At the request of the unionist-controlled Northern Ireland government, the British army was deployed by the UK Home Secretary James Callaghan two days later on 14 August 1969. Two weeks later, control of security in Northern Ireland was passed from the Stormont government to Lieutenant-General Ian Freeland (GOC). At first the soldiers received a warm welcome from Irish nationalists, who hoped they would protect them from loyalist attack (which the IRA had, for ideological reasons, not done effectively). However, tensions rose throughout the following years, with an important milestone in the worsening relationship between the British Army and Irish nationalists being the Falls Curfew of 3 July 1970, when 3,000 British troops imposed a three-day curfew on the Lower Falls area of West Belfast.