We have to distinguish Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK (which is called Britain). In Britain there were a number of atrocities which certainly terrified the local population, notably the bombings in Birmingham and Guildford in the early 1970s, the letter bomb campaigns in London in the mid 70s and the attacks on the City of London in the late 1980s. In all of these cases the level of security was heightened and this led to some miscarriages of justice (Birmingham six and Guildford 4). However, these were pretty rare events. One of the key objectives of British strategy was to isolate the conflict to Northern Ireland and they were fairly successful in this. Northern Ireland rarely appeared in polls as a big election issue and terrorism was below other sorts of crime in most surveys of public worry.

In Northern Ireland it was different. If you lived in an area where the conflict was intense it had a significant effect on one's life and health. Today the Troubles generation has exceptionally high levels of mental illness and disability.

If one lived in a quiet area or south of the border, it was possible to almost ignore the conflict.