Sunningdale’s Fatal Spring
For Ireland, 1974 was dominated by the rapid unravelling of the Sunningdale experiment and by violence that reached with appalling force into the Republic. The year opened with a new Northern Ireland Executive formally taking office on 1 January. It was the practical outcome of the Sunningdale Agreement of December 1973: an administration containing unionists, the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and the cross-community Alliance Party, alongside proposed all-Ireland institutions including a Council of Ireland. Liam Cosgrave’s Fine Gael–Labour government in Dublin regarded that cross-border element as a necessary acknowledgement that Northern Ireland could not be governed securely without the Irish Government’s involvement. For many unionists, however, it appeared to threaten Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
