Ulsterisation

Ulsterisation refers to one part 'primacy of the police' [Anthony Jennings, "Justice Under Fire: The Abuse of Civil Liberties in Nothern Ireland", Pluto Press 1990, ISBN 0 7453 0415 x, pg.192] of a three part strategy [ The other two being "Normalisation" and "Criminalisation"] by the British Government to pacify Northern Ireland during the conflict known as The Troubles. [Kevin Kelly, "The Longest War: Nothern Ireland and the IRA", Brandon 1982, ISBN 0 86322 016 9 (Pbk), pg.258-9] The strategy was to disengage the non-Ulster regiments of the British Army as much as possible from security duties in Northern Ireland and replace them with members of the locally recruited Royal Ulster Constabulary and Ulster Defence Regiment. The objective of this policy was to confine the conflict to Northern Ireland. [Kevin Kelly, "The Longest War: Nothern Ireland and the IRA", Brandon 1982, ISBN 0 86322 016 9 (Pbk), pg.258-9] [David McKittrick & David McVea, "Making Sense of the Troubles", Penguin Books 2001, ISBN 0 14 100305 7, pg.123 / 171] [Liz Curtis, "Ireland: The Propaganda War, The British Media and the Battle for the Hearts and Minds", Pluto Press 1984, ISBN 0 86104 757 5, pg.68-69] [Richard Bourke, "Peace In Ireland: The War of Ideas", Pimlico 2003, ISBN 1 8441 3316 8, pg.164]

This strategy was outlined in an unpublished 1975 British strategy paper titled "The Way Ahead" produced by a committee of senior Army, RUC and intelligence officers, chaired by John Bourn an NIO civil servant. [Mark Urban, "Big Boys' Rules: The Secret Struggle against the IRA", Faber and Faber 1992, ISBN 0 571 16809 4, pg.17] Under Labour’s first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees it came to be the dominant theme in the conflict as it raged into the 1980s.

The Rees administration aimed at putting security policy on a more logical and rational basis, and along with the Chief Constable of the RUC, an Englishman, Kenneth Newman [Newman had started his career in the Palestine police, and would be given the job of implementing Police Primacy in 1976, Mark Urban, pg.18] they produced the often controversial strategy of 'criminalisation' and 'Ulsterisation.' [David McKittrick & David McVea, "Making Sense of the Troubles", Penguin Books 2001, ISBN 0 14 100305 7, pg.123] These policies would later be extended by Roy Mason, and would include the employment of the SAS on the border. [Alan F. Parkinson, "Ulster Loyalism and the British Media", Four Courts Press1998, ISBN 1 85182 392, pg.47]

The first 'Criminalisation' was meant to deny any acknowledgement of political motivation and nature of the conflict and was partly motivated to change preceptions of the conflict from a colonial war to that of a campaign against criminal gangs. [David McKittrick & David McVea, "Making Sense of the Troubles", Penguin Books 2001, ISBN 0 14 100305 7, pg.123] [Liz Curtis, "Ireland: The Propaganda War, The British Media and the Battle for the Hearts and Minds", Pluto Press 1984, ISBN 0 86104 757 5, pg.51] [Richard Bourke, "Peace In Ireland: The War of Ideas", Pimlico 2003, ISBN 1 8441 3316 8, pg.164] The second 'Ulsterisation' brought about stricking changes in the casualty patterns. It was judged that the political impact of killings of British soldiers by the Provisional Irish Republican Army was greater than the deaths of local security forces members. The drop in the number of regular army casualties helped prevent any build-up in Britain of sentiment for a withdrawal from Nothern Ireland. [David McKittrick & David McVea, "Making Sense of the Troubles", Penguin Books 2001, ISBN 0 14 100305 7, pg.123] [Liz Curtis, "Ireland: The Propaganda War, The British Media and the Battle for the Hearts and Minds", Pluto Press 1984, ISBN 0 86104 757 5, pg.15-16] [Richard Bourke, "Peace In Ireland: The War of Ideas", Pimlico 2003, ISBN 1 8441 3316 8, pg.164]

The move to locally based policing followed the Scarman Report, published on 3 October 1969. This recommended a complete reorganisation of the RUC, with the aim of both modernising the force and bringing it into line with the other police forces in the UK.

The name of the policy comes from a similar American strategy towards the end of the Vietnam War called " [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamisation#Vietnamization.2C_1969.E2.80.931975 Vietnamisation] ". [David McKittrick & David McVea, "Making Sense of the Troubles", Penguin Books 2001, ISBN 0 14 100305 7, pg.123] [Kevin Kelly, "The Longest War: Nothern Ireland and the IRA", Brandon 1982, ISBN 0 86322 016 9 (Pbk), pg.258-9] [Richard Bourke, "Peace In Ireland: The War of Ideas", Pimlico 2003, ISBN 1 8441 3316 8, pg.164]

References

* [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/uuac/moloneypollak86.htm NI Conflict Archive on the Internet, extracts from Paisley by Ed Moloney and Andy Pollak]
* [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EEtLnfcLUdYC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=Ulsterisation&source=web&ots=903mfQUg5l&sig=kwPSCHI9o7BzsexVZwkkDBGmlGA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA228,M1 "Paramilitary Imprisonment in Northern Ireland: Resistance, Management, and release" Kieran McEvoy 2000]