"Let's look at that couple of years of peaceful protest by Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association."

A couple of years though? Doesn't that say it all? The Troubles lasted for decades. Again the point is that violence begets violence. It escalated so that in the end no one wins. And in the process each sides paramilitaries hardly touched each other whilst indiscriminately murdering hundreds upon hundreds of innocent civilians. The issues themselves were then lost on the wider UK public who just looked on nonplussed amazed at the hatred.

It is a what-if debate so no-one can be proven right or wrong so we could go around for ever. However I honestly agree with Keith that the terrorist campaign hindered Northern Ireland getting to normality rather than helped it. Outside the low brow tribal sectarianism in Glasgow's environs the extremes of Ulster sectarian ultra-unionism simply didn't exist in Britain. The bombing campaign simply hardened opinion in Northern Ireland itself and in the rest of the UK it was a public relations own goal of enormous proportions for the nationalist cause.

Even there I'm being a bit unfair on Glasgow. There were fears in the late 60s and early 70s that real tribal conflict would spill on to Scottish streets - but it didn't.