Interment IRA’s ‘greatest propaganda weapon’ – On This Day in 1975
Posted by Jim on November 29, 2025
Policy of detention without trial also described as barbaric and anti-human at SDLP conference
By the end of 1975, almost 2,000 people had been interned at the Long Kesh internment camp
By Cormac Moore
November 29, 2025 at 6:00am GMT
November 29 1975
MOVING the attack on internment at the SDLP’s annual conference in Belfast, Mr Brendan McAllister (Newry) said it had rightly been called the Provisional IRA’s greatest propaganda weapon.
It was also barbaric and anti-human, he said, but it must be remembered and must never be endured again.
Seconding, Mr Cathal O’Boyle (Newcastle) said there was no excuse for talking away a person’s liberty without a fair trial. Internment was designed to break down human feeling and this objective was even more vicious than internment itself.
Convention member Mr Paddy Duffy said the party had succeeded in convincing the Irish Government that internment was helping IRA recruitment.
Had it not been for the murders and other violence of the past week, said Mr Duffy, internment would have been ended before their conference began.
Mr Frank Irvine (East Belfast) urged the party to be conscious of the problems faced by people who had suffered the iniquitous system of internment and to do everything possible to help to rehabilitate them.
Convention member Mr John Turnly said that far from offering compensation, the British Government had been quibbling over even giving internees the state benefits to which they would have been entitled had they not been interned. The party should demand £100-a-week compensation for every internee.
Mr E McAteer (Rosemount) hoped that this would be the last time internment would have to be included in the conference agenda.
Mr Sean MacGabhann (Newtownabbey) said the SDLP policy on internment represented a good start but a bad finish. “The party has been too half-hearted all along the line regarding internment”, he said.
Convention member Mr Paddy O’Donoghue said the SDLP was the only party or group which had pressed for compensation for internees, but they had received no positive response from the Northern Ireland Office.
The NIO’s response to a demand for payment of Grade 1 National Insurance benefits was simply that such a move would require a change in the law.
Dealing with election law, Mr Alban Maginnis (North Belfast) said that in a period of direct rule, which might well have to be faced, the SDLP would need to increase its representation at Westminster.
If the government were to give increased representation to Northern Ireland it would be thoroughly logical and politically right to call for PR, he said.
At the fifth annual conference of the SDLP, a long debate ensued over the folly of internment which was about to be ended by the British government days later.