionist sentiments of betrayal regarding the participation of the British government in the Sunningdale Agreement’s negotiations, as well as unionist worries about the fall of the Stormont parliament in 1972 and the prospect of a power-sharing government with nationalists.

Sands’ song initially draws on the early history of Protestants in Ulster, referencing the plantation of Scottish Protestants in what would become Northern Ireland by King James I in the early 1600s.² These lyrics – “You planted us in Ireland to keep it safe and sure / And always keep the British flag a-flying” – emphasize the longstanding nature of the relationship between unionists and the UK, as well as the deep-seated historic loyalty of the unionist community to Great Britain.

Perhaps the most relevant portion of the song to Sunningdale can be found at 1:35, as Sands’ focus shifts explicitly to the early 1970s. Describing republicans as “rebels” from (London)derry who came to Belfast and “laughed about being loyal,” it is unclear whether Sands is referencing a specific event in Derry that would have bolstered republican efforts. If so, then the massacre of nationalist civil rights protesters by British security forces on January 30, 1972 (Bloody Sunday) is a likely candidate.³ Sands next moves to unionist dismay at the fall of Stormont in 1972 and the British government’s concession to nationalists of “all they asked,” referring to the new power-sharing executive and Council of Ireland established through Sunningdale.

1. Troubles Archive n.d.
2. Ward n.d.
3. BBC 2022b.

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Artifact #8: East Belfast Loyalist Mural depicting the UWC Strike and Collapse of the Sunningdale Executive

The Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) strike in May of 1974 was the final blow that brought down Sunningdale’s power-sharing agreement. Backed by the Ulster Defense Association (a loyalist paramilitary group), the UWC strike began on May 15 after the Northern Irish Assembly voted “not to re-negotiate the Sunningdale package” the day before.¹ Through reductions in output from unionist-operated power plants, the strike forced Northern Irish factories and businesses to shut down, resulting in an estimated £1 million in lost productivity in the first two days of the strike.² Adamant that Sunningdale was undemocratic, the UWC maintained the strike until Faulkner and UUP leadership ultimately resigned from the executive on May 28, 1974.³

In the above loyalist mural from East Belfast, a Protestant woman can be seen joyously brandishing a copy of the Belfast Times that reads “The Executive Collapses,” a reference to Faulkner’s resignation. In the background, tractors and other vehicles line up on the road in front of the Stormont Parliament, recreating the famous image (shown above right) of farmers protesting in May 1974 on behalf of the UWC. Loyalist symbols adorn the exterior of the mural, reflecting the strong sectarian identity of the surrounding neighborhood.

Reflected in the mural is the impressive mobilization of unionists and loyalists against Sunningdale in 1974. Additionally, given the strategic use of murals by both unionists and nationalists to mobilize support for each side’s political goals and craft historical narratives,⁴ the mural’s celebratory depiction of Sunningdale’s demise suggests that the agreement and subsequent unionist opposition may have further reinforced sectarian divisions between nationalists and unionists in the years that followed.

1. Gillespie 2017, 28-29.
2. Gillespie 2017.
3. Gillespie 2017.
4. Goalwin 2013.

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Concluding Remarks

Several players in Northern Ireland were not ready for a negotiated settlement to the Troubles at the time of the Sunningdale Agreement. In the case of the unionist and loyalist communities, the rapid deterioration of their political influence and uncertainty regarding their future security in a government with heavy nationalist influence meant that Sunningdale’s Council of Ireland and its power-sharing executive were completely unacceptable proposals. Pushed to frame the agreement as a step toward Irish unity to gain the support of an increasingly large republican base, nationalists like the SDLP and John Hume lacked enough moderate support to portray the agreement in terms that would not scare off unionists, as militant republicans continued their escalated violent campaign throughout 1973 and ‘74. The Irish government, a body that had long dreamed of unification, entered Sunningdale without being willing to sacrifice their constitutional claim to “the Six Counties” of Ulster, providing yet another point of contention with the unionist community.

In the end, negotiation and compromise were simply unable to produce a solution that would satisfy enough of the involved parties in the early 1970s. That said, Sunningdale’s failure revealed many valuable lessons that were important to the success of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 – most notably the importance of including hardline republican groups like Sinn Féin (the political wing of the IRA) at the negotiating table and the introduction of both a devolved power-sharing executive and a North-South dimension as legitimate alternatives to political violence. Without the experience of the Sunningdale Agreement and its failures, the trajectory of the Northern Irish peace process would have likely looked radically different.

Works Cited

“Appendix: The Sunningdale Agreement (December 1973).” 2017. Pp. 191-197 in Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and the struggle for democracy in Northern Ireland, D. McCann and C. McGrattan, eds. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Aughey, Arthur. 2017. “Understanding aspiration, anxiety, assumption and ambiguity: the anatomy of Sunningdale.” Pp. 38-52 in Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and the struggle for democracy in Northern Ireland, D. McCann and C. McGrattan, eds. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

BBC. 2022. “Bloody Friday: What Happened in Belfast on 21 July 1972?” Retrieved May 30, 2023 (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62135584#).

BBC. 2022. “Bloody Sunday: What Happened on Sunday 30 January 1972?” Retrieved May 30, 2023 (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-47433319).

British Pathé. 2014. “Bloody Friday Attack on the Ulsterbus Depot (1972).” Retrieved May 27, 2023 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOC0RqCAoMw).

Campbell, Gregory. 1995. “Extracts from ‘Perceptions: Cultures in Conflict’, Compiled by Adrian Kerr.” Retrieved May 28, 2023 (https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/kerr.htm#campbell).

“‘Dublin is just a Sunningdale away – Vote Unionist’ Northern Ireland (1974).” Retrieved May 28, 2023 (https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/jr3q4n/dublin_is_just_a_sunningdale_away_vote_unionist/).

Eder, Richard. 1973. “Ulster Talks Open With Partial Accord.” New York Times, 7 December (https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/07/archives/ulster-talks-open-with-partial-accord-an-independent-staff-clause.html).

Extramural Activity. 2004. “Unity Solidarity.” Retrieved May 22, 2023 (https://extramuralactivity.com/2004/04/23/unity-solidarity/).

Gillespie, Gordon. 2017. “The Ulster Workers’ Council strike: the perfect storm.” Pp. 22-37 in Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and the struggle for democracy in Northern Ireland, D. McCann and C. McGrattan, eds. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Goalwin, Gregory. 2013. “The Art of War: Instability, Insecurity, and Ideological Imagery in Northern Ireland’s Political Murals, 1979-1998.” Int J Polit Cult Soc, 26: 189-215.

Hume, John. 1973. “Address by John Hume, about the Communique of the Sunningdale Conference.” Belfast: NI Assembly Official Report.

Irish News. 2020. “Northern Ireland Politician Accused of mocking Irish language in Facebook post.”  Retrieved May 29, 2023 (https://www.irishcentral.com/news/northern-ireland-politician-irish-language).

Kennedy, Dennis. 1973. “Dublin Letter: Fickleness for Faulkner.” Fortnight, 74: 9-10.

McCann, David and Cillian McGrattan. “Introduction.” Pp. 3-21 in Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and the struggle for democracy in Northern Ireland, D. McCann and C. McGrattan, eds. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

McKittrick, David, and David McVea. 2002. Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland. Chicago: New Amsterdam Books.

O’Kane, Eamonn. 2006. “When Can Conflicts be Resolved? A Critique of Ripeness.” Civil Wars, 8(3-4): 268-284.

Troubles Archive. “You Sold Us Down the River.” Retrieved May 29, 2023 (http://www.troublesarchive.com/artforms/traditional-music/piece/you-sold-us-down-the-river).

Ward, Alan J. n.d. The Easter Rising: Revolution and Irish Nationalism. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson.Wood, Ian. 2020. “The 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council Strike and fears of British withdrawal.” Retrieved May 26, 2023 (https://www.historyireland.com/the-bosnia-that-didnt-happen/).

Wood, Ian. 2020. “The 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council Strike and fears of British withdrawal.” Retrieved May 26, 2023 (https://www.historyireland.com/the-bosnia-that-didnt-happen/).