Grade Level: SrH-Adult
Producer: BBC
Closed Captioned: No |
Running Time: 50 mins
Country of Origin: Great Britain
Study Guide: No |
Copyright Date: 2008
Available in French: No
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1987. A bomb exploded without warning in the Fermanagh town of Enniskillen. The device was timed to detonate during the annual Poppy Day ceremony, at which the Ulster Defence Regiment would be on parade. An emotionally potent day in the Northern Irish Protestant calendar, the ceremony had also attracted a large number of civilians. At the time, Gerry Adams was trying to coax the Republicans into political engagement with the British government, to explore the political path to power. Every dead civilian would endanger his strategy. When the bomb exploded in Enniskillen, a wall collapsed on to the gathering crowd. Eleven people died in the rubble and chaos. They were all Protestant civilians, many elderly women. The IRA claimed the operation was a mistake. But this was a desecration for which there could be no acceptable apology. With revulsion around the world, Gerry Adams's strategy for political engagement appeared to have been dealt a death blow. But in the same week, the military wing of the IRA had also been dramatically compromised. A ship carrying a huge arsenal of arms was intercepted in French waters. The Eksund was crewed by five Irishman. Under interrogation, the skipper revealed that the cargo was destined for the IRA, a gift from Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. This turned out to be the fourth shipment of deadly cargo. Only a week after the interception of the Eksund, the IRA deployed semtex explosive from Libya in Enniskillen. There would be no more Libyan arms and explosives for the IRA after the Eksund. And Gerry Adams would use the Enniskillen calamity to strengthen his case within the Republican movement for a political solution. He insisted that the IRA could not kill civilians and expect to sustain support for their cause. The chaotic events of one week in 1987 would push Northern Ireland toward the peace process culminating in the astonishing political settlement between Northern Ireland's extremes in 2007. But as one terror organisation was choking on the murder of non-combatants, another was emerging which had no such streak of political pragmatism or self-denial. |
