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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 02, 2003

Secret UK Plan to 'Re-draw' N.Ireland Borders Revealed

A secret plan to "transfer" most of Northern Ireland's Catholic population south of the Irish border was considered by the British government in early 1970s when the violence there was at its worst, official documents released on Wednesday revealed.


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A secret plan to "transfer" most of Northern Ireland's Catholic population south of the Irish border was considered by the British government in early 1970s when the violence there was at its worst, official documents released on Wednesday revealed.

The ten-page document, called "redrawing the border and population transfer," suggested either transferring areas with a Catholic majority to the Republic of Ireland or moving individual Catholic families to the Republic of Ireland to try to bring the worsening violence under control.

"To transfer the whole of the territory west of the River Bann would put 238,000 Catholics and 227,000 Protestants into the Republic," said the paper declassified after 30 years.

"People would have to be moved as well...Assuming it were undertaken, the Republic would surely not accept 500,000 Catholics without land for them to live on. About one third of the population of Northern Ireland would be on the move," it said.

However, its authors admitted they had no idea how population transfer could be applied to the majority of Catholics living in Belfast or other urban areas.

Although the then foreign minister, Alec Douglas-Home, was said to be in favor of the plan, it was finally rejected by Prime Minister Edward Heath's 1972 government, citing it as "unworkable."

The plan, one of a number secretly considered including proposals asking for a one-off "violent shock" against both Protestants and Catholics, was dated 1972, one of the worst years for Northern Ireland's violence.

By the end of the year, almost 500 people had died amid continuing political and sectarian violence as both the local Stormont government and the civil rights movement collapsed.


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