Part 7

(based on the series "It (Almost)Happened Here" by the same author)

October 1966-January 1967

Radio Free Ulster broadcasts a message to what FUA propagandists refer to as "our brothers and sisters in the south being menaced by Lynch’s tyranny" urging the citizens of southern Ireland to rise up against the Lynch government in support of the FUA’s goal of an independent Ulster. Most people in southern Ireland angrily reject this plea; in some cities, Dublin in particular, effigies of FUA general secretary Liam Delaney and his second-in-command, Seamus Murphy, are burned in effigy as a sign of protest against the guerrilla organization.

Irish regular troops encircle the last two FUA pockets at Lower Lough Erne.

For the second time in four and a half months the FUA attacks the offices of the Cork Examiner; 48 people are killed and 67 injured in the grenade assault.

The last remaining FUA pocket at Lower Lough Erne is overrun by Irish regular army troops.

The FUA opens its second overseas "people’s consulate", this one in the Albanian capital Tirana.

Former Irish prime minister Sean Lemass begins a new career as a political science instructor at Cork University.

Students belonging to the Irish Unity Party of Ulster’s youth auxiliary branch hold a demonstration at Belfast’s largest public secondary school to demand an investigation into the murder of the branch’s director-general the previous night.

The People’s Brigade for the Defense of Irish Unity begins a large-scale drive to recruit volunteers from among Irish left-wingers living abroad. This action is being taken to counter FUA efforts to lure Irish nationals living overseas to its own cause.

Three suspected FUA sympathizers escape from Belfast’s Crumlin Road Gaol in what some people call the most daring prison break in Ireland’s history, as Crumlin Road had long been reputed until then as the most secure jail in the country.

The prime suspect in the murder of the head of the IUPU’s youth auxiliary branch is arrested in Cork.

The FUA launches a two-pronged assault on Cookstown in an effort to recapture the defensive strongholds lost to Irish regular army forces two months earlier.

Irish regular army units launch a counterattack against FUA units near Cookstown.

FUA forces retreat from Cookstown, pursued by Irish regular army troops.

The remnants of the FUA units involved in the attack on Cookstown six days earlier dig in at the nearby village of Stewartstown for a last stand against Irish government troops.

In one of the worst "friendly fire" tragedies ever to happen in a combat operation on European soil, 28 Irish regular army troops  and 41 civilians are killed when two Irish Air Corps bombs aimed at an FUA machine gun position on the outskirts of Stewartstown overshoot their intended target and hit a row of houses near the heart of the town. Prime Minister John Lynch immediately orders a full-scale inquiry into the disaster.

The IAC pilot whose plane dropped the bombs that killed 69 people in the previous day’s "friendly fire" disaster at Stewartstown is relieved of duty pending the results of the Dublin government’s investigation into the disaster. Around this same time, the FUA’s pirate radio network broadcasts a series of anti-Lynch propaganda  screeds calling the Taoiseach a "murderer" and "tyrant" who holds a personal grudge against everyone supporting FUA demands for an independent Ulster.

The battle for Stewartstown comes to an end as Irish regular army units overwhelm the last remaining FUA defensive positions in the  city. However, the government forces’ victory over the insurgents is to some degree overshadowed by the "friendly fire" disaster of November 6^th.

Three Garda police officers are killed and five others injured in an FUA bombing at a Garda station in Lisburn.

37 people are killed and 58 more injured when an explosion levels an apartment building in downtown Dublin; initially blamed on a malfunctioning furnace, the explosion is subsequently determined by police authorities to have actually been the result of a bomb built by FUA sympathizers and prematurely set off when one of the  bomb-makers mishandled the detonator. Under questioning, the sole surviving member of the bomb-making group tells Garda detectives the device was to have been planted at the city’s central police station and set off during morning roll call the next day.

Irish security forces arrest three suspected FUA agents trying to blow up aviation fuel tanks at Shannon Airport.

The three FUA operatives behind the thwarted Shannon Airport bombing are indicted on terrorism charges in an Irish federal  court. That same day, the Dáil Éireann begins debate on a bill which if passed would give Prime Minister Lynch to designate certain detainees on such charges for trial in military tribunals rather than civilian courts.

The famed Curragh Racecourse in Naas, site of the annual Irish Derby horserace, is seriously damaged in a fire widely suspected to have been an act of arson committed by FUA sympathizers as a gesture of retaliation for anti-FUA press statements made by one of the track’s wealthiest patrons two days earlier.

FBI agents raid the Miami Beach offices of a pro-FUA activist group dedicated to ending U.S. support for the Lynch government in Ireland. The raid turns up substantial quantities of weapons, explosives, and counterfeit money along with stolen gate passes from Homestead Air Force Base; the discovery of these items leads the FBI’s Atlanta regional office to suspect that FUA supporters in the southern U.S. were targeting the base for attack.

The FBI launches Operation Watchman, a sweeping crackdown of groups and individuals in the eastern United States suspected of collaborating with the FUA’s terror campaign in northern Ireland. Nearly two hundred arrests are made in the crackdown, further damaging the already seriously weakened FUA support network in the U.S.

Garda detectives arrest two known FUA saboteurs in connection with the Curragh Racecourse fire.

An Irish regular army patrol is ambushed by FUA guerrillas near the coastal town of Greyabbey; most of the men in the patrol are killed. Since Greyabbey is only a short jump across Strangford Lough from Newtonards, and Newtownards is in turn within driving distance of Belfast, the incident sparks concern in Dublin that the FUA may be starting to make preparations for another attack on the Ulster regional capital.

Irish defense and intelligence officials meet with Prime Minister Lynch in Dublin to begin planning for the defense of Belfast from another possible FUA attack.

Three more arrests are made in the Curragh Racecourse arson case.

One of the three prisoners who participated in the notorious Crumlin Road jailbreak back in October is captured by police in southern England; Scotland Yard issues warrants for the two men still at large.

At a rally in New York’s Times Square commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pearl Harbor, three thousand Irish-American World War II veterans call on the Johnson Administration to boost U.S. defense aid to Ireland. However, with the war in Vietnam now being accorded top priority in the Pentagon’s overseas strategic planning, it’s highly questionable whether the White House is in  any kind of position to grant that request.

The chief conspirator in the Curragh Racecourse arson fire is arrested in Cork.

The IAC pilot at the center of the Stewartstown "friendly fire" disaster, having been convicted by a court-martial of negligence in the line of duty, is dishonorably discharged.

After nearly a month’s debate, the Dáil Éireann passes the highly controversial military tribunal bill; it is then forwarded to the offices of Prime Minister Lynch, who signs it into law later that evening.

Irish prime minister John Lynch and British prime minister Harold Wilson meet in Glasgow to discuss their mutual concerns regarding an ongoing FUA underground campaign to draw new recruits from the ranks of Irish guest workers living in Great Britain.

A prominent Dublin civil liberties attorney files a motion with Ireland’s highest civil court seeking to get the Lynch military tribunals law overturned on grounds that it violates the rights of defendants under Irish law to get a fair trial.

The second inmate in the Crumlin Road jailbreak is arrested in Shannon.

At the request of the Irish ambassador to France, police in the French capital Paris begin scanning the city’s airports, railway stations, and bus depots for the lone Crumlin Road prison break conspirator still at large. This comes after Garda undercover men turn up evidence suggesting the fugitive may be in Paris seeking to obtain passage to a country which had no extradition pact with either Ireland or Great Britain.

The last of the three prisoners involved in the Crumlin Road Jailbreak is captured near Orly Airport in Paris.

The annual Christmas Eve mass as Belfast’s largest Catholic church is briefly disrupted as FUA sympathizers attempt to storm the gathering; they are turned back by a crowd of parishioners, who then go right back to the service without skipping a beat.

The Irish Navy intercepts a freighter bound for Dungarvan on suspicion that it may be carrying weapons to the FUA. The ship is indeed smuggling something, but it’s not weapons: a search of the freighter’s lower decks reveals a team of Chinese black ops personnel sent to assist the FUA in mounting a new wave of guerrilla attacks on Irish regular army bases in Ulster.

The FUA opens its third "people’s embassy" abroad, this one in the Syrian capital Damascus.

FUA insurgents attack an Irish regular army patrol near the village of Irvinestown.

The new year opens in Belfast on a grotesque note as 37 people are killed and 65 injured in an FUA bombing attack on the city’s largest shopping center.

Irish Air Corps fighter jets bomb FUA defensive positions near the town of Dromore. That same day, the pilot at the center of the Stewartstown friendly fire tragedy commits suicide.

The FUA launches a three-pronged attack on Irish regular army defensive positions near the town of Kilkeel.