ABSTRACT

This article examines how the Northern Ireland trade union movement confronted state repression during the Troubles, focusing on the short-lived Trade Union Campaign Against Repression (TUCAR) and the death of AUEW-TASS shop steward Brian Maguire in Castlereagh RUC barracks in May 1978. It argues that TUCAR’s activism exposed a central contradiction within organised labour: leaderships were troubled by repression yet remained institutionally bound to the Northern state. Drawing on a range of archival sources, press coverage, and trade union records, the article reconstructs several campaigns around state repression in Northern Ireland. It demonstrates how the political weakness of the labour movement led it to seek partnership with the state, limiting union responses to repression, even amid mounting evidence of brutality. The failure to mount an independent labour response to repression led to the emergence of TUCAR, which was a marginal actor, rooted in the nationalist community. This reinforced a flawed, dangerous perception that repression was a nationalist issue. The article concludes that trade unions were uniquely positioned to articulate a class-based critique of state violence but ultimately failed to do so.

KEYWORDS:

Introduction

During the Northern Ireland conflict, the trade union movement and its activists at all levels faced numerous challenges. In addition to the usual concerns of trade unionists – wages, conditions, and closures – they also had to cope with sustained political violence – which on occasion was directed against them – and division within their core base, the northern working-class. Flowing from this, one issue that proved troublesome for northern trade unionism was that of state repression. For some within the movement, this was dangerous territory, an arena into which the unions could not stray. Human rights were often conflated with nationalist grievance and considered divisive by the trade union hierarchy (E. O’Connor, Citation2023, p. 269). Not everyone held this view. There were activists across both communities who believed the issues raised by state repression were important to the labour movement and should be taken up by the unions. Campaigns were mounted and efforts made to confront state repression on a variety of fronts. These were rarely welcomed by trade union leaders, ensuring a charged atmosphere within the movement whenever the issues were raised or discussed. This article will explore how trade unionism in Northern Ireland dealt with state repression during the Troubles. The focus will be on a short-lived organisation titled the Trade Union Campaign against Repression, (TUCAR) and the death in Castlereagh RUC barracks of a 27-year-old trade unionist, named Brian Maguire, on 10 May 1978. TUCAR had been set up by a group of left-wing trade unionists in Dublin in 1977, but it soon spread to the North and was active over the next couple of years on the issue of repression. It will be argued that TUCAR’s campaign highlighted the difficulties trade unionists faced in this divided society and exposed the contradiction of a trade union leadership which expressed opposition to repression but remained structurally attached to the state responsible for it.

Repression was woven into the fabric of Northern Ireland. The formation of the six-county state in 1921 was accompanied by considerable levels of violence, directed mainly towards the minority Catholic population. Much of this was perpetrated by armed loyalist gangs, but this illegal violence was connected to a powerful state apparatus of repression, the corner stone of which was the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act, (SPA). A permanent feature of Northern Ireland, the SPA accorded remarkable powers to the executive, including internment, arrest without warrant and detention without trial (Farrell, Citation1976). Enforcing these and other repressive measures were the state security forces, namely the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Ulster Special Constabulary. Both were Protestant and unionist, with the permanently retained part-time section of the latter – the B Specials – estimated to have less than 1% Catholic membership (Mulroe, Citation2025, p. 237).

Labour movement activists in Northern Ireland did not ignore repression. Historical examples such as the 1907 dock strike and the 1932 outdoor relief workers strike showed that the issue was relevant to all workers. Every decade saw campaigning on the issue (Voice of Labour, 31 May 1924; Belfast Newsletter, 8 December 1933, 11 February 1943, 2 June 1952, 7 December 1962; Irish Workers Voice, 22 December 1934, 10 August 1935; Loughlin, Citation2018; Purdie, Citation1990). This continued up to the eve of the Troubles; in September 1966, the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (NIC-ICTU, hereafter NIC) joined with its political ally, the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) to call on the Unionist regime to implement a series of basic democratic reforms, including an end to the SPA (NIC and NILP [NIC], Citation1966). However, in most of these, and other examples, it was rank‑and‑file activists, often communists, who were behind the action. Union leaders were rarely involved. And when they were leading the efforts, as was the case with the NIC and NILP initiative in the mid-1960s, it was usually because of pressure from below (NIC, Citation1967).

A key reason for this was the attachment the labour movement had to the state and the importance it placed on building a close partnership with its institutions. The NIC leaders saw the Northern state not as an irreformable sectarian and repressive entity, but as a set of neutral institutions that they could influence and change. Both Rolston (Citation1980) and Boyd (Citation1984) have highlighted this. The NIC leaders considered this the best way of promoting the material interests of Northern workers. As Mike and Sean Morrisey demonstrated (1979), it was a belief influenced by the weaknesses of a partitioned economy, which had a rapidly growing public sector and declining industrial base. It was also strengthened by the political impotence of the NILP, which never came remotely close to gaining power. Devoid of any hope of seeing a Labour administration in Northern Ireland, the unions advocated a form of social partnership with the state and employers as a means of building influence and solving the problems facing workers (Cradden, Citation1994, pp.150–153). Recognition from Stormont was seen as key to this and became a central, long‑term NIC demand. It was eventually conceded by the Unionist Prime Minister Terence O’Neill in 1964 (Mulholland, Citation1997, pp.81–94). This opened the door to the involvement of Northern trade union leaders on dozens of state bodies and quangos. By 1972, there would be 734 trade union representatives on 108 statutory bodies, including sub-committees and area panels (NIC, Citation1973). This didn’t alter the overall economic or political picture, both of which continued to deteriorate, but it did bind the trade union leaders to a repressive, sectarian state, giving them a stake in its continued existence. Among other consequences, it meant the ‘blatantly sectarian’ anti-Catholic recruitment policies within the major industries would continue to be ignored by the NIC leadership (Workers Research Unit, Citation1979, p. 14).

This relationship between the labour movement and the state suggested that if Northern Ireland ever experienced deep political conflict, the trade union movement would be severely challenged. And so it proved. Following several years of growing civil rights agitation, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was founded in January 1967. But despite there being several trade unionists on the committee (Purdie, Citation1990, p. 152), the NIC leadership did not become involved. The son of Derry trade union leader Stephen McGonagle commented on this saying that the street protests associated with NICRA ‘did not fit the rational, non-violent form of argument, negotiation and compromise that would have been Stephen’s modus operandi ’ (McGonagle, Citation2018, p. 145). Leaving aside the fact that the civil rights marches didn’t begin until August 1968, and that the movement was always peaceful, it is a comment that indicates a conservativism among the trade union leaders and an unwillingness to directly confront the unionist state. This would continue. As witnessed during the formation of Northern Ireland almost 50 years earlier, the beginning of what became known as the ‘Troubles’ in August 1969 was characterised by loyalist and state violence against Catholics, including an attempt to expel catholic workers from the shipyards. Two Protestant trade union leaders in Harland and Wolff, Sandy Scott and James McFall, responded by calling mass meetings of the workers and urged them not to expel catholic colleagues (McInerney, Citation1970, p. 10). It was a brave stance to take, given that both men lived in Protestant working-class areas. The response of the NIC leadership was weaker. After some initial criticism of the Unionist government (NIC, Citation1969), the NIC leaders met with ministers in early September and agreed a joint statement which contained a list of reforms previously agreed to by the Unionist government but yet to be implemented. The statement went onto express confidence in the RUC and British army, and called for the removal of the barricades, which had originated in nationalist areas as defence structures against loyalist mobs and the security forces. These were to be removed through ‘peaceful and voluntary means’ - in conjunction with those very same, unreformed state security forces (Northern Ireland Government and NIC, Citation1969).

This would remain the approach of trade union leaders. The greater the intensity of the political conflict, the closer they would bind themselves to the Northern state (Workers Research Unit, Citation1979, p7). The introduction of internment on 9 August 1971, which for 18 months was directed solely against the catholic nationalist community, was met with a tepid response from the NIC. In fact, the committee cautioned the wider ICTU against a straightforward denunciation or a call for the release of internees (Boyd, Citation1984, pp. 80–82). Bloody Sunday produced a similar response. Three days after the January 1972 atrocity the unions held a special conference at the Europa Hotel in Belfast to launch a new programme named ‘peace, employment and reconstruction’. The launch had been planned for some time, but the horrors of the weekend did not find expression in the comments of those leading the discussions; no mention was made of the 13 killings by any of the Irish trade union leaders at this event and there was no reference to it in the press release handed out by union officials (NIC, Citation1972).

Even when given a steer by ordinary workers and rank-and-file trade unionists, some of whom were paying a heavy personal price for standing up for clear trade union principles, leaders seemed unwilling to provide an alternative to the dismal status quo. In 1974, Belfast Trades Council called on the trade unions to support policies and campaigns that could unite workers and prevent them from being manipulated by ‘sectarian demagogues’ (Hunt, July–August 1974). This was a reference to the loyalist Ulster Workers Council lockout that had toppled the Sunningdale executive in May of that year (Fisk, Citation1975). Nothing concrete followed. Sectarian violence worsened in 1975–76. In January 1975, Protestant employees at the Cregagh dairy in Belfast went on strike after a catholic dairy worker was shot and injured by loyalists on another picket line (Hunt, 24 January P. Hunt, Citation1975). In August, corporation workers involved in the handling of meat supplies, and those employed at wholesale meat firms, walked out following the fatal loyalist shooting of catholic Lagan Meats Plant worker Richard McCann at a Belfast petrol station. Belfast Trades Council again called on the NIC to hold a conference to discuss the protection of workers. Support for this came from Derry Trades Council and in December 1975, they organised a rally of 5000 catholic and Protestant workers following the shooting of two well-known Protestant businessmen by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) (Irish News, 6 December 1975). This was followed in January 1976 by a one-day strike and 6000-strong rally in Newry, in response to 16 sectarian murders by loyalists and republicans in South Armagh in just 24 hours during 4–5 January (Newry and District Trades Union Council, Citation1977). Many of these victims had been trade unionists (Hanley, Citation2018, p. 224). This spike in violence finally provoked a response from the union leaders and resulted in the Better Life for All Campaign (BLFAC), which was launched to much acclaim and popular interest by the NIC later in January. However, despite the initial enthusiasm of workers for this campaign, and its undoubted success in reinvigorating several trades councils, the BLFAC struggled to gain momentum and build lasting change. It advocated a series of demands – which few opposed but for which there seemed to be no strategy to implement – but offered no critique of state repression. Craigavon Trades Council identified some of the problems, reporting in 1977 that, other than a ‘mediocre demonstration in Belfast’ in November 1976, the campaign was largely inactive (Craigavon and District Trades Union Council, Citation1977). BLFAC was soon supplanted by the Peace People movement. This was another initiative that tapped into a deep desire for an end to the conflict. Throughout the summer of 1976, the organisers briefly brought working-class people from both communities together in unprecedented, spectacular fashion, but its leaders were also blind to state repression and its significance as a driver of conflict and division. It too faded after a bright beginning.

In 1977, a group of trade unionists decided to act. TUCAR was formed as the Trade Union Co-Ordinating Committee Against Repression in Dublin in April 1977, changing its name to the more straightforward Trade Union Campaign Against Repression in July. Leading individuals included Phillip Flynn, the deputy general secretary of the Local Government and Public Services union; Matt Merrigan and Brian Trench of the ATGWU and Paddy Healy of the Dublin trades council. Other than Sinn Féin vice president Flynn and veteran socialist Nora Connolly O’Brien, who had a fleeting involvement, (Socialist Republic, April–May 1977), most of the leading lights were connected to either the left of the Labour Party or the recently formed Socialist Labour Party. This organisation emerged in response to Labour’s involvement in an increasingly authoritarian, right-wing coalition with Fine Gael. TUCAR’s focus was the repeal of the suite of repressive laws passed by that administration, which included the Emergency Powers Act and the Offences against the State Act. The group also campaigned for the abolition of the non-jury Dublin Special Criminal Court; an end to Special Branch interference in employment; and an end to political restrictions on press and broadcasting (TUCAR, May 1977).

Repression had been a growing concern for the labour movement in the south. In 1975, the ITGWU had passed a resolution which called for an inquiry into ‘brutal treatment’ of prisoners in Irish jails. In his May Day speech in 1977, the president of the Dublin Trades Council, Gerry Fleming, called on trade unionists ‘to concern themselves not only with the struggle for higher wages but also with the fact that repressive legislation is being passed in this country’. This included the repression of workers on strike, a point that he highlighted with reference to the number of injunctions that were being granted against picketing activities (TUCAR, May 1977).

TUCAR supporters quickly made their presence felt. At the 1977 ITGWU conference, the Cork No. 1 branch had resolutions passed that called for an end to the Emergency Powers Act and for a public inquiry into the treatment of republican prisoners. They also had a resolution passed calling for the return of the remains of Frank Stagg, the IRA hunger striker who had died in February 1976 in Britain (TUCAR, May 1977). Stagg had requested to be buried in a republican plot in Ballina alongside fellow-hunger striker Michael Gaughan but was initially interred in a family grave under several inches of concrete, after the Dublin coalition government intervened (Irish Press, 4 June 1977).

The repressive laws of the coalition government would remain an ongoing focus for TUCAR, but it would be events in the North that would provide most of the issues for their campaigns. The policies of the British government were coming under increased scrutiny during this period. The ending of Internment in 1975 and subsequent abolition of special category status for prisoners convicted of scheduled offences heralded a new British approach from the British in their efforts to marginalise and defeat the IRA. This had implications for the entire six county legal and judicial system and led to it being likened to a conveyor belt, where arrest was followed with forced confessions in RUC stations, conviction in the non-jury Diplock courts, and imprisonment in the new Maze prison H Blocks. Republicans employed this narrative, but it was more than just IRA propaganda; evidence was emerging of violence and ill-treatment of suspects in the three main RUC interrogation centres, Gough (Armagh), Strand Road (Derry) and Castlereagh (Belfast). In November 1977, Amnesty International visited the North to investigate conditions and police practices in these interrogation centres. Their report was pending. Events in the Maze prison added to this. Republicans had begun a ‘blanket’ protest against the new policy in September 1976, but this would escalate in the early months of 1978 to a no-wash phase. This led to horrendous conditions in the prison and was accompanied with allegations of systematic brutality on the part of the prison staff, as well as IRA killings of prison warders on the outside.

The first TUCAR intervention in the north occurred in January 1978 at a conference against repression in Coalisland, where the first civil rights march had taken place 10 years earlier. This event was organised by the local Relatives Action Committee (RAC). These groupings had begun to appear following the abolition of special category status in March 1976 and were largely made up of the families of republican prisoners, often dominated by women (Ross, Citation2011, pp. 22–24). Although containing many who were supportive of the republican movement, the groups were autonomous bodies with their own agenda, and were keen to build links with other organisations, to broaden support. The Coalisland conference was a good example of this. This gathering attracted around 1000 people and representatives from over 20 political, legal and civil rights organisations. It was attended by many prominent individuals, including Bernadette McAliskey, Frank Maguire, the MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone, and Noel Browne, the veteran radical who at that point was a Socialist Labour Party TD in Dublin. Also in attendance were three high-profile priests who had been campaigning for several years against British repression: Raymond Murray, Desmond Wilson and Denis Faul. The conference decided to begin a campaign which would ‘take the protest struggle back onto the streets’ and voted unanimously in support of motions that would call for an end to emergency legislation in Northern Ireland and for the unions to back this campaign (Irish News, 23 January 1978).

It was shortly after this that the first northern branch of TUCAR was launched in West Belfast. The chair of the branch was EETPU member Joe Edwards. The branch met weekly on Saturday afternoons in the Lake Glen hotel in Andersonstown and organised other public events. In one of their first statements, they made clear their frustrations with the trade union leadership, criticising what they described as the NIC’s ‘head in the sand … refusal to engage in any form of activity against repression’. The Belfast TUCAR activists made it clear they supported the rights of republican prisoners in the H-Blocks, again believing it to be a ‘fundamental duty of the trade union movement to speak out against this barbaric torture of republicans and socialists by a so-called Labour government’. The statement also invited all workers and trade unionists ‘who were opposed to oppression’ to take part in the forthcoming St Patrick’s Day parade ‘behind the James Connolly accordion and flute band (Irish News, 15 March 1978).

Among its early activities in Belfast was a public meeting in March to raise awareness of the Liffey dockyard dispute in Dublin (Andersonstown News, 11 March 1978). This was followed with a social at the Pound Loney social club in the lower Falls on 22 April to raise money for the defence fund of the strikers who faced criminal charges in the courts (Irish News, 27 April 1978). The Liffey workers had originally gone on strike over pay and conditions, but this had turned into an occupation of the yard and offices of their employer, B&I Line, when they learned the yard was being sold to a new employer. Arising from this, nine dockyard workers had been charged with various offences under the forcible entry act. This legislation had been passed by Fianna Fail in 1971, supposedly to deal with illegal squatting. There had been a campaign against it from tenants’ organisations and trade unions, who were concerned it would also be used against them. The government had offered an assurance that this would not be the case, but this was now revealed to be worthless. (Munster Express, 3 March 1978). At the social event, one of the dockers leaders, Des McGuiness, thanked attendees for the support he had received in Belfast and concluded by arguing that the fight against repressive legislation in both Irish states needed to continue (Irish News, 26 April 1978).

The West Belfast TUCAR branch also highlighted the issue of unemployment, joining a small demonstration and march from Kennedy Way to the government offices at Gloucester House on Chichester Street, organised by the Belfast Unemployed Action Committee (BUAC). The BUAC had been formed in February 1977 (Andersonstown News, 7 May 1977) and had been active with regular campaigning and public meetings in West Belfast and Ardoyne.

(Belfast Unemployment Action Committee, Citation1977). This included offering support to the Mackies workers, who were in dispute with their management in June 1977. This was an engineering company situated in a Catholic area of West Belfast, which was notoriously sectarian with a mainly Protestant workforce. After the march, TUCAR released a statement which condemned the high unemployment levels in west Belfast, claiming that in areas such as Ballymurphy, 6 of every 10 adults were out of work. They presented the high unemployment rates in Catholic areas as a deliberate outcome of British state policy and resolvable only through a 32‑county workers republic (Andersonstown News, 1 April 1978). This analysis of and solution to the problem of unemployment would not have been endorsed by the NIC, and it was soon after this, at the May Day march and rally in Belfast, that the first signs of hostility between the two became visible. TUCAR activists claimed that their requests to have Phil Flynn speak at the rally were ignored by march organisers. They also alleged that NIC leaders had asked the RUC to confiscate the TUCAR banner, on the grounds that it was ‘offensive’ and a ‘breach of the peace’. TUCAR activists alleged they were surrounded by the RUC, subjected to ‘unprecedented harassment’ and prevented from unfurling their banner. Paddy Healy later accused the NIC of inviting two British government ministers to the rally. He maintained that they were responsible for ‘torture and repression in Ireland’, and that the decision to invite them implied support for the continued British presence in Ireland and was ‘an affront to Connolly and Pearse (Irish News, 9 May 1978). Healy mocked the way ‘mealy mouthed’ NIC speakers had spoken about repression ‘in many parts of the world except Ireland’ and pledged that TUCAR would keep the issue of repression in Ireland to the fore in the period ahead (Irish News, 3 May 1978).

The emergence of TUCAR was not welcomed by the NIC. They were considered a republican front and an organisation that would divide rather than unite workers and trade unionists. Paddy Devlin, who by this stage of a long political career was an ITGWU organiser in Belfast was said to have described them in such terms (Andersonstown News, 16 September 1978). So too, from a very different political standpoint, did the Labour and Trade Union Campaign Group (LTUCG) which was the name used by members of the Trotskyist Militant organisation in Northern Ireland. LTUCG spokesperson in Strabane, Denis Tourish, disputed TUCAR’s bona fides and accused them of spreading sectarianism (Strabane Chronicle, 9 September 1978). Bill Webster, a leading activist on Derry Trades Council and Chair of the LTUCG, also described TUCAR as sectarian supporters of the IRA and criticised them for having no faith in Protestant trade unionists (Irish News, 4 July 1978). TUCAR in turn claimed that Webster was wrongly counterposing a vague objective of socialism to that of fighting British repression (Irish News, 11 July 1978). TUCAR argued that their organisation was based on trade unionism and claimed membership from at least 13 trade unions in the north (Irish News, 27 June 1978). They would later claim to have blocked the establishment of a TUCAR branch in Derry on the grounds that it was a front for the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and not a legitimate trade union body (Derry Journal, 27 July 1978). But the argument continued to be made that TUCAR was only interested in confronting state violence while condoning republican violence (Letters, Irish News, 20 June 1978, 5 July 1978).

The whole issue of the trade union attitude towards British repression was thrown into the spotlight in May 1978, following the death in Castlereagh of Brian Maguire, a 27-year-old trade unionist from Lisburn. Maguire was a member of the AUEW-TASS and shop steward at Strathearn Audio, a state-owned Hi-Fi company in West Belfast that had opened in 1973. In the early hours of 9 May, the RUC had arrested Maguire in connection with the IRA shooting of an RUC constable, Miller McAllister, in Lisburn on 28 April (Cobain, Citation2000). Maguire was not an IRA member, but the RUC suspected him of involvement and took him to Castlereagh for questioning. According to the RUC, this had concluded at 10.45 pm. The following morning, Maguire had been returned to his cell at 7.10 am after using the toilet but was allegedly found dead just 20 minutes later.

In a context where allegations of brutality in RUC barracks and the H Blocks were becoming a national political issue, the news of this death provoked outrage in the nationalist community, creating a firestorm for the RUC and the British government. The Provisional and Official republican movements quickly released statements, as did the IRSP, all of which accused the RUC of killing Maguire: Sinn Fein described the RUC detectives in Castlereagh as a ‘hand-picked gestapo’; the IRSP said the death had been a ‘lynching’; and a spokesperson for the Officials likened the case to that of Peter Hand (Irish News, 11 May 1978). Hand was an eighteen‑year‑old Republican Clubs member from Beechmount in West Belfast, and one of three young men who had been arrested in June 1976 on suspicion of the murder of an RUC detective. At Springfield Road RUC station, Hand was subjected to a horrifying ordeal which included what seemed to be either a mock hanging or an actual attempt at a hanging by detectives (Irish News, 17 June 1976). Hand later attempted suicide and signed a confession to the murder but was subsequently released without charge (Faul & Murray, Citation1978, pp. 108–112). But the condemnation went further than just the various republican organisations. The death of Maguire united the entire nationalist community in anger against the RUC. Prominent SDLP figures Michael Canavan and Joe Hendron both called for a full inquiry into the RUC’s treatment of suspects in these centres. In his work as a GP, Hendron had been in Castlereagh on many occasions to treat suspects, so he knew better than most about the ‘history of brutality’ there (Belfast Telegraph, 11 May 1978) The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association condemned the ‘mental and physical torture’ that was meted out to suspects at Castlereagh and claimed that Maguire had been murdered (Irish News,11 May 1978). Denis Faul was sceptical about the RUC’s version of events -that Maguire had hung himself with a bedsheet tied round a ventilator. He maintained that prisoners were not issued with sheets and that the thick wire mesh netting, which was fixed at a height of 7 feet in the cell, made it impossible to attach anything (Irish News, 11 May 1978).

Aware of the gathering storm, RUC Chief Constable Kenneth Newman announced an inquiry into the death of Maguire, to be conducted by the Chief Superintendent of Merseyside Police, Peter Rawlinson. Newman also took the unprecedented step of authorising the release of extracts from Maguire’s alleged confession, which suggested the Provisional IRA had compelled him to store the murder weapon and pass it onto the killers. These actions brought more criticism. Sinn Fein dismissed the Rawlinson probe, predicting it would meet the same ‘wall of silence’ that had destroyed the investigation into the RUC killing of Samuel Devenny, conducted by Chief Superintendent Kenneth Drury of the London Metropolitan Police in 1970 (Irish News, 13 May 1978). Regarding Maguire’s alleged confession extracts, the fundamental criticism of the RUC was that they used brutal methods to extract admissions of guilt and then lied about this in court – so an alleged confession from someone who was now dead was seen as doubly worthless. Michael Canavan pointed out that on three occasions in recent months, the Diplock judges had declared as inadmissible statements made in RUC custody because of undue pressure on the detainees. For the RUC to leak parts of a dead man’s alleged statement was ‘unseemly and shameful … simply outrageous’. It highlighted the need for an impartial inquiry, as opposed to an investigation ‘by a member of the same broad police family' (Irish News, 12 May 1978).

As soon as the news broke about this death, protests began to build, some of which involved workers in nationalist districts of Belfast. Over 500 building workers at three sites in Oldpark and Ardoyne walked off the job in protest. In addition, 300 workers, led by shop stewards from Antrim Crystal and Strathearn Audio, marched towards the city centre before being blocked by the RUC at the area around Divis Street and Hamill Street. They then attempted to march to Transport House, the headquarters of the ATGWU in Belfast, and the main trade union building in the city, but were again prevented by the RUC. A sit-down protest ensued and a speeches were made. TUCAR was central to this, and the rally was addressed by three of its members, all of whom were members of the EETPU. Joe Edwards said that he knew Maguire personally, that the RUC had murdered him, and that ‘each and every one of us is a potential Brian Maguire’. In his view, Maguire could not have been involved in killing anyone. Edwards also recounted his own experience of Castlereagh and contended that there was no way that Maguire could have committed suicide in the way depicted by the RUC. There were also street protests. Parts of the Falls Road, Ballymurphy, New Lodge, Oldpark and Ligoniel witnessed sporadic rioting and vehicle hijacking. This may have been sparked off by loyalists and the RUC; a march by the relatives’ action committee in Ardoyne and the Bone was attacked by loyalists close to Oldpark RUC station. March organisers alleged that the RUC not only allowed these attacks but drove their Land Rovers at the marchers and attacked them with batons. This is what had led to the rioting in the area and attacks on the RUC station (Irish News, 12 May 1978).

Pressure was building on the NIC. Maguire’s death had occurred just as the annual NIC conference was opening at the Guildhall in Derry. TASS regional secretary, Brian Graham, was in attendance and the following morning was given permission to read a statement to the conference. In it, he paid tribute to Maguire’s trade union activities, which included being a shop steward, branch secretary and delegate to the union’s divisional conference. Graham pointed out that Maguire had refused a job with a major firm abroad out of loyalty to Strathearn Audio, and that he was a skilled engineer who had helped in ‘overcoming the crisis the company had faced’ earlier in the year. This was a reference to a wave of redundancies that had been threatened but were resisted bythe unions (Militant, 19 May 1978). Graham concluded by advising the NIC to press Northern Ireland secretary of state, Roy Mason, for ‘the fullest impartial investigation’ into Maguire’s arrest, detention and death’ (Belfast Telegraph, 11 May 1979). By a stroke of good luck, not only was Mason in Derry the following day, but he was planning to visit the Guildhall for the first time – it had only re-opened in 1977 following years of restoration work after a 1972 IRA bombing (Derry Journal, 16 May 1978). However, it does not seem that the NIC leaders took the chance to press Mason directly for such an inquiry; a few days later NIC leader, Terry Carlin said that the NIC shared the concerns of Maguire’s union and had asked the Secretary of State for an inquiry, (Belfast Telegraph, 17 May 1978) but there was no mention of any response from Mason, suggesting that this had not been a face-to-face encounter.

Focus remained on the trade union leaders and their alleged lack of activity around Maguire’s death. On 15 May, the Derry Trades Council made a further call for a fully independent inquiry into Maguire’s death and criticised the Rawlinson inquiry (Derry Journal, 16 May 1978). On 18 May another protest took place in Belfast, organised by TUCAR and a local RAC. This march left Kennedy Way at 2 pm, with about 300 in attendance, but by the time it reached Transport House the numbers had swelled to around 2000. A TUCAR spokesperson explained later that the aim of this march was to force the trade union leaders to take up the fight against repression (Irish News, 19 May 1978). It was the biggest TUCAR protest to date and had been carefully planned. TUCAR had canvassed support among shop stewards to have the march organised during working hours and for workers to join the demonstration from the workplace (Workers Research Unit, Citation1979, p. 10). During the march, the NIC came in for strong criticism. One speaker was quoted as saying that trade union leaders have called for a better life for all … did Brian Maguire get a better life? No! He lost his life because of brutal RUC torture, and the trade union bureaucrats are doing nothing against it (Irish News, 19 May 1978). IRSP leader and RAC activist, Miriam Daly, also addressed the crowd and provided details of the health of some of the prisoners on protest in the H Blocks, claiming that one, James Brady, had a very bad case of scabies and that other prisoners had a malaria‑type illness. Daly was critical of the NIC. She pointed out that the committee had the right to send a representative into any jail in the North to see conditions; that this was a ‘right which people like Jim Larkin and James Connolly had fought for’; but for some reason the NIC had decided not to exercise this right (Irish News, 19 May 1978). Carlin clearly wanted no truck with any of this and later dismissed the march and the protest, saying that it had not been supported or authorised by any official trade union organisation (Belfast Telegraph, 19 May 1978).

Paddy Healy kept up the pressure. He successfully moved an emergency resolution at the AGM of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, which called on the NIC to conduct its own inquiry into the death of Maguire. Healey’s resolution also urged the British TUC to demand that Roy Mason authorise all duty officers to give evidence at this. Healy claimed there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ that the five disorientation tactics used on internees in the early 1970s and condemned by the European Commission of Human Rights at Strasbourg earlier in 1978 had been replaced with similar techniques that ‘constituted a modern form of torture’. He went on to say that the thousands of workers who had left their places of work to protest had no faith in a British inquiry and that the Widgery report into Bloody Sunday had shown what they could expect of this. The inquiry needed to be organised by the labour movement, and that, if necessary, the NIC could call on the support and involvement of the association of labour lawyers (Irish News, 2 June 1978).

The demand that the trade union leadership hold its own inquiry into Maguire’s death was gathering momentum. In June, Derry Trades Council condemned Maguire’s death and highlighted the ‘consistent allegations of brutality’ at Castlereagh before calling on the NIC to press for a trade union inquiry into RUC practices at its holding centres. It wasn’t a unanimous vote, with two of the 12 gathered opposing the resolution outright and another two saying they had no mandate. One opponent referenced the lack of an inquiry into the death of Billy King – a Protestant man who had been killed during a riot in Derry in September 1969. Another motion was passed calling for an investigation into prison conditions, by a committee that would include trade unionists. This was passed by 12 to two with one abstainer (Derry Journal, 16 June, 23 June 1978).

Shortly after this, the ITGWU held its annual conference in Sligo and resolved to call on the NIC to demand an independent inquiry into the ‘death by hanging of AUEW/TASS branch secretary Brian Maguire and the results of all torture in Castlereagh interrogation centre’. The motion also called on Mason to allow all duty officers to give evidence ‘without restriction or claims to privilege and to produce all documentation’. The discussion was introduced by Vincent Hunt for the Sligo branch of the union, who, like Healy, argued that despite the promises of the British government after Strasbourg, torture was still being used. The motion also referred to the case of Peter Hand as well as Bernard O’Connor, an Enniskillen schoolteacher who had been arrested by the RUC and beaten for 4 days in January 1977 (B. O’Connor, Citation2021) and the use of half-hanging torture techniques at Castlereagh. The resolution was almost identical to the one passed by the Dublin Council of the Labour Party, the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, and the SLP. The conference also called on all Irish Labour TDs to respond to the representations of the trade union delegations to Leinster House, to seek urgent action by the British government to end repression (Andersonstown News, 17 June 1978).

The pressure on the British government and the RUC intensified in early June when Amnesty International released the long-awaited report from their 1977 visit. The organisation had investigated 78 cases of alleged abuse, interviewing former detainees, their legal advisers, medical professionals and RUC officers. The Amnesty trip had included a visit to Castlereagh, where they were shown around the holding centre but had been prevented from interviewing detainees. The report made for grim reading; it detailed many examples of brutality, including beatings, joint-bending, choking, hairpulling, sensory deprivation, threats to families, and the threat of rape reported by three women detainees. Many of the testimonies were accompanied by medical reports. Some detainees had attempted suicide. In their conclusions, Amnesty stated there was enough evidence of maltreatment of suspects by RUC detectives to warrant a full public inquiry, and they recommended that the British government undertake this. In the meantime, detainees had to be protected against maltreatment and should have access to lawyers at an early stage (Amnesty International, Citation1978).

The British government was given the report weeks before publication and, after sitting on it for several days, attempted to spike it by announcing a judicial committee of inquiry into Castlereagh and the other interrogation centres, to be headed by a circuit judge, Harry Bennett (Belfast Telegraph, 9 June 1978). The far more extensive public inquiry recommendation which lay at the heart of the Amnesty report was rejected on the grounds not only that Amnesty’s report was ‘incomplete’, and based on anonymous interviews, but that police witnesses would be put in danger and that immunity would need to be given, which would make it impossible to prosecute anybody who gave evidence. A group of solicitors who had been involved in many of the cases in front of the Diplock courts disputed this and urged a boycott of the inquiry (Belfast Newsletter, 7 July 1978).

TUCAR continued with its campaign for a trade union inquiry into Castlereagh. Responding to a jibe from Paddy Devlin, that their marches were a ‘trojan horse for rent a mob incorporated’ and not representative of the trade union movement (Irish News, 30 June 1978), the TUCAR leaders claimed to have support for such an inquiry from four trades councils in Ireland – Dublin, Derry, Limerick, Drogheda -as well as the Dublin Labour Party, the SLP ‘and even Paddy Devlin’s own union, the ITGWU’. The group accused the Belfast Trades Council of being ‘one of the few not to take up the demand’ (Irish News, 19 July 1978). This seemed harsh. The Belfast Trades Council had not called specifically for a trade union inquiry into repression, but it had expressed concerns about Castlereagh and criticised Mason’s decision to set up a committee of inquiry. They described Maguire’s death as ‘suspicious’, praised Amnesty International’s report and called for a sworn public inquiry into the RUC interrogation centres. The trades council pointed out that distrust of Castlereagh interrogation methods ‘was not confined to any one section of the community' (Irish News, 16 June 1978). This was not merely an attempt to prevent divisions opening in the trade union movement in Belfast; the Amnesty report had revealed that although prior to 1977, it had been almost exclusively nationalists and republicans who had made complaints about RUC interrogations, there had been a sharp rise in loyalist complaints over the past year.

Waterford Council of Trade Unions added to the list of labour movement bodies calling for a trade union inquiry into Castlereagh at its quarterly meeting in July (Munster Express, 7 July 1978). The issue was also discussed at the ICTU conference, which took place in Galway that month. At this conference, Healy claimed that the North had more political prisoners than any other part of Europe and expressed amazement that there was no reference to the issue of repression in the conference report drawn up by the ICTU leadership. He also complained about the omission of any reference to a resolution passed by the NIC in May, which had called for an inquiry into the Maguire death. Healy claimed there needed to be a discussion on oppression, not solely in the North but also in the South and referenced a case of a man named Tom Connors, who had jumped from a window in Cahir Garda station after being ‘driven suicidal’ by a group of detectives who had come down from Dublin.

In response, the regional secretary of the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE), John Coulthard, pointed out that the NIC had not passed a resolution about Maguire, but had only issued a statement, albeit an important one that should have been included in the report. Carlin agreed. The distinction was important. Motions and resolutions had to be enacted but statements were just that, statements. The NIC did join the call for public inquiries into the Amnesty allegations, the Maguire death and conditions in the H Blocks (Belfast Telegraph, 6 July 1978). However, in a context where that had suddenly become a mainstream opinion, it wasn’t an especially strong response. Their actions during the Congress made it clear that they had no wishes to go any further or even discuss the issues. When Paddy Devlin and NUPE activist, Jim Sullivan tried to speak on a short report the ICTU leaders had prepared on repression and handed out during the conference, the ICTU President, John Mullhall told them that because it had been approved there was no need for a discussion. Devlin complained that the report had not dealt with the issue at Castlereagh. Sullivan was the leading NUPE shop steward at the Belfast Royal Victoria Hospital. Trade unionists there had recently been put in danger when Vanguard and Ulster Unionist Party MP, Reverend Robert Bradford had used parliamentary privilege to claim that seven employees were IRA members. Bradford had form when it came to regurgitating RUC Special Branch intelligence for political gain. He had done so after Maguire’s death, commenting ‘anyone who knew of Maguire’s past history would contend that he had much to be concerned about’ and that some arrests had occurred because of info he provided (Belfast Telegraph, 12 May 1978). The LTUCG condemned Bradford’s comments about the hospital workers as a crude attempt to split the workforce along sectarian lines (Irish News, 27 May 1978), but the NIC kept its silence. A motion from the ASTMS asking the executive to hold a trade union inquiry into the Maguire death was opposed by the leadership, with Ruaridh Roberts arguing that they would have no power to compel anyone to give evidence. The motion was eventually referred to the executive for consideration, where it could be quietly binned.

By this stage, Roy Mason had the report of the Rawlinson investigation into Maguire’s death but announced that the details of this and his findings would not be made public until after his inquest. This was initially arranged for 26 June 1978 but would be delayed for several years. This meant that Rawlinson’s report was never published, but details of it have since leached into the public realm. Rawlinson interviewed all the uniformed officers who had been on duty and the detectives who had questioned Maguire. The uniformed officers were described as ‘sensible, mature men’ who were unaware of any ‘brutal, inhumane, or psychological pressures’ being brought to bear on prisoners. The detectives were said to have subjected Maguire to a ‘lengthy, intense, rigorous and often repetitive questioning’ but there had been no illegality. Rawlinson also interviewed five loyalist and three republican detainees, who had been held on the same floor as Maguire. Six were said to have had no complaint, but one said he had been beaten and held against the wall with his arms twisted and another claimed he had been beaten, forced into a stress position, and had then been suspended in the air with a detective’s tie around his neck. Rawlinson concluded that Maguire had taken his own life through hanging but couldn’t say if he intended to die or generate sympathy. He speculated that the fear of further interrogation might have been the reason. This was good enough for Mason. Even though the inquest had been postponed, he declared to the House of Commons that Maguire had committed suicide, something which merely added to the belief that a cover‑up was taking place (Belfast Newsletter, 16 June 1978).

One of the other men arrested in connection with the shooting of Millar, Phelim Hammill, (subsequently gaelicised to Féilim Ó hAdhmaill) claimed to have been beaten severely and subjected to water torture where a group of 20 RUC detectives held him down and tied a towel around his neck and pulled it over his face. Water was then poured onto the towel into his mouth until he felt he was drowning and was going to die. Hamill was eventually examined by a doctor, who found him covered in bruises, but he was not willing to make a complaint in case the beatings got worse (Irish Times, 14 August 2017).

TUCAR also focused on the case of a Strabane republican, Willie Gallagher. Gallagher would later become well-known within both IRSP and Irish National Liberation Army circles, but at this point he was a 20-year-old youth, who was three years into a twelve-year jail sentence for the January 1975 bombing of the local British Legion Hall. The sole evidence against him was an unsigned transcript of a confession, which, according to local campaigners, was written in the Belfast vernacular, different to Strabane speech and repudiated by Gallagher at his trial. Local trade unionists and the LTUCG branch had taken up the case, with Strabane Trades Council holding what was described as the biggest public meeting in years in the town, with over 200 in attendance. MPs Ivan Cooper and Frank Maguire both called for retrials, as did the National Council for Civil Liberties. TUCAR said all H Block prisoners should be released and had planned a picket rally for the following day (Belfast Newsletter, 1 September 1978). This involved about 20 members of TUCAR gathered outside Transport House to stage a picket, joined by Gallagher’s father, Brendan. An attempt was made to go into transport house and speak to the NIC leaders but was refused. Strabane Trades Council called on workers in local factories to stop work on Friday morning to enable signatures to be collected for a petition calling for his release (Belfast Newsletter, 2 September 1978). Workers at an industrial estate on Kennedy Way held a lunchtime demo for Gallagher, which was supported by TUCAR (Evening Press, 30 August 1978). The following week, TUCAR organised a picket at the ICTU offices. A spokesperson for the group said the action was for Gallagher and ‘all the victims of the Diplock courts’ and reiterated the demand that ICTU set up an inquiry ‘into allegations of political repression on both sides of the border’ (Irish News, 7 September 1978).

The Gallagher case was also the subject of a B.B.C. ‘Play for Today’, written by internationally renowned playwright Caryl Churchill. The play was based on the transcripts of Gallagher’s trial and despite being heavily edited by the B.B.C. – to the extent that Churchill and director Roland Joffé removed their names from the credits – still conveyed to the viewing millions the disturbing nature of the case (Play for Today, The Legion Hall Bombing, 1978). With Gallagher also being a trade unionist and receiving support from the local trades council, it added to the pressure on the NIC to become more involved. This was increased following an intervention from Thomas ‘Teddy’ Gleason, the pugnacious, high-profile president of the US union, the International Longshoremen’s Association. Irish American Gleason was a regular visitor to Ireland. He was appalled at the growing allegations of torture and violence against republican prisoners and advocated a boycott of all British products in response. Gleason made this call at a public meeting of the Irish National Caucus, which was attended by a delegation from the Derry Relatives Action Committee, who were in the US for a six-week speaking tour (Derry Journal, 10 November 1978). He raised the issue again soon after at the next meeting of the International Transport Federation in Vienna in October 1978, but eventually had to settle for a modified resolution. This requested both the British TUC and the NIC to undertake an urgent observation of civil rights in Northern Ireland, outlining their actions in this field (Belfast Newsletter, 19 October 1978).

Terry Carlin expressed willingness to co-operate, stating that the NIC’s record in human rights ‘was well known’. He was relieved the original resolution had been watered down and a report was prepared. Trade union involvement in a slew of quangos was offered as evidence that human rights concerns were being raised. The main points of the now moribund Better Life campaign were laid out and the call for a Bill of Rights was repeated. The report endorsed NIC membership of the Police Authority board as a means of ‘democratising the police service and redressing certain imbalances which had previously existed’. It went on to note that the ‘the police are a key factor in changing the situation in NI and the progress which has been made to date must be allowed to expand and develop for the benefit of all’. These were deeply divisive views within the NIC and would soon be contested.

The report went on to outline the rights all were entitled to, but said little about the abuses or the changes needed to ensure they received these rights. For example, it was noted that exclusion orders under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) had prevented some trade unionists from travelling to England for work‑related reasons, but there was no call for its abolition. The Maguire and Gallagher cases were mentioned briefly. It was noted that the NIC had pressed the secretary of state for a public inquiry into Maguire’s death, and that this had not been successful. No further action was outlined. With the Gallagher case, it was recorded that the NIC had asked the secretary of state to refer it to a court of appeal. No information was provided as to the outcome. The memo claimed that 14 ‘main or subsidiary’ measures had been enacted by the government that safeguarded, in one form or another, individual human rights. These included measures that had been passed several years earlier, including one man, one vote; the office of the commissioner for complaints; the formation of the police authority; and the 1970 Prevention of Incitement to Hatred Act . The NIC was clearly trying to take the credit for these measures, but they read like a testimonial to British policy making, rather than a record of trade unionists fighting against state repression (NIC, Citation1978).

In the latter part of 1978, the TUCAR campaign began to tail off. In September, the group issued a statement, which highlighted the failure to move the British, noting that despite the marches and the efforts made by campaigners ‘there is no sign they can draw the supporters of these marches into direct action against the cases and examples of daily terror of arbitrary detention, brutality and arrest waged by the army and the RUC’. It counterposed the use of industrial action by the ‘anti-unionist working class’ as a better tactic and referenced a strike on the issue of Paddy Kelly, a docker, arrested during a dispute in Dublin. But such action was beyond the capacity of TUCAR to organise. However, TUCAR did become involved in some of the events that marked the tenth anniversary of the first civil rights marches, joining up with the Belfast relatives action committee to take part in a march in Derry in October 1978 (Irish News, 3 October 1978). The group also helped recreate the famous Belfast to Derry civil rights march with one of its speakers, John McGeone, addressing the Belfast rally that marked the beginning on 1 January 1979 (Irish News, 2 January 1979). In an unwelcome repeat of the events of January 1969, the RUC would again re-route marchers at the mainly Catholic villages of Bellaghy, Claudy and Maghera, citing supposed threats from loyalists (Belfast Newsletter, 6 January 1979). There were also allegations of RUC violence at Bellaghy, Maghera and the Glenshane pass, and accusations that they had allowed a loyalist to discharge a shot from a weapon – the culprit here appears to have been former Vanguard politician and Bellaghy farmer, Robert Overend (Irish News, 8 January 1979).

TUCAR also linked up with a wider international campaign. which was supported by human rights activists in North America and Europe. The new body, the International Campaign against Repression was launched in Paris in early August 1978, and Paddy Healy was elected secretary of its Irish section. Most of the activity revolved around conditions in the H Blocks. By this stage, TUCAR’s campaigning was on the wane, but the issues they had highlighted would remain the focus of trade union interest in the period ahead. This would include a vicious smear campaign by Whitehall against the police surgeon at Castlereagh, Robert Irwin, following his appearance on TV in March 1979 and his testimony that he had treated at least 150 detainees who had presented with injuries that were not self-inflicted (Hansard, Citation1979; Irish News, 17 March 1979). the resignation of another police surgeon, (and former Ulster Unionist Party councillor) Denis Elliott, from Gough barracks, on the grounds that his work there was incompatible with his responsibilities under the anti-torture Tokyo Declaration (Irish News, 23 March 1979); the publication of the Bennett Inquiry in April, which highlighted the connection between RUC dependency on confessions for convictions and the rising levels of ill-treatment of suspects (HMSO, Citation1979, pp. 11, 136); and the departure of the NIC representatives from the Police Authority of Northern Ireland board (PANI). This latter development had been sparked off by Jack Hassard, a colourful character who at different times in his life had been a WW2 veteran, a B Special, a civil rights activist, and a Northern Ireland Labour Party councillor in Dungannon. Hassard had been one of the two NIC representatives on the PANI board but resigned following his failure to get answers from the RUC about a case involving six young Catholic men from the Dungannon – Cappagh area, who had made allegations about beatings in Castlereagh.

The RUC viewed the departure of the NIC as damaging to their credibility and met with the leadership on several occasions thereafter to secure their return to the PANI board. This included a meeting between the NIC and the new RUC Chief Constable, Jack Hermon, in September 1980. The Northern Ireland Office was encouraged (Cromey, Citation1980) but the NIC leaders were never again able to convince their members to take their place on the PANI board. These meetings between the RUC and the NIC leaders provoked one of the final interventions from TUCAR. In a letter to the press, the prominent Dublin trade unionist and TUCAR activist, Dermot Whelan, accused the NIC leaders of felon setting. He alleged they had told the RUC that the IRA was attempting to enrol members in the trade unions and was controlling TUCAR activities (Irish Press, 10 October 1980). Whelan published this letter under the title of the ‘Trade Union Committee against the H-Block’. This suggests there had been a change in name and focus as the republican prison protest intensified throughout 1979–80. To broaden its support, the National H-Block Committee had established a trade union subcommittee, headed by individuals such as Fergus O’Hare, who was a teachers union representative on Belfast Trades Council and a People’s Democracy councillor on Belfast City Council, and Brian Sullivan, who was a NUPE steward in the RVH. It is not clear if all TUCAR activists were involved in this group, but it does seem that TUCAR was folding itself into this campaign.

A different approach was taken up by both Belfast Trades Council and the LTUCG. Both organisations responded to the developing crisis in the prisons by arguing that all prisoners should have the right to wear their own clothing and be given access to educational facilities. The trades council pointed out that this decision was being made solely on humanitarian grounds and that the health and welfare of all prisoners and their families was uppermost in their minds (Belfast and District Trades Union Council, Citation1980). The LTUCG criticised the ‘sectarian manner’ in which the issue of the H Block prisoners was being presented but expressed support for a series of measures, including the right of all prisoners to wear their clothes, the right to visits, and educational facilities. Regarding political status, the group said that was a matter for the trade union movement to decide, but there could be no question of individuals who had committed deliberate sectarian atrocities being so considered (Andersonstown News, 13 December 1980).

The Brian Maguire case eventually faded from the news but briefly re-appeared in June 1979, when prominent UDA member Norman Earle, on trial for a 1972 sectarian murder, claimed that RUC detectives had admitted killing him. Earle said he had been in the cell opposite Maguire and that RUC detectives had boasted about their ‘handiwork’ and how they had ‘got’ Maguire. Earle further claimed that he had been beaten, shown photographs of Maguire’s dead body and warned that he would be next if he didn’t confess (Belfast Telegraph, 12 June 1979). The last official word in the investigation into the death of Brian Maguire would come at his inquest, which was finally held in March 1982, almost 4 years after his death. It emerged that following his arrest, the RUC had interrogated Maguire for over 12 hours between 10.10 am and 10.45 pm, with only a 40-minute break at 5.50 pm. It was established that he had been treated for depression in the past and had been given a Valium tablet in custody in Castlereagh. The RUC said he made no complaints about his treatment and that there were no signs of manual strangulation evidenced on his body. (Belfast Telegraph, 26 March 1982). In 1978 Peter Rawlinson, had concluded that Maguire had torn cotton strips from a bed sheet, which he had wetted and wound tightly into a cord, before forcing it through the small grille in the ceiling, and using it as a ligature. This cord had been small enough to get through the tiny spaces in the grille but strong enough to take his weight. Former detainees had come forward to say they were never provided with cotton bed sheets at Castlereagh, just blankets. The Inquest jury accepted Rawlinson’s hypothesis.

Conclusion

The establishment of TUCAR and the death of Brian Maguire revealed some of the structural weaknesses of the Northern Ireland trade union movement. Although numerically strong, the movement was politically weak, with only the small pro-partition NILP as an ally. Socially, its membership was still based mainly on Protestant workers. And when it came to the economy, its answer to the decline that had ravaged domestic industry and increased poverty and unemployment during the Troubles was ‘twenty years of inquiries, reports, programmes and quangos’ added to regular calls for more public spending, none of which made much difference (Boyd, Citation1984, p. 48). For all those reasons, to which we can add an ideological conservatism intrinsic to social democracy, and the personal dangers and violence that some trade unionists experienced in the course of their duties in Northern Ireland, the NIC aspired to a close relationship with the state in Northern Ireland. This was realised to a far greater extent after the Unionist regime in Belfast accorded it recognition in 1964. The NIC clearly believed that this relationship with the state in Northern Ireland would allow it to wield influence and improve the conditions of existence of all workers. In a context of political weakness, it provided access to those who held power and allowed it to make suggestions and appeals concerning working‑class life throughout the state. In this respect, the strategy was understandable and a reminder that there were no easy options for the trade unions in Northern Ireland.

However, the state in Northern Ireland was sectarian and discriminatory and repressive. The failure of the attempts to reform this state, some of which had involved the NIC, led to decades of political violence. When it came to the violence of republicans or loyalists, the NIC had little difficulty in expressing condemnation and supporting measures that might mitigate it. However, when it came to the violence of the state, matters were different. We saw this in its attitude to Internment and Bloody Sunday. The response on both occasions was muted. The NIC was clearly troubled, but at all times it ensured that it kept a safe distance between itself and those who were expressing outrage and planning campaigns in response.

The emergence of TUCAR was a response to the inability of the NIC to hold the state to account. The group highlighted the brutality of the British state and the impunity with which it seemed to operate. This included not simply the violence of its armed forces but legislation such as the PTA, discrimination in employment, and the exceptionally high unemployment in certain Catholic areas. TUCAR was accused of promoting sectarian agendas and of offering uncritical support to republicans involved in protests in the H‑Blocks. Indeed, one scholar of the Irish trade union movement dismissed the group entirely for its supposed ‘poorly concealed links with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA.’ (Cradden, Citation1993, p. 486). It is true that TUCAR was based in the nationalist community. It did concentrate increasingly on the H-Blocks campaign and eventually seemed to fold itself into it. It is also true that this was a campaign that would never be supported by many Protestant workers. But TUCAR was not a front for Irish republicanism. Much of its activity and the arguments that underpinned this activity remained class‑based. The group articulated the historical and ongoing experience of a section of the Catholic working-class. While Catholic and Protestant workers shared much, in terms of daily conditions of existence, there were differences when it came to experiences of state repression. It can also be noted that TUCAR activists were among those who gave support to the Mackie’s workforce, a company whose very name was a byword for anti-Catholic discrimination in Belfast. They also prevented a group of IRSP supporters from setting up a branch in Derry, because they were not considered to be a bona fide trade union group.

Much TUCAR activity took place in response to the death of Brian Maguire. This was a significant event because he was a known figure within the small world of northern trade union activism and had died in disputed circumstances, at a time when serious concerns were being expressed about Castlereagh. Maguire’s death was a bleak opportunity for the NIC to show that state repression was a matter of concern to all workers and their organisations. It might have been the basis for a campaign around the abuses at Castlereagh and the threat posed to working‑class organisations by such state-sponsored criminality. Instead, the NIC failed to act, and in so doing not only handed control of the issue over to TUCAR, but worsened divisions among workers by effectively endorsing the view that repression really was a Catholic-only issue. Clearly, the NIC was concerned that these protests would alienate Protestant workers, but the actual issues were those of state repression and it didn’t have to be framed in that way. Groups like the LTUCG, Derry Trades Council, and even Belfast Trades Council, which was far more sensitive than most to the possible dangers of alienating Protestant workers, all attempted to raise the issues of Maguire, and Castlereagh and even the H Block Prisoners as either class-based or human rights based. Either of those arguments would have been an advance on the position taken by the NIC.

The emergence of TUCAR and the response of the NIC reveal the difficulties that trade unions can face in divided societies, especially where the divisions relate to the legitimacy of the state and its security forces. But they also reveal how uniquely positioned the trade union movement is to take up these issues. State violence is obviously no less repugnant than any other. But given the way it was excused and covered up in Northern Ireland, and whitewashed by other arms of the state apparatus, it was even more important that the trade union movement raised its voice in a way that might echo with all workers. Repression might have been experienced differently by sections of the nationalist working class, but it still had a much wider impact in Northern Ireland. At the time of the Maguire case, other events were occurring that highlighted the class basis of the state, the callousness posed by some of its agents, and the dangers this posed to everyone living in Northern Ireland. The deployment of RUC drivers and vehicles during the ambulance workers strike in March 1979 was a good example of state forces intervening to weaken the bargaining position of low paid workers of all religion (Irish News, 3 March 1979). Just prior to this, Ian Paisley had joined Gerry Fitt in condemning Roy Mason and the British army, following the revelation that SAS soldiers had concocted a pack of lies to justify their deliberate killing of 16-year-old John Boyle in Dunloy a year earlier (Irish News, 2 February 1979). It should have been possible for the trade union movement to frame a politics that presented all of this as a danger to the interests of all working class communities in Northern Ireland. Only the trade union movement had the social depth and the numbers and the ability to do this. Its failure not only left voiceless many who had suffered violence in Northern Ireland but forced other, more marginal groups to raise their voices in ways that the state and its allies could conveniently bracket as sectarian. In this way, not only was sectarian division worsened but the impunity of the state remained unchecked, leaving peace further away than ever.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).