TERENCE O'NEILL

Terence ONeill came to power as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1963 with a bold plan to literally transform the face of Ulster. For the next six years ONeill proved himself to be Stormonts most controversial leader. Though born of the gentry, he was determined to break from the past. Motorways replaced railways, a New City was planned, and a New University built. By meeting with Taoiseachs of the Irish republic, ONeill intended no less than to end the long cross-border Cold War. Most audaciously, he worked to end the centuries old political divide between catholic and protestant, even if this meant plunging his own Ulster Unionist Party into crisis. ONeill stirred up passion and anger. While many saw him as Irelands great hope, Ian Paisley denounced him as a traitor and Unionist ministers plotted his downfall. When the civil rights movement took to the streets in 1968, ONeills response was prophetic: it is a short step from the throwing of paving stones to the laying of tombstones.Confronted by demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, pressure from London and rebellion in his own party, ONeill gambled all on in a bid to re-cast the very shape of politics in the province. When finally he was literally blown from office in April 1969, in the midst of rioting and loyalist bombs, thirty years of violence had begun. Marc Mulhollands study of ONeill argues for the centrality of ONeill to modern Irish history. Based upon exhaustive research, it brings to focus a period when Northern Ireland really did stand at the crossroads.