Since the birth of the state in 1921 to the fall of the Stormont administration in 1972, six men held the post of prime minister of Northern Ireland. They were Sir James Craig, John Andrews, Sir Basil Brooke, Terence O’Neill, James Chichester-Clark and Brian Faulkner.

Who were these six, partly forgotten, and still divisive leaders? For most of the people of Northern Ireland, whatever their political choices, these are largely forgotten figures. And yet the actions of these men, and the decisions they made, shaped Northern Ireland for more than 50 years, and right up to the present day.

Professor Alvin Jackson is a leading Irish historian and expert in the history of Northern Ireland. In this authored three-part series, he examines the key moments and critical decisions that defined these men’s time in office.

In this episode, Alvin Jackson considers how James Craig introduced extreme security measures as the IRA threatened the stability of Northern Ireland, and examines how John Andrews was blamed for the lack of war planning that preceded the bombing of Belfast by Hitler’s Luftwaffe.
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