Left Behind by Good Friday | Jacobin Subscribe Left Behind by Good Friday Bernadette Devlin on her early activism and why the Good Friday Agreement brought some peace, but little justice. by Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey Our new issue, “ Between the Risings ,” is out now. To celebrate its release, international subscriptions are $25 off , and limited prints of our Easter 1916 cover are available . In 1969 Bernadette Devlin traveled to the United States on a fundraising tour. At age twenty-two, she was the youngest woman ever elected to Westminster and already a veteran of the Northern Irish Civil Rights Movement and the radical student group People’s Democracy. Whisked through New York by a police force blissfully unaware of her revolutionary politics, she appeared on Johnny Carson Show and received the key to New York City from Mayor John Lindsay. But soon the conservative Irish America that had brought Devlin to the country had to reckon with her radical politics. She felt a deep affinity with black America, whose struggle had inspired her own in the Six Counties, and insisted on visiting Black Panthers and other militants. Before long she was comparing Chicago mayor Richard J.

Daley’s police force to the Royal Ulster Constabulary who persecuted Catholics in Northern Ireland. A Marxist and an internationalist, Devlin excoriated the Irish-American community, a significant funder of radicalism in Ireland, for not seeing the struggle of their black compatriots as worthy of the same support. By the end of the tour, Unionist politician William Stratton Mills, sent to America to counter her message, was warning of her association with socialism. “She is Fidel Castro in a miniskirt,” he said. Back in Ireland, Devlin would go on to witness Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British paratroopers killed fourteen unarmed civilians marching for civil rights in Derry. Denied the right to respond in the House of Commons to Tory home secretary Reginauld Maulding’s claims that they had been acting in self-defense, Devlin punched him in the face . It was, she said, “a proletarian protest”. In the following years, Devlin remained active in the Six Counties, first with the Irish Republican Socialist Party and then as a leading spokesperson for the Smash the H-Blocks campaign during the early-1980s hunger strikes.

Today she works as an antiracist organizer in South Tyrone. Devlin recently spoke with Jacobin issue editor Ronan Burtenshaw about her experiences in Irish politics, her perspective on the Good Friday Agreement, and whether today’s left-wing movements bear any resemblance to the ones she helped lead in the 1960s. What were your formative experiences in radical politics? As a child, did you have much of a connection with 1916 and republicanism? I didn’t grow up having an intellectual concept of being a republican or a socialist. I grew up knowing that I was dirt poor, but I didn’t have an intellectual framework for understanding it. My father was a trade unionist. I have no recollection of him drilling trade unionism into us as kids. But I have the clearest memory of him planting flowers in our garden and then planting a small coin. We watched the flowers grow and he dug up the coin. He showed us that if you plant flowers, they grow. But if you plant money in the soil, it doesn’t. Money only grows when you plant it on the backs of working people. My father died when I was nine but I never forgot that.

From my mother I got a sense of human solidarity that, oddly enough, I think came from Catholicism. In fact, the point at which I left the Church was not when I decided there wasn’t a God, but when I decided I couldn’t see that compassion in this organization. I wouldn’t have known it growing up, but, because of the year it is — with people going back over the history of 1916 — somebody contacted me the other day to tell me that they had done archival research and it turns out my maternal grandmother was in Cumann na mBan , the women’s armed brigade. She never spoke about — such must have been her disappointment with the revolution’s outcome. You are remembered by many for your activism in the Civil Rights Movement and your election to Westminster in 1969 at age twenty-one. What is your memory of the People’s Democracy period? When I’m asked about the People’s Democracy period, I can’t help but laugh. It was crazy and brilliant. The chaotic creativity of large numbers of people who were thinking and taking action at the darkest of times. Madness and sanity at the same time, and out of that, ways forward appeared.

The dynamism of the mass movement came out of attempts to create democratic frameworks, often in simplistic ways that meant decisions could change every half hour. Someone would call a meeting and take a decision, then the minority that didn’t like it gathered more people and organized an even bigger meeting to change it. Then the new minority would do the same. But by the end of the night you had ten times more people than had been involved at the start of the day. People’s Democracy is under-appreciated now in terms of its importance as a crack of light, moving ideas forward and radicalizing the Civil Rights Movement. It won an election long before Sinn Féin was heard of in that arena. In fact, when Sinn Féin moved into electoralism they originally actually got no bigger vote shares than the students managed in 1969 or later when I was reelected. You can criticize People’s Democracy structurally but it was an amazing time. It was a forerunner, in its own way, to what we’re seeing today. So you see the 1960s spirit in today’s left movements?

Yes, I saw it when I was in Greece last summer and in the Right2Water campaign in Ireland, certainly in the Occupy movement, and all the young people around Jeremy Corbyn . I have to say these movements seem to me, from the outside, more serious than the one I was involved in, but that might just be because I’m not at the party in the same way! It is also more difficult to do it now. The 1960s were a time when everything was being liberated. You had youth movements, movements in music, gender, and sexuality, there was a global trend towards opening up society. Now movements are trying to fight back or hang on to ground won during the victories of the 1960s and ’70s. Yet the struggle is being taken on. And I see a great similarity in how scared society today is of its youth. It helps that many veterans of the old fights are still around. So you get “sixties kids” like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn bringing their memory, their experience, and the madness they picked up from those times. Part of change is defeat and setback but to see that tide rising again while the people who rode the last wave are still here and active is important.

Much of the political terrain you operate in now is determined by the Good Friday Agreement and peace process in Northern Ireland. Can you describe your criticisms of the situation in the Six Counties? In my view, the fundamental narrative of the peace process is false. You can make criticisms of that without wanting a return to violence. The end of the war has opened up opportunities that did not exist previously — people can discuss politics in a way they weren’t able to before. But that was not possible in the decade following the peace process. Particularly for the new generation the starting point is different. And we should say, too, that Sinn Féin is more progressive than the political forces which went before them in government in Northern Ireland. That is a step forward. But the peace process was built on allowing each faction to interpret ambiguities as they wanted. Maybe they thought this was a good thing in the short term, to end the war, but each side has clashing interpretations of the agreement and that will have to be reckoned with at some point in the future. When it is reckoned with, today’s narrative will carry with it a lot of problems. For instance, take the idea that the Irish Republican Army bombed its way to the table.

This myth was tolerated by the state for a number of years and fueled by them in their “flattery” about how sophisticated the IRA had been and so on. It gave a credence to the republican position that what little was won was won militarily. Those in the dissident camp then can believe and say “we didn’t get much, Sinn Féin let us down, but if we had fought on militarily we could have achieved more.” In reality, this is not the case. But it leads apolitical people who have gained nothing from the struggle into a logical conclusion — not because they are stupid, but because of the logic underpinning the process — that there is some value in continuing some aspect of the armed insurrection. To understand the peace process you have to see that the people who have gained the most from it are the educated professional classes, and their children, on both sides of the sectarian divide. There is now a shared interest among the middle classes in defending what they have gained — on the back of struggle by others. How much of a role do you think this middle-class consensus plays in propping up the peace process? Does the imposition of austerity on working-class communities have a potential to undermine it?

We now have two parties in government who are representing the middle classes and who benefit from the status quo, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party. They are kept apart by the sectarian nature of the peace process and its institutions, which divides things between two communities. Then we have a layer of people below who have been left out completely and are becoming disillusioned. But, because of the underlying sectarian logic, not just of the institutions but of the story told to put this all together, this feeling is pushing the Catholic and Protestant working class further apart, not closer. At the same time, the two parties in government tell their constituencies “we’ve won” while they cut corporate tax rate and introduce austerity measures. Sinn Féin have moved further and further to accommodate this new reality and, in doing so, created a dynamic they largely don’t see. They are losing the trust and the support of the people who once voted for them, the Catholic working class. Those people have been replaced by the Catholic middle class which most benefited from the peace process. These are former Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) voters. They have a vested interest in stability and participation in the state, so they now support Sinn Féin.

But many who fought in the democratic and the armed struggle perceive themselves to be no better off. The economic and social system we have has consigned them to is continued welfare, poor education, and now austerity. Yet their opposition to this is described as “dissidence” and dismissed. Meanwhile, I am seeing things come full circle. I have lived to see food banks in Dungannon, where I work. When we were young and angry enough to be marching here against poverty in the 1960s, there was nobody living on food banks. The social housing waiting list in this town is now greater than it was when the Dungannon Housing Action movement started. And yet, at exactly the same time, the Catholic middle class has never been better off. They were brought in from the cold in the first years of the peace process when there was the security of state jobs. There weren’t jobs for the working class, in many cases, but there was welfare. The situation has reached such a stage now, though, that even that is under attack. The Tories don’t feel that they need it. Why would they? People want peace and are willing to comply.

The flip side of this is that for many people poverty will be written in as a condition of the peace. The politicians have organized this year so that we will have our election first and the welfare reforms planned under the Tory Fresh Start agreement second. This is because everyone knows the depth of these reforms. We in the North are headed for a period of poverty that will scare people. I see it because of where I’m working. Sinn Féin will be unable to mitigate against that when it hits the ground. They will be able to say the British government cheated us, but that won’t be enough. What do you think led Sinn Féin to that point? Is there any chance they could take a leftward turn, bringing their Northern politics closer to the ones they espouse in the South? I remember my last serious conversation with Gerry Adams on the peace process in the 1990s. I asked him then, “What is your Plan B if this doesn’t work?” He didn’t have one. It was clear that this was the only game in town. We are seeing the effects of that now because even if they wanted to stand up to austerity they couldn’t do it. I missed a key point in that conversation.

At the time, I thought, “This is a high-risk, short-term strategy.” In fact, it wasn’t that. It was a low-risk, long-term strategy. The two sides had fought to an impasse and that impasse was being set up as the new normal. The British policy was to demilitarize but also to demobilize and demoralize the resistance to its government. Sinn Féin became the mechanism by which that could be done. The peace process, which was supposed to last four or five years, is now almost twenty years old and is not finished yet. For Sinn Féin the problem is one faced by a lot of electoral parties. You organize a mass movement and you oppose the political system, but to create a space to advance the struggle at a certain point you go into elections. If you win, you become part of that political system and that imposes its own logic. In order to advance the struggle you have to defend your position, but to defend this position you think you have to make sure a majority votes for you. The end result is that while you got into elections to say what needed to be said, you ended up saying what needed to be said to keep your elected position.

Today, many in Sinn Féin believe that if Martin McGuinness was first minister up here and Gerry Adams was part of a government in Dublin then they would be nine-tenths of the way to their goal. This way of thinking is focused on institutions. It is first and foremost nationalist, with republicanism and democracy far behind. It will be difficult for Sinn Féin to continue to manage this contradiction in their party. At the same time that they are losing people in the North, workers in the South are turning to them. But Ireland is too small in the long term for one party to be able to be a middle-class party of respectable politics in the North and a working-class party of resistance in the South. There will come a time when that isn’t possible, and I don’t think it is far away. The task of socialists is not to hammer Sinn Féin because of their positions in the North or to exclude them from progressive movements because their “hands aren’t clean” in the North. Instead we should try to hold them to the progressive positions they adopt against austerity and push that side of the contradiction. How should we understand “loyalism”? What are its characteristics? What is it out to achieve in the twenty-first century?

Loyalism is clearly differentiated in the North from Unionism. Unionists are middle class; they believe that their interests are best served by maintaining the current situation, British control of this part of the island. They’re like Falkland Islanders, in that sense. Loyalism’s hallmark is that it represents the poor. Loyalists are working class or unemployed. As the American system disgracefully refers to some of its poorest people as “white trash,” loyalists are perceived within British nationalism as an underclass. Many from loyalist communities have internalized that themselves. When I work with people from that background I’m often surprised that they will set on the table first, “Okay, so, we know we are no good.” I have talked to young loyalists who say, “We know we are scum.” I don’t understand any human being starting a conversation saying that they are not human. I ask them why they start that way. There is a clear lack of self-esteem and also a loss of confidence. If you think about the “dissidence” in poor nationalist communities among people who gained nothing from the struggle despite giving so much, the sense in the loyalist community is that they actually lost.

They lost to everybody despite unwavering loyalty to the regime, even to those who challenged it by force. The anger in loyalist communities is fueled by them still not having the price of a loaf and seeing Martin McGuinness up running the country. Loyalists are acutely aware of the swaggering new rich on the Catholic side. You saw this during the recent flag protests here, where the first response was to mock the way loyalist people said the word “fleg.” The attitude among some was, “You can’t even spell it or say it right, but I am inside City Hall looking out at you.” This is why I have always believed that this whole process is further sectarianizing the North. The infrastructure of the peace was sectarian itself and continues to reproduce the problem. The result of that is that, while there is some competition between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the United States for poor whites, or between Jeremy Corbyn and the UK Independence Party in Britain, the loyalist community is stuck without such an avenue. Loyalist politics is based on British nationalism and, for the same reason that Irish nationalism has aligned itself with progressive struggles, British nationalism is compelled to be reactionary. But that is only part of the history of Ulster Protestants.

They have been denied other parts of their history, such as the radical struggles of the Presbyterians or the labor movement. Regaining that won’t happen in history class. It will only happen by fighting in your corner and discovering that someone else was here before you. 2015 saw successes for both Podemos in Spain, a new left party with a more populist discourse, and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, who is much more aligned with the traditional left. What is your opinion of the new movements we’re seeing challenging austerity in Europe and what can we learn from them? When you’re building left-wing movements you have to take into account the context. In Britain there is a long tradition of class politics, much more so than in Irish politics. People understand the idea of “the working class.” It is part of the history of the debate about power. That’s not to say that because they know the words they understand the music. I don’t think they necessarily have a clearer understanding of the nature of capitalism. By comparison, Spain has a recent history of fascist dictatorship, so the language of democracy still has an energy and dynamism that it is lacking in other places.

But I think you need to ask, “What are people fundamentally taking about?” The demand, it seems to me, is for people to have control over their lives. That is what should take us to where we need to go: the argument for collective ownership of the means of production. If we don’t have this, we don’t have the power to determine how our society develops. The reality of capitalism today is that a few hundred people who control the major multinational corporations effectively control the destiny of the world. They control our ability to survive. I think there is a degree of realization that this is the case, not only in the United States and Europe, but in the rebellions in the Middle East and elsewhere. The political systems we have are not capable of dealing with the underlying economic realities. When people place demands on their government for improvements in conditions, the response from the government is “we don’t have the money.” Governments, of course, don’t earn any money, they rely on their ability to tax to generate it. But governments are no longer able to do this because the wealth that they need to respond to popular pressures and real need is in the hands of increasingly powerful people outside of their control.

The cracks we are seeing in politics are reflective of people saying, “We don’t know how to fix this, but we know it is broken. We need to be doing something else.” Each of us has to fight in the corner where we are but we have to recognize that we cannot beat them one country at a time. We can’t even beat them in one country without the solidarity of others. This is an international struggle. That will be an increasingly important point as they struggle to maintain control. Capitalism would kill you without batting an eyelid, so how do we organize against it together? The new issue of Jacobin is out now. Buy a copy, a discounted subscription , or a commemorative poster today. If you like this article, please subscribe or donate . Project MUSE - Maintaining the Cause in the Land of the Free: Ulster Unionists and US Involvement in the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1968-72 Maintaining the Cause in the Land of the Free: Ulster Unionists and US Involvement in the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1968-72 Andrew Wilson (bio) From the beginning of the Northern Ireland "Troubles," Irish nationalists have received vital support from America.

1 In the mid-1970s John Hume helped to create the congressional Friends of Ireland, a powerful political network which pressured the British government and worked for a constitutional-nationalist agenda on Capitol Hill. In addition, millions of dollars and substantial supplies of US weapons were channeled to the IRA and played a key role in sustaining its campaign of violence. While this Irish-American connection has been the focus of extensive media and scholarly analysis, there has been virtually nothing written about the small, but fiercely determined, unionist support network in the US. 2 The following article aims to shed light on this previously neglected dimension of Ulster unionism by outlining the various initiatives that unionists took to counteract Irish-American nationalism in the early 1970s. It examines the major challenges faced by unionists in presenting their perspective in the US and assesses the degree to which their objectives were achieved. [End Page 212] Ulster Unionists and America, 1945–68 Unlike Irish nationalists, unionists have little constituency from which they can draw support in the US.

Although over 250,000 Ulster Protestants migrated to America in the eighteenth century, and though most of the 44 million who claimed Irish ancestry in the 1990 census were Protestant, the vast majority are assimilated and have little or no interest in the politics of their ancestral homeland. 3 Nevertheless, there was a small network of Ulster Protestant/unionist organizations active in the US after World War II which provided the leadership and membership of new groups that emerged in response to the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s. The Orange Order is the oldest surviving fraternal organization in America which has been overwhelmingly shaped by Ulster Protestants and their descendants. The first lodges were formed in eastern cities in the early nineteenth century and became closely associated with the Anglo-American nativist reaction against the growing numbers of Irish Catholic immigrants. As in Ireland, the annual "Twelfth" commemorations of King William of Orange's victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 were often occasions for conflict. The 1831 parade in Philadelphia, for example, ignited pitched battles between Orangemen and Catholic protesters.

The worst violence occurred at the New York parades in 1870 and 1871, during which seventy people died and over one hundred were injured. 4 In 1870 the Loyal Orange Institution of the United States of America (LOI) was formed to administer the network of lodges which had emerged throughout the country. Within a few decades the LOI claimed over one hundred lodges in twenty-one states and nearly 70,000 members. The LOI's vibrancy was reflected in its ability to host the annual convention of the Imperial Grand Orange Council of the World in New York in 1900. 5 [End Page 213] By the first decades of the twentieth century, however, American Orangeism experienced a steady decline in activism and membership. In the 1920s a bitter internal feud led to the emergence of two rival bodies, each claiming to be the Supreme Grand Lodge.

Although this schism was eventually healed, one historian concludes that the "injuries sustained" made the "institution in America incapable of recovering its original vitality and strength." 6 Other analysts make the obvious point that "the scope for an organization devoted to maintenance of British constitutional and cultural forms was severely limited in the American republic." 7 Leaders of the LOI were also perplexed by the inability of brethren to pass enthusiasm for Orangeism to their children—a point later encapsulated in a statement by New York Orangeman Derek Mills, who, when asked to comment about the health of his organization, lamented, "When we get together now, if we get together . . . , we're like a bunch of old ladies, sitting around chatting. We get together to see who's died since the last meeting." 8 Yet, despite all the challenges and difficulties, the Orange Order continued to survive. In the early 1990s it claimed 31 lodges and 600 members, of whom about 40 percent were from Northern Ireland. 9 Until recently, a focus of their social calendar was the annual Labor Day "Twelfth" celebration held at the Orange Order's retirement home in Hatboro', Pennsylvania.

The event usually culminated in a parade around the grounds by Orangemen sporting sashes and lodge banners, and with a pipe or flute band playing the usual selection of loyalist tunes. 10 [End Page 214] While the American Orange Institution's official position was not to "involve itself in any type of politics with sister jurisdictions," it nevertheless provided an important source of support for the various strands of Ulster unionism. From the late 1960s many of the unionist activists in America were prominent figures in the Orange Order. Visiting unionist politicians also frequently used the US lodges to hold meetings and to appeal for support. The Reverend Martin Smyth, MP, for example, made numerous trips to America in his capacity as Imperial Grand Master of the Orange Order. During these visits he took every opportunity to present the unionist perspective and to keep the stateside brethren informed of the latest political developments in Northern Ireland. 11 Not surprisingly, The Sash, the LOI's quarterly newspaper, was fervently unionist, regularly launching scathing attacks on the IRA and its Irish-American support network. Unionists also attracted some support from Americans who were interested in their ancestral roots.

In 1889 the Scotch-Irish Society of America was founded to promote the history and culture of the eighteenth-century immigrants from Ulster. A central element in the agenda of the organization was to emphasize the difference between these earlier Protestant immigrants and the Catholic Irish who came in large numbers during and after the Great Famine. 12 But while the first annual conventions of the society attracted thousands of delegates, and while affiliates were established in eight states, interest in the organization fell dramatically by the end of the nineteenth century. 13 The Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish Society was the only group that survived into the twentieth century. By 1961, despite many years of difficulties, its activities expanded nationwide, and it became the Scotch-Irish Society of the United States. 14 [End Page 215] Although primarily interested in promoting history and culture, the Scotch-Irish Society maintained a traditional association with Ulster unionism. In the early twentieth century its leaders strongly opposed Home Rule and made Sir Edward Carson and James Craig honorary members. During World War I the society sent donations to help wounded members of the Ulster Volunteer Force and later maintained close contact with Basil Brooke and other leaders of the Stormont government.

Additionally, there were always members for whom the initial interest in their Scotch-Irish heritage became a catalyst for supporting the unionist cause in America. Thus, when the "Troubles" erupted in Northern Ireland, leaders of the Scotch-Irish Society were among the first to defend the Stormont government with a campaign of local media appearances and letters to newspapers. 15 The Ulster-Irish Society (UIS) was the only other unionist organization active in the decades after World War II. Founded in 1927 by Ulster Protestants in New York City, the UIS developed into a vibrant social and cultural network, helping Northern Ireland immigrants to find work and adjust to life in the Big Apple. Although total membership never reached more than a few hundred, the Ulster Club in Kearney, New Jersey, was a very active affiliate, and branches formed in Illinois, California, and Michigan. 16 The society tried to support the unionist cause whenever possible.

It organized protests against the Irish-American anti-partition campaigns in the early 1950s, taking every opportunity to remind Americans about Éire's neutrality during World War II and about Eamon de Valera's message of condolence at the German Embassy in Dublin after Hitler's death, and emphasizing the important role that Northern Ireland had played in the Allied victory. UIS activists also kept in close communication with Stormont leaders and organized receptions, media contacts, and logistical support whenever they came to New York. 17 [End Page 216] There was considerable cooperation and cross-membership between the three "Ulster" organizations. Bill Best, for example, a Belfast native who owned a travel agency in New York, was president of the Ulster-Irish Society and became grand master of the LOI. All three groups also suffered from similar problems. The challenges presented by Scotch-Irish assimilation were compounded by tougher immigration laws that drastically reduced the number of Irish natives entering the United States throughout most of the twentieth century. The vast majority of those who were able to gain admission came from the Irish Republic or were Catholics from Northern Ireland, driven into exile by the lack of opportunities for the nationalist minority under the Stormont regime.

Most Ulster Protestants who migrated to North America tended to settle in Canada. 18 For the small number of Ulster Protestants who did come to the US, the Irish cultural environment they found was generally a "cold house" for anyone with unionist sensitivities. Many aspects of what one unionist commentator describes as the "faux Irishness" in America, from bars to St. Patrick's Day parades, were decidedly nationalist in tone. 19 It was easier for most in this environment to suppress their unionism and to get on with life. Thus, when journalist Wendy Martin interviewed Ulster Protestant immigrants in the early 1970s, it was hardly surprising that she found that most were hesitant to even talk about the "Troubles" and simply wanted to be left in peace. 20 Unionists and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, 1969–70 In the decades after World War II political developments in Northern Ireland were rarely covered in the American media. The formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in [End Page 217] 1967, however, and its campaign to end anti-Catholic discrimination led to an unprecedented focus on communal divisions in the province.

In an effort to make the Irish situation more comprehensible to Americans, media reports constantly tried to explain the NICRA in the context of the African-American civil-rights campaign. Catholics were described as "White Negroes," the attitudes of Protestant extremists were portrayed as similar to the racism of poor whites in the Deep South, and the Orange Order was often compared to the Ku Klux Klan. 21 Given such a negative framework of analysis, editorial opinion and commentaries generally displayed little sympathy for unionism or the Northern Ireland government. Anger among unionists at their negative portrayal in the US media was compounded by the activities of NICRA support groups. The American Congress for Irish Freedom (ACIF), in particular, had launched an extensive publicity campaign against the Special Powers Act, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and the Northern Ireland government's civil-rights record. Unionist leaders were especially infuriated by the ACIF's attempts to discourage American firms from investing in Ulster because of what they alleged was "systematic anti-Catholic discrimination in the workplace." Prime Minister Terence O'Neill had attracted a considerable number of US companies to the province, and there was growing alarm that this success might be undermined.

In early April 1969, Robert Porter, the Northern Ireland minister for home affairs, issued a scathing attack against the ACIF, accusing it of grossly distorting and misrepresenting the facts in an attempt to "vilify and denigrate the government." 22 Shortly afterward Terence O'Neill embarked on an impromptu trip to the US, trying to defend his government's record and to repair whatever damage the ACIF campaign was having on investment and the tourist industry in Northern Ireland. 23 [End Page 218] O'Neill had been a frequent visitor to the US during his term in office, and at a meeting with Lyndon Johnson in 1964 he became the first Ulster premier to be officially received at the White House. Unionists failed to capitalize on this meeting, however, and never developed a significant network of contacts or friends in Washington. 24 Nevertheless, in July 1969, James Chichester-Clark, the new prime minister of Northern Ireland, announced that he would lead a major unionist offensive against Irish-American groups and try to influence US political leaders.

25 At a lavish news conference in Belfast the Ulster Unionist Party launched a financial appeal to support a sustained campaign to "counter adverse propaganda and tell the world the truth about Ulster." 26 Although the deepening political crisis in Northern Ireland prevented Chicester-Clark from leaving the province, the need for unionist action was made imperative when Bernadette Devlin, the most internationally recognizable and dynamic figure in the civil- rights movement, launched a publicity and fund-raising tour of the US in August 1969. Ever since her election to the British parliament at the age of twenty-one, the American media had continually portrayed her as an "Irish Joan of Arc"—a feisty, mini-skirted heroine, courageously battling injustice. 27 When Devlin arrived in the US on 21 August, one analyst described how journalists "lunged at her with undisguised passion, falling on her every word." 28 Press reports in Ireland described the warm reception that she had received at the United Nations and from New York Mayor John Lindsay, the large crowds attending her rallies, and the hundreds of thousands of dollars rolling into her campaign treasury. Stormont officials were deeply alarmed at the reports from America.

Even though deep divisions within the Unionist Party had complicated plans for a publicity drive, Minister of Commerce Roy [End Page 219] Bradford announced that a "truth squad" would soon be dispatched across the Atlantic to take on Devlin and to present the government's case. 29 On 29 August, after hastily coordinating an itinerary with the Ulster-Irish Society and the Orange Order, Robin Bailie, a member of the Stormont parliament, and William Stratton Mills, a member of the British House of Commons, arrived in New York to spearhead the Unionist Party's first coordinated US publicity offensive of the "Troubles." 30 The two unionist leaders attracted plenty of media attention. The New York Times ran daily reports on their activities, and both made frequent appearances on metropolitan TV and radio programs, usually fielding called-in questions and debating Irish-American activists. 31 Bailie and Stratton Mills also spoke at gatherings of the Ulster-Irish Society and held a rally with hundreds of Orangemen at the Hatboro' Home in Pennsylvania. 32 The climax of the campaign came with a nationally televised debate between Stratton Mills and Devlin—a program that was subsequently rebroadcast in Ireland.

The encounter was marked by heated exchanges between the two politicians and by vain attempts by the moderator to maintain order. There were scuffles and jeering in the audience, equally composed of Devlin supporters seated beneath an Irish Tricolor and members of the Ulster-Irish Society clustered around a Union Jack. 33 While both sides claimed victory, neutral observers were left with an understandable sense of bewilderment. Irish Times television critic Ken Gray, for example, felt that the debate "consisted of long-winded accusation and counter-accusation on relatively minor points"; he lamented that "for American audiences it can only have been confirmation of traditional suspicions that all the Irish, north [End Page 220] and south, Catholic and Protestant, are more than a little round the bend." 34 Although Bailie and Stratton Mills tried to publicize Stormont's recent civil-rights reforms, their principal objective was to destroy Bernadette Devlin's image in America. The strategy they employed, while far from subtle and often loose with the facts, had some success in tapping into American anticommunist sentiment.

At all of their press conferences and meetings the "truth squad" leaders emphasized Devlin's left-wing politics, repeatedly describing her as "Fidel Castro in a mini-skirt." They also tried to convince the American media and US audiences that People's Democracy was "a weird mélange of Communists, Trotskyites, Socialists, Maoists, Castroites, assorted leftists, and revolutionaries." 35 To reinforce the point, they distributed a glossy brochure entitled Ulster: The Facts, featuring a front-page photo of Devlin breaking paving stones for ammunition during riots in Derry.

36 By the end of her tour some major metropolitan newspapers had reassessed their "saintly" view of Devlin and denounced her "radical politics." The Detroit News described her as a "rabble rouser" and "mini-skirted Danny the Red," while the Chicago Tribune condemned her association with the "barefoot bluejean brigade" and suggested that her actions would only help "communists and other subversives who regard the religious conflict as a pretext for turning all of Ireland into Britain's Cuba." 37 While much of this criticism stemmed from Devlin's highly publicized confrontations with conservative Irish Americans, unionists were quick to give credit to the "truth squad's" efforts. A Belfast News Letter editorial writer gloated: When people are on a winning wicket, it is prudent to make the most of it. That she has not done so would seem to indicate hopes disappointed. This is hardly surprising. Miss Devlin's brand of propaganda, like Hitler's, runs its course until its falsity is exposed and it is [End Page 221] seen for what it is worth. It is this point at which the M.P. for Mid-Ulster stands today.

Her stock has slumped, and even Irish-Americans, traditionally so generous to the cause of the 'oul sod,' have on this occasion tightened their purse-strings. By doing so, they have passed a silent vote of no confidence in her campaign. 38 Like "establishment" unionists in the Stormont government, Ian Paisley, the central figure in the loyalist reaction to the civil-rights movement, was incensed by reports of Devlin's trip to the US. But when he heard that Bailie and Stratton Mills were also attacking him as a "troublemaker" and a "divisive influence in the unionist community," the firebrand preacher determined to counter the "lying slanders" against him by launching his own publicity and fund-raising campaign. Never one for understatement, Paisley, at a Belfast news conference on 23 August, announced that he was heading to America to conduct "one of the most important missions for Ulster ever undertaken." 39 From the early 1960s Paisley's fervent preaching had won him numerous admirers among American fundamentalists.

One of the most prominent was the Reverend Carl McIntire, head of the ultra-conservative International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC) in New Jersey, and a fierce opponent of the ecumenical movement. By the mid-1960s McIntire's blend of fundamentalist Christianity and right-wing politics had attracted a large popular following. Donations from his supporters helped to create a multimillion-dollar ministry based on a publishing house and radio broadcasts which aired daily on over six hundred stations throughout the US. 40 Paisley's influence made McIntire a fiery supporter of the loyalist cause.

As a guest speaker at militant rallies in Belfast's Ulster Hall, he castigated the reformism of the O'Neill administration and denounced the NICRA as similar to the "black revolutionaries in the US who burned American cities." 41 When Bernadette Devlin arrived in New York, McIntire used his radio broadcasts to condemn [End Page 222] her as a "mini-skirted Marxist" who was "using the religious tension in Northern Ireland to help bring about a communist revolution." He also kept Paisley closely informed of her activities and statements, encouraging him to come over immediately and "set the record straight." 42 Paisley was hoping for a face-to-face media confrontation with either Devlin or the "truth squad," but by the time that he arrived in Philadelphia on 6 September, both his adversaries had returned to Northern Ireland. Undeterred, at an airport press reception, accompanied by McIntire and a group of about one hundred and fifty supporters waving Ulster flags and anti-Devlin placards, Paisley announced that his publicity campaign would continue.

43 The next day he held forth on a phone-in program on one of McIntire's radio affiliates, delivering his customary savaging of political opponents and raising $5,000 for "Protestants who had suffered financial setbacks as a result of the violence in Northern Ireland." 44 Paisley also held a rally and fund-raiser at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Its president, Bob Jones, Jr., was in many ways the archetypical "Bible Belt" fundamentalist. Politically ultra-conservative and prone to fierce theological conflicts with evangelicals whom he felt were too liberal, Jones led a college infamous for its refusal to accept African-American students and then, when federal legislation made this illegal, for maintaining a ban on interracial dating. At the same time, however, Jones was a noted connoisseur of art and spent years acquiring a superb collection of Italian baroque paintings for BJU's gallery. He was also a gifted Shakespearean actor, once turning down a contract with Warner Brothers Studios, and he developed a renowned program of theatrical and operatic productions on campus. 45 Jones first met Ian Paisley in 1962 at an anti-ecumenical protest in Amsterdam.

He was immediately impressed by the Ulsterman's "commitment to the gospel" and soon regarded him as "one of the [End Page 223] greatest living preachers." 46 The Amsterdam meeting was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Paisley became a frequent speaker at Bob Jones University, eventually joined its board of trustees, and, from this position, established contacts with influential southern politicians, such as Senators Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. Jones was also a regular visitor to Northern Ireland. In 1966 he traveled to Belfast to confer an honorary doctorate on Paisley. During the trip his distaste for popery was reinforced when he was pelted with stones by a hostile Catholic crowd during an evangelical crusade in Armagh city. 47 The following year Jones delivered the keynote speech at the dedication ceremony for Paisley's Martyrs' Memorial Church, for which $48,000 had been raised in the US. 48 Like Carl McIntire, Jones fully embraced Paisley's politico-religious vision.

He condemned the mainstream Irish Protestant churches as "full of apostasy" and believed that the Northern Ireland conflict was "due to satanic hatred of the gospel and of God's people." 49 In one of his most colorful outbursts, delivered after "pressure from a Fenian Irish priest" led the State Department to cancel Paisley's US visa in 1982, Jones described Alexander Haig as "a monster in human flesh and a demon-possessed instrument to destroy America." He then asked his students to pray that "the Lord will smite him, hip and thigh, bone and marrow, heart and lungs, and all there is to him, and He shall destroy him quickly and utterly." 50 Support from Jones, McIntire, and other fundamentalists could not prevent the drop in media interest in Paisley's US tour when the prospect of a showdown with Bernadette Devlin failed to materialize. The few reports that appeared were mostly negative, focusing on Mayor Lindsay's refusal to meet with Paisley and on the vociferous Irish-American protests at some of his appearances.

The "Big [End Page 224] Man's" fund-raising, which he claimed had netted $20,000, also fell short of initial projections. 51 Yet in spite of the mixed results of this trip, Paisley continued to make regular visits to the US to promote his theological and political beliefs. His zealous Protestantism always attracted a network of born-again Christian admirers, some of whom formed the congregations for several branches of his Free Presbyterian Church in America. 52 And there has always been a small but devoted cadre of supporters who, like Jones and McIntire, were initially attracted by his fire-and-brimstone fundamentalism and then endorsed his brand of unionist politics. 53 Unionists and America, 1970–72 The early 1970s saw a major increase in Irish-American involvement in Northern Ireland. The Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid), formed in April 1970, became an important source of financial support for the Irish republican movement.

Noraid also launched anti-unionist and anti-British publicity campaigns that increased in effectiveness as the nationalist community was perceived to be the target of state repression, particularly with the introduction of internment (9 August 1971) and the events of Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972). In addition, clandestine Irish-American gun-running cells began sending supplies of weapons which significantly increased the IRA's military capabilities. 54 Unionists reserved particular scorn for Noraid activists. They were constantly vilified for supporting "a campaign of murder [End Page 225] against the Protestant community from the safety of their homes across the Atlantic." Irish-American politicians were also castigated as ignorant of the political realities in Ulster and primarily motivated by cynical opportunism aimed at securing electoral support. In October 1971, for example, when Senator Edward Kennedy introduced a congressional resolution calling for the removal of British troops and Irish unification, the enraged unionist response set the standard for over two decades of reaction to Irish-American political involvement.

Prime Minister Brian Faulkner condemned Kennedy for swallowing "the hoary old propaganda of the IRA" and accused him of playing "American politics with Ulster people's lives." 55 There were also plenty of references to Chappaquiddick and suggestions that the senator would be better employed in sorting out his own problems than in initiating his "unwanted interference in the internal affairs of the UK." 56 A front-page editorial in the Belfast News Letter captured the essence of unionist opinion by proclaiming that the Scotch-Irish had "carved out a nation years before the departure of the Kennedys and the Famine Irish from the shores of County Wexford," and then concluding, Of all Senator Edward Kennedy's indiscretions—and they are too well remembered to recall here—his dabbling in the affairs of the United Kingdom is most mischievous and dangerous. His lack of knowledge of the situation in Ulster might be excused, but to presume to advise, indeed to direct, from that position is to display again the foolish arrogance for which he has established a reputation and the facility to misjudge which was characteristic of his father. . . .

Kennedy has succeeded only in exposing to the world his ignorance, his vanity, and, worst of all, his prejudice. 57 [End Page 226] While Unionist Party officials continually issued statements attacking Irish-American involvement, a few were convinced that nurturing a grassroots-support network in the US could be an effective way to get their views across. Although, as noted earlier, the prospects for such a network were extremely limited, there were a few individuals willing to stand up and challenge Irish America. The Reverend Charles Reynolds in New York, from a fiercely unionist background in Belfast, was the most active and outspoken. Reynolds, who married an American missionary whom he met while serving with the Royal Air Force Regiment in India during World War II, first came to the US in the late 1940s. In 1957, after returning from five years of missionary work in India, he became associate pastor of a Methodist church in Manchester, Connecticut. The congregation had a sizeable contingent of textile workers from Northern Ireland who had been brought over by the local Cheney Silk Mills.

They helped to maintain an active British Legion Club, an Orange Hall, and an Ulster Pipe Band which led the town's annual celebration of "the Twelfth." 58 Reynolds, a fervent Orangeman, was initiated into the Royal Black Preceptory in Manchester before moving to Attleboro, Massachusetts, to become pastor of the Methodist congregation there. After six years of service he was transferred to New York to administer the headquarters of Ludhiana Christian Medical College. 59 In New York, Reynolds became active in the Ulster-Irish Society and eventually rose to prominence as a vocal critic of Irish-American support for the NICRA. Officials at Unionist Party headquarters in Belfast, who sent him information on the latest political developments, tried to support his efforts whenever possible. Reynolds also made frequent trips to Northern Ireland, met with politicians and Stormont ministers, and encouraged them to bring the unionist case to the US. In August 1971, for example, he helped to arrange for John Taylor, minister for home affairs, to come to New York to participate [End Page 227] in a number of television debates with Irish-American nationalist leaders.

60 In September he hosted the Reverend Martin Smyth and the Reverend Ernest Long, joining them in a confrontation with Noraid supporters outside the court where deportation proceedings were being held against the noted IRA commander Joe Cahill. 61 The weakness of the Ulster-Irish Society, combined with his deep alarm at the rising levels of Irish-American activism, spurred Reynolds to establish the Northern Ireland Service Council (NISC) in October 1971. The principal objectives of this group were to support and encourage more unionist publicity trips to the US, to coordinate activities between "societies in the US with Ulster/Scottish-Irish ethnic origin," to raise and disburse funds, and to serve as a relief agency "for emergency situations in Northern Ireland." 62 At its peak the NISC listed over one hundred members. Most were originally from, or had ancestral links to, Northern Ireland and had been involved with the UIS and the Orange Order. There were a few, however, whose surnames—such as De Angelis, Jacono, and Singerman—reflected New York's cosmopolitanism.

63 Reynolds encouraged activists in the NISC to campaign against what he saw as a "nationalist bias" in the US media. In addition to making appearances on local television and radio, he coordinated a relentless pro-unionist letter-writing campaign to media executives, newspaper editors, and political commentators on Irish affairs. It was often the case that much of this correspondence was ignored and had little impact, but there were occasional successes. On 11 October 1971, for example, the New York Times printed one of Reynolds's letters warning Americans to ignore appeals for financial contributions from Noraid because donations would be used to support the "senseless slaughter and carnage being perpetrated by the IRA." 64 [End Page 228] The NISC had a limited budget to pay for general administration, rooms for meetings, visits by unionists to New York, and its yearly banquet. Most of the financial resources of the group came from membership dues and donations from supporters in various parts of the US, as well as through occasional mail solicitations to members of the Orange Order.

65 While the NISC rarely had more than a few hundred dollars in its treasury, it sometimes bought advertising space in Northern Ireland newspapers to support the Unionist Party at election time. 66 Reynolds also established a Protestant Relief Fund to send money to the Grand Orange Lodge in Belfast for distribution to "victims of republican violence." Collections were taken at the Orange Home's "Twelfth" celebrations, and some individual lodges and activists sent donations to the appeal. 67 This financial drive was quickly ended, however, when Reynolds became concerned that some funds might end up in the hands of loyalist paramilitaries. 68 Reynolds tried to coordinate activities with, and encourage the formation of, other unionist groups in the US. One of his few successes was with Harry Bennison and the Ulster American Loyalists (UAL) in California. Bennison, who left Belfast in 1967 to work as a ship's designer in New York, had moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to take a job with a firm of naval architects. He began socializing with a group of Ulster Protestant exiles who, like himself, had been recruited by shipping companies or were employed in the West Coast aerospace industry.

69 Many in the group were frustrated at the lack of unionist voices in the local media and were alarmed by Noraid activities in Los Angeles and San Francisco. In an effort to challenge what they saw as the "pervasive nationalist influence in [End Page 229] California," they formed the Ulster American Loyalists (UAL) in early 1972. 70 The UAL held monthly meetings at Bennison's home, usually attracting between fifty and seventy activists. They mixed strategy sessions and political seminars on Northern Ireland with barbecues and socializing. 71 There was so much initial interest that Bill Irwin, a friend of Bennison and fellow Ulster exile, formed a second chapter in San Francisco. The organization also began publishing a small paper, the UAL Newsletter, which contained updates on activities, news from Northern Ireland, articles on Scotch-Irish history, and fierce editorial attacks on the IRA and Noraid. 72 The UAL's activities were basically similar to those of the NISC.

Bennison opposed Irish-American nationalists on local television and radio; directed letter-writing campaigns to the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle; senta constant stream of telegrams to political leaders in Washington, London, and Belfast; and occasionally organized counterdemonstrations against Noraid events. 73 The UAL's political stance, however, tended to be more militant than that of the NISC. In a 1972 letter to the Los Angeles Times, for example, Bennison maintained that the UDA was formed "to protect the lives and heritage of the vast majority of Northern Ireland people against left-wing IRA terrorism." He then made the following comment on two bomb attacks in Dublin that were linked to loyalist paramilitaries: "After hundreds of explosions in Northern Ireland, if it took just two to make the government of the Republic take action against the IRA, then so be it.

For four years the IRA has mounted its murderous attacks against Northern Ireland and then returned to the sanctuary of the Republic!" 74 In the months after its formation the UAL forged links with the Orange Order, loyalist groups in Canada, and some members of the Northern Ireland Association—a small political and social group in Burbank, California, composed of both Protestant and Catholic [End Page 230] immigrants. 75 Bennison, who knew Charles Reynolds when he was in New York, also began coordinating activities with the NISC. Both men then made connections with the Ulster Protestant Association (UPA) in Philadelphia, a group composed of about one hundred members, many of whom were Paisleyites. Sam Calderwood, the leading figure in the UPA, came from the staunchly loyalist Lower Shankill area of Belfast and had personal connections with some prominent paramilitary leaders. 76 The first opportunity for these new unionist support groups to work together came in late February 1972 when congressional hearings were held on Senator Edward Kennedy's Northern Ireland resolutions. Charles Reynolds felt that it was essential for unionists to be heard in Washington and helped to arrange for a delegation from Belfast to appear before the committee.

Bill Henderson, a member of the Unionist Party's executive committee and publisher of the Belfast News Letter, led a group which included Patrick Macrory, chairman of a committee which had recently proposed sweeping reforms of local government in Northern Ireland, and David Smyth, a director of the party's research department. Reynolds returned from India to help arrange media appearances for the group in New York and to organize submissions from the American unionists. 77 Under Reynolds's direction each member of the unionist delegation tried to refute the nationalist presentations. Bill Henderson focused on the human consequences of IRA violence and tried to link it to international Marxist revolution. Reynolds defended the Stormont government, blaming Catholics for "sowing the seeds of division in the Ulster community" because they "sulked in sullen silence and suspicion" instead of fully participating in Northern Ireland's institutions. Patrick Macrory emphasized that the government was committed to making sweeping reforms which would effectively address Catholic grievances, while Harry Bennison defended internment as "an unfortunate but necessary" response to IRA violence and justified [End Page 231] it by reference to the US government's internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

78 The members of the unionist delegation, in public statements at least, were convinced that they had effectively countered the nationalist testimony. Bill Henderson later asserted, "I am satisfied that we got Ulster's case put firmly across and, from the public comment they made, influential members of the sub-committee were obviously impressed." 79 Brian Faulkner lavished praise on the American unionist groups and later expressed his gratitude in the following telegram to Charles Reynolds: At a time when Northern Ireland is undergoing one of the gravest crises in its history, it is of immense encouragement to me and my colleagues in government . . . to know there are representatives like you and Bill Best and organizations such as the Northern Ireland Service Council and Ulster-Irish Society prepared to do so much to defend our constitution against the many-faced enemies seeking to destroy the fabric of democracy. . . . May I say with deep sincerity how much I personally appreciate your dedication and unselfishness in leaving your work in India to return specially to the US to help so successfully in rebutting the anti-Ulster testimony at the Washington hearings.

Reports reaching me indicate that the mission, although small numerically, lacked nothing in cogency and effectiveness and, overall, did a splendid job in counter-balancing the record. We are most fortunate to have men of the character, caliber, and ability of you and Bill and your organizations projecting the authoritative side of Northern Ireland's case so many thousands of miles away. 80 Despite Faulkner's glowing assessment, press reports suggest more modest results from the unionist presentation. The Times of London, for example, claimed that the unionist submissions had limited impact, as they were given on the last day of the proceedings, following two days of nationalist testimony, and that many neutral observers had already left Capitol Hill. In addition, Bill Henderson [End Page 232] was criticized for engaging in "fruitless and occasionally acrimonious exchanges" with committee members that delayed the other unionist presentations until late in the afternoon. 81 American unionists had barely time to assess their impact in Washington when the British government, in the midst of the most violent year in the "Troubles," prorogued Stormont and imposed direct rule from Westminster.

As in Northern Ireland, most members of the US unionist network were embittered by what they saw as Edward Heath's betrayal of their prime minister. Charles Reynolds and his associates immediately offered their support to Faulkner and persuaded him to come to America in late June to defend his administration and to explain the unionist case to the media. Faulkner, who presided over the introduction of internment and Bloody Sunday, was a hated figure among Irish-American nationalists. To avoid as many protests as possible, Reynolds, who directed Faulkner's agenda, had to take a series of "security precautions." When the former prime minister departed from London, it was leaked to the press that he would fly directly to New York. But to avoid demonstrators who were waiting at JFK airport, Faulkner flew to Los Angeles, where Harry Bennison and the UAL organized media appearances and receptions with local dignitaries. After Faulkner had spent a few days on the West Coast, it was announced that he would be flying straight to New York. But again, to avoid protesters, a short stopover was organized in Philadelphia, where members of the UPA greeted him at the airport and arranged a press conference.

While these tactics helped to confuse Irish-American demonstrators, US agents who were providing security for Faulkner were livid with Reynolds for deliberately misleading them about the flight itinerary. 82 Faulkner's eventual arrival in New York generated extensive media coverage. He gave a succession of press interviews, spoke with the editorial boards of the city's major newspapers, and appeared on the nationwide breakfast talk-show "Good Morning [End Page 233] America." During one interview with an evening radio call-in show in Philadelphia, Reynolds alerted Sam Calderwood and got members of the UPA to block the lines to the station with their questions, thus ensuring that Faulkner had time to fully explain his views and to receive supportive responses. Although Faulkner managed to sidestep Noraid demonstrators with several Indiana Jones-like escapes through freight elevators, underground garages, and back exits, the protests significantly disrupted his public appearances. An important news conference at the New York Press Club had to be canceled following a bomb threat, and an Irish Catholic waitress disrupted a business luncheon by shouting obscenities while Lucy Faulkner was addressing the invited guests.

In this atmosphere of continuing protests and bomb threats, Reynolds concluded Faulkner's trip with a gala banquet on 1 July 1972 at the Biltmore Hotel. Over one hundred members of the NISC, the Ulster-Irish Society, and the Orange Order attended an event which culminated in a rousing call by Faulkner for continued unionist activism in America, followed by a piper playing a lament to commemorate the anniversary of the sacrifice of the 36th Ulster Division at the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, an event with enormous significance in unionist historical memory. Conclusion The lament at the Biltmore might just as well have been for unionist efforts to put their case across in America, for Faulkner's visit marked the pinnacle of transatlantic publicity initiatives in this period and would not be matched for over a decade. Throughout most of the 1970s and 1980s, while they were always quick to issue scathing condemnations of Irish-American involvement, unionists did virtually nothing to present an alternative perspective on Northern Ireland affairs in the US.

Within the Official Unionist Party only the Reverend Martin Smyth and deputy leader Harold McCusker tried to bring their message to America, but their trips were sporadic and given virtually no support from Glengall Street. Even Ian Paisley usually focused on his pastoral duties while in the US and rarely engaged in exclusively political initiatives. The few campaigns that unionists did organize were mostly spontaneous responses to [End Page 234] fears that American public opinion was rising in support of Irish republicanism. A classic example of this was the joint OUP-DUP "Operation USA" tour in 1982, launched in an attempt to counteract the sympathy generated for Bobby Sands and other hunger strikers who had died in the Maze Prison. 83 There are many reasons, aside from the lack of a constituency, why there was no developed strategy to sell unionism in the US. Both the OUP and DUP operated on modest budgets, and there was little available cash to sustain ongoing transatlantic publicity campaigns. Leaders of both parties usually felt that their limited resources were better spent on electoral campaigns at home.

They also believed that if unionist perspectives had to be presented outside Northern Ireland, it was vastly more important to target British officials in London rather than political leaders in Washington. In addition, many unionists felt that trying to engage Irish Americans at the grassroots was a waste of time because of their "implacable hostility and pervasive nationalism." Appearing at a public forum in any city with a large Irish activist community would have been a daunting prospect for even the most fearless unionist. It was also the case that, while there were plenty of policy issues over which they disagreed with British ministers, unionists felt that the British government was looking after most of their concerns in America. The British Embassy in Washington and the British Information Service in New York used their considerable resources to counteract the political influence of Irish America. The Anglo-American "special relationship" generally ensured that the US government kept out of Northern Ireland affairs, while federal law-enforcement agencies vigorously pursued Irish-American gun-runners and helped to apprehend IRA fugitives. With little encouragement from the political parties in Northern Ireland, and with few unionists coming over, membership of the support groups in America quickly declined.

By the mid-1970s the unionist "network" had been reduced to a few individuals mostly operating in isolation. The effectiveness of American unionism was further reduced as political divisions between activists mirrored the splits between unionists in Northern Ireland. Within the NISC, [End Page 235] for example, some members strongly disagreed with Charles Reynolds's continued support for Brian Faulkner, particularly after his acceptance of power-sharing in the Sunningdale Agreement of December 1973. In addition, Reynolds's distaste for Ian Paisley (he compared him to Hitler and blamed him for destroying unionist unity) blocked what slim potential there might have been for joint action with Bob Jones and company. Faced with the disintegration of the groups that they had created, the leaders of American unionism struggled to maintain their activities. Harry Bennison continued to appear in local media for a few years but increasingly devoted his energies to promoting the Orange Order in California. In 1998 he was instrumental in establishing Ulster-Scots LOL 1690 in Los Angeles, the first new American lodge to be instituted in over twenty years.

84 When the UPA fell apart in the mid-1970s, Sam Calderwood joined with Harold Alexander, a fellow Belfast native and resident of Philadelphia, in promoting political independence as a solution to Northern Ireland's problems. In 1979 they helped to organize a US tour by loyalist paramilitary leaders to explain details of this plan and to secure help from Irish-American lawyers in drafting a constitution and bill of rights for the proposed new state. When this effort attracted little interest, Calderwood faded from prominence and subsequently focused on activities linked to Philadelphia's British Legion Club. 85 Of all the early leaders of American unionist groups, Charles Reynolds remained the most active politically. Despite the steady decline in NISC membership, his commentary and letter-writing [End Page 236] campaigns never diminished.

In the mid-1970s he also began bringing small groups of Americans on tours of Northern Ireland, partly to expose participants to unionism and "undermine negative Irish-American propaganda." In addition, Reynolds preserved close personal ties with leaders of the Ulster Unionist Party and played an important role in encouraging them to break out of their traditional isolationism and to launch an engagement with the Clinton administration that would become the high-water mark of all unionist efforts in America. The UUP's American initiatives were driven by the Clinton administration's increasing involvement after 1992 in the Northern Ireland "peace process." Most unionists believed that the initial US policies, particularly the granting of a visa to Gerry Adams, came in response to powerful Irish-American lobbyists who were sympathetic to Sinn Féin. While some unionists, mostly in the DUP, reacted in the expected way, condemning Clinton, in one memorable instance, as a "draft-dodging, IRA-loving pest," a progressive faction within the UUP concluded that unionism had no alternative but to try to counter the Irish-American lobby and to provide Washington with a more "balanced" political perspective.

Clinton officials strongly encouraged the UUP progressives to come to America, make their case, and see for themselves that the White House had no hidden nationalist agenda. Nancy Soderberg, responsible for Irish affairs on the National Security Council, was concerned that the unfavorable unionist perception of the administration would ultimately weaken Clinton's ability to advance a comprehensive peace deal. There was also an assumption that regular unionist visits could help to erode provincialism and expose them to "American opinions on compromise and talking to one's enemies." 86 David Trimble, after becoming UUP leader in 1995, led a continuous stream of unionist delegations to Washington, where they were given an extraordinary level of access to Clinton and other top officials in the White House. Eventually, with the financial support of Ulster businessman Tony Cully-Foster, the UUP established a permanent office in the capitol to coordinate their trips, lobby Congress, [End Page 237] and present unionist viewpoints to the media. Trimble and his supporters even tried to bring their message to Irish-American audiences through a campaign of attending previously taboo social gatherings and appearing at public debates in New York, Boston, and Chicago.

Even though these UUP initiatives were conducted at an unprecedented level of intensity, the results were mixed. Unionist delegations failed to make a noticeable impact on lawmakers in Congress, and editorial opinion in major US newspapers generally remained critical of unionist positions, although David Trimble was given considerable praise for his role in the making of the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. 87 More positively, the UUP's access to the White House allowed unionist concerns to be brought directly to the Clinton administration and perhaps contributed to a more nuanced approach to Northern Ireland. Additionally, in explaining their views at grassroots Irish-American forums, UUP leaders forced some nationalist listeners to reassess traditional assumptions about the fragility of unionist culture. Although some of these gatherings generated fiercely hostile exchanges, and though there were few conversions, the intensity of unionist presentations debunked the misconception of some Irish Americans that "unionists are a transplanted political flower which will whither once the English gardener has gone." 88 The Bush administration, while maintaining a special envoy and paying lip service to supporting the "peace process," relegated Northern Ireland well down its list of priorities.

Consequently, the UUP, seeing less need for missions to Washington, drastically reduced its transatlantic campaign—a process further accelerated by the deep internal struggles within the party over the implementation [End Page 238] of the Good Friday Agreement. In the past few years UUP leaders have reverted to the traditional approach of reacting to Irish-American involvement from afar. As a result, those in the US interested in Northern Ireland affairs, and who retain the potential to have a significant influence on the province, are not hearing unionist views directly, and the American political arena has been left open almost exclusively to Sinn Féin.

Question: In 1969 which MP was described by Stratton Mills MP as "Fidel Castro in a miniskirt"?
Answer: BERNADETTE DEVLIN