Thatcher Pays Surprise Visit to N. Ireland

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher paid a rare and heavily guarded surprise visit to Northern Ireland today, saying elimination of “terrorism” in the province is her dearest wish.

Helicopter gunships and hundreds of police and troops protected Thatcher from guerrilla attack as she was ferried by air to a textile factory in Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s second-largest city, and to a school in a loyalist area.

“It strikes me very much if only we could get rid of terrorism there would be a more prosperous and secure future in Northern Ireland,” she told parents in the schoolyard.

Thatcher’s visit was her first to the province since Nov. 22, 1987, and followed a pledged crackdown on the guerrilla Irish Republican Army.

Purpose of Visit

Britain’s Northern Ireland Office said the purpose of the visit was to meet businessmen and British security forces.

In 1984, Thatcher was the target of an IRA bomb attack on a hotel in the southern English resort of Brighton, where her Conservative Party was holding its annual conference.

She was not hurt by the blast, which killed five people and injured 33.

Thatcher showed the flag in Northern Ireland just three weeks before the Conservatives return to Brighton for the 1988 conference.