The security operation that covered the marches of the Orangemen on the Battle of the Boyne day was a model of accurate intelligence, relevant planning, adequate briefing and disciplined execution. Its successful result was summed up by one of its directors on the day after: “A sparrow could not have coughed yesterday without being arrested.”
In the joint police, army and government briefing that reviewed the events of the preceding fortnight, Northern Ireland’s Minister of the Interior Bradford noted that the security forces had had to confront “many novel techniques.” For example, he went on, the riot leaders were using women and children “to throw quite lethal things,” such as Molotov cocktails, and marbles projected from heavy slingshots.
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