The British civil war was centred in northern Ireland and later migrated to the mainland. Assassinations, atrocities, the breakdown of law and order, internment, loss of civil liberties and state repression occurred over 30 years. These techniques had failed when used to try to sustain the British empire. Three decades of civil war meant brutal acts of violence in northern Ireland and mainland Britain became ‘normal’ by the mid-1990s.

Skillful diplomacy and ‘war weariness’ led to the Good Friday Agreement, 1998, which ended a savage period in British history.

The disastrous ‘H’ blocks at Long Kesh for the internment of IRA suspects, 1971

IRA street patrols which both protected Roman Catholics and intimidated them

The massive Baltic Tower explosion in the city of London, 1992