Operation Folklore
Richard Bourke
Secret British papers dealing with contingency military planning released yesterday reveal some of the details of a proposed "Operation Folklore" designed to deal with the descent of Northern Ireland into bloody mayhem.
The legal powers necessary for putting the operation into effect would have included entitling British soldiers to shoot Northern Ireland citizens in the absence of any threat to soldiers' lives.
A drastic extension of existing powers of arrest, search and detention was also envisaged as an integral requirement of Operation Folklore. The introduction of compulsory identity cards for Northern Ireland residents, together with entry permits for visitors, were also considered likely to be necessary. Finally, Border security was to be considerably tightened, including the power "to prohibit the entry and egress by land, sea and air of persons living in Northern Ireland and all other persons".
Once again, all necessary measures would, in extremis, be introduced "whatever the attitude of the government of the Republic".
Plans for Operation Folklore had been initiated in the wake of Operation Motorman which had secured the British army's occupation of republican strongholds in Belfast and Derry in 1972. Motorman was a response to Bloody Friday when a total of 26 explosions detonated by the Provisional IRA devastated Belfast on the afternoon of July 21st. Folklore was then conceived in anticipation of a "worst-case" scenario in which the British government would be forced to impose control on Northern Ireland by means of an intensive military assault.
Planning had reached a developed stage by the autumn of 1973. "We feel strongly that in the wholly abnormal situation envisaged it would be essential for a soldier to be able to open fire without fear of legal penalty in certain circumstances," Mr Anthony Stephens, head of a defence secretariat at the Ministry of Defence, wrote on November 16th.
Military exemption from due process was intended to cover opening fire without warning on any person carrying firearms, whether they posed an immediate threat or not. But it would also cover opening fire on any person who failed to halt when challenged during a curfew, or on any person who failed to halt when challenged in an area designated as "special" by the General Officer Commanding in Northern Ireland.
Correspondence from the Ministry of Defence describes these "special areas" as "hard areas" - like Andersonstown or Ballymurphy, one presumes (unless, of course, these were already under curfew).
Indemnifying British soldiers from prosecution had been under consideration by civil servants at the Northern Ireland Office since the summer of 1972. Now, for the purposes of Operation Folklore, an Act of Indemnity was deemed insufficient. Firstly, it would be insufficient because a solely retrospective amnesty would deprive soldiers of the certainty that they were receiving " 'lawful' " orders, and secondly because, if the situation which had given rise to folklore suddenly improved, it might prove politically impossible to legislate for any kind of indemnity at all. This, concluded a Defence official, would be plainly "catastrophic" for the British army.
The new legal powers required by the British forces were to be introduced either by a new and comprehensive legislative act, or by piecemeal extension of the powers already available under the recent Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act. It was anticipated these powers would be "more or less acceptable to ministers" in the British government.
However, strong objections were expected from the Irish Government. A hand-written note by a Northern Ireland Office official sets out the British position in response: "We would just have to ignore protestations from the Republic."
A memorandum by an official at the Foreign Office from December 1973 underlines the UK government's determination in this regard: "Our overriding concern would have to be to safeguard the security of the realm, even if in so doing some susceptibilities in the Republic had to be disregarded."