Thatcher suggested 'Cromwell solution' for Northern Ireland

A year after Brighton bombing, PM saw mass shift of Catholics from Ulster to Irish Republic as a way to end the Troubles

Special report: Northern Ireland

Margaret Thatcher horrified her advisers when she recommended that the government should revive the memory of Oliver Cromwell - dubbed the butcher of Ireland - and encourage tens of thousands of Catholics to leave Ulster for the south.

A year after she was nearly killed in the IRA's 1984 Brighton bomb, the then prime minister expressed dismay at Catholic opposition to British rule when they could follow the example of ancestors who were evicted from Ulster at the barrel of a Cromwellian gun in the 17th century.