It is nothing to do with them being paddies. It is to do with the fact that the Provisonal IRA were highly organised, well financed, well armed, highly disciplined, and were dedicated to getting the British out of Northern Ireland by any means possible, by shootings, by bombings, in short, by terrorism. The government had no choice, especially as the majority of the population, namely the protestants, wanted to remain in the UK. For all intent and purpose, Long Kesh and the H-Blocks were the same, and to say otherwise is to split hairs.

I am aware that great injustices were done at the time, like the Birmingham 6, but that was down to paranoia, misleading forensic evidence, and bad police practice.