Northern Ireland Labour Party

The Moderates, mostly Protestant, were wiser councils who had stood off and now decided it was time to try to intervene.

One of those in chief among them was Brian Garrett, the leader of the Northern Irish Labour Party.

A Belfast solicitor, he had lived among Protestants and could divine the resolve not to give in.

At the beginning of the strike, he had called on the British Army to smash the barricades.

This was nothing like the February 73 stoppage labelled Ulster's Day of Shame.

This was a hardened resolve that he knew was a new force on the landscape.

As head of the Northern Irish Labour Party, the NILP, he had been involved in supporting Sunningdale as a sister socialist party he had accessed at Orme.

The NILP had been the only real force of opposition under the old Stormont regime.