100 Years of Partition – 100 Years of Special Powers
100 years ago, at the inception of partition, and with the birth of the rotten little statelet they call ‘Northern Ireland’, the ruling classes sought to provide the state with as much security powers as possible, in order to ensure its survival.
One of the most repressive pieces of legislation ever produced was born – The Special Powers Act.
The powers contained within it, oversaw the rampant discrimination of generations of Irish nationalists and catholics. It’s imposition was unprecedented, in that it gave the North’s Minister for Home Affairs the powers to do pretty much whatever they wanted. It allowed the new regime to take any steps at all which it thought necessary and it was used almost exclusively on the minority population.
The Act was heralded by unionists as necessary to maintain the constitutional structure of the state, the state that they controlled – in short, it was a question of ensuring Orange supremacy and their continued dominance over that minority. Those Catholic’s now living within the state would face arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and ensure that they knew that, should they stay within its borders, they would remain second class citizens.
