Letter: Instead of backing the stability on offer, hardline unionist politicians in 1974 stupidly chose street protests and shared goal with the IRA – ending the powersharing deal

The last fortnight has been the 50th anniversary of a time when Northern Ireland took a tragic wrong turn.

I was a 13-year-old schoolboy back then, but even at that age I believed the choice we made was a disaster.

Our politicians had negotiated a powersharing deal that contained many of the elements of the Good Friday Agreement – ie powersharing government with institutional links to the Irish Republic but instead of giving this a chance it was jointly opposed by Paisley’s DUP, by loyalist paramilitaries and by the IRA.

In the weeks following the Sunningdale agreement (Dec 9 1973) the IRA continued planting bombs and shooting policemen over the next six months, while loyalists cruelly continued to kill random Catholics .

Instead of backing the stability that could have been on offer, some hardline unionist politicians stupidly chose street protest politics and shared a common goal with the IRA – that of ending the powersharing deal. We suffered a two-week Ulster Workers Council (UWC) strike which used the threat of violence from UDA pickets to keep people away from work and the result was further decades of needless death and destruction.

Is there a lesson for today? Our current powersharing government system is not perfect and needs time to evolve, while some problems from Brexit still affect our border checks. However, unionists should be wary of any would-be leader who is determined to upset the current system without a credible alternative to put in its place. We do not need more chaos or a return to our sad past.

Arnold Carton, Belfast BT6