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Remarks by serving British Marines Officer following Internment, August 1971

The British army, as the instrument of internment has become the object of Catholic animosity. Since that day the street battles, countless explosions, migrations from mixed areas and cold-blooded killings have done little to reassure us that internment would, by the removal of the gunner, provide a return to a semblance of law and order, a basis for a political solution to Ulster's problems. Ironically, it appears to have produced the opposite effect . . . It has, in fact, increased terrorist activity, perhaps boosted IRA recruitment, polarised further the Catholic and Protestant communities and reduced the ranks of the much needed Catholic moderates. In a worsening situation it is difficult to imagine a solution.

Source: Hamill, D., Pig in the middle: The Army in Northern Ireland, London, Methuen, 1985.