Why did the IRA believe that Maggie Thatcher of all people would negotiate with them?
Um, possibly because she did. I’m not here to defend IRA tactics or strategy. And if you want to argue that the IRA’s continuing military campaign delayed the eventual compromise that lead to peace, that’s a reasonable position. Not sure whether it’s true or not, but it’s possible. But before, during and after the hunger strikes, under Callaghan and Thatcher and Major and any other British PM of the period, there was frequent, intermittent contact between British authorities and the IRA. Thatcher liked to say she would never negotiate with “terrorists,” but it was happening the whole time. As McQueen’s movie makes clear, prison authorities eventually agreed to nearly all the hunger strikers’ major goals. (I believe you guys that there was little sympathy for the hunger strikers in the UK, but there wasn’t much more support for the loyalist movement or for keeping British troops in NI. A lot of people on the British mainland would have been happy to get the hell out and let the Irish ki
