Ireland/Northern Ireland Timeline

[Rainbow Six]

Rapparee, that's an impressive write up - well done.

FWIW I totally agree with you that the UK is simply not going to send an armoured Regiment (or even part thereof) across the Irish Sea - as you rightly state there's a far greater need for those tanks in Europe.

if you follow canon I believe it isn't so much the Irish Army up against British regulars - it's effectively the Irish Army fighting the Ulster Defence Regiment (with perhaps a small number of regulars in support roles).

I also agree with your conclusion that a stalemate would be the most likely outcome. The catalyst for peace negotiations might be the return from Europe of the BAOR (iirc two Divisions are back in the UK by the end of 2000 / start of 2001, with three more to follow later in 2001). That said, I think there's a lot of work to be done in the UK before any thought would be given to sending any of the European veterans to NI, but if they do finally cross the Irish Sea that's going to be a huge gamechanger. I'd expect the Republic to want to go to the negotiating table before that happened.