The Troubles - Late 1970s

Late 1970s

By the late 1970s, war weariness was visible in both communities. One manifestation of this was the formation of group known as "Peace People", which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. The Peace People organised large demonstrations calling for an end to paramilitary violence. Their campaign lost momentum, however, after they appealed to the nationalist community to provide information on the IRA to security forces, the Peace People being perceived as being more critical of paramilitaries than the security forces. The decade ended with a double attack by the IRA against the British. On 27 August 1979, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, while on holiday in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, was killed by a bomb planted on board his boat. Three other people were also killed, including a local teenage boatman. That same afternoon, eighteen British soldiers, mostly members of the Parachute Regiment, were killed by two remote-controlled bombs at Warrenpoint, County Down.