(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1979), p. 129.]
c;n
House of Commons,
Official Report,
vol. 912, 27 May 1976, col. 611. In 1974 the Irish Minister for Justice, Mr Cooney, attempted a similar semantic evasion when questioned about his meeting with members of the Ulster Defence Association. On that occasion the point at issue was whether the meeting constituted 'talks' rather than a 'casualconversation'. Dail Eireann,
Official Report,
vol. 276, 3 December 1974, cols. 643-5.51
Denomination given by Whale and Ryder, 'Decade of Despair', p. 15. Fisk,
The Point of No Return,
p. 247, wrongly states Arlow is arespected for his integrity and courage and is, by one description, 52
a man of 'transparent trustworthiness'. In confirmation of part of his testimony there is no record of disagreement with it from any
53 of the six clergymen who accompanied him to Feakle.
54
That the meeting at 'Laneside' on 19 January 1975 was more than a policy-advising session was borne out by events both before and after it. On being apprised by the IRA of its intentions to direct a bombing offensive upon the London underground, and of its demands to prevent this, Arlow and his colleagues reported .to the NIO. Broadly, the demands were for reduced military activity
(including an end to detention) and an increased opportunity for the Provisionals to press their views, both in negotiation with the
55
authorities and in local politics. Within a week Arlow had
journeyed to London with a further Provo message and returned to Dublin 56
with the. British response. On 20 December 1974 a Provisional IRA 57
truce was announced with effect from two days on.
Following the 19 January meeting the ceasefire, which had been suspended three days earlier, was invoked once again. And once again the circumstantial evidence is heavily supportive of a conclusion that negotiations took place, as follows:
Irish Council of Churches. He is, throughout Ireland, widely
52
Whale and Ryder, 'Decade of Despair', p. 15. 53
They included the Secretary of the Irish Council of Churches, the Rev. Ralph Baxter; the Church of Ireland Bishop of Connor, Bishop Butler; and two clergymen from England. Whale and Ryder, 'Decade of Despair', p. 17; and O'Clery, Arlow Interview, Irish Times, 9 June 1978. 54
A secluded house, at Craigavad, near the southern shore of Belfast Lough.
55
Whale and Ryder, 'Decade of Despair', p. 17. 56
ibid. It is claimed that 'Arlow and his men' went to London, but there is no mention of who, if any, accompanied him to Dublin with the response.
57
ibid. As a side point, Marian and Dolours Price, convicted of bombing offences in Britain, were shifted to more comfortable quarters at Durham, and late in the extended ceasefire of 1975, were transferred to Armagh.
1. Detainees were progressively released, and detention itself ended at the end of the year despite the failure of the ceasefire and the succeeding period of violence.
2. Large scale Army searches in Catholic areas were abandoned and military checkpoints on the edges of these areas were
withdrawn. (They were replaced with the advent of renewed sectarian violence.)
3. Specified Provisional leaders were given immunity from arrest.
4. Street level negotiations were conducted between British officers and local Provisional commanders.
5. 'Incident Centres' were established from where Provisional Sinn Fein appointees could report breaches of the ceasefire and
58 conduct political activity.
Within a complete enterprise that was regarded as anathema by the Irish Government, the most damaging single item to Anglo-Irish
relations was the decision to establish, with British Government funding, a total of seven incident centres. In an approach to the British
Ambassador in Dublin the Irish Government advised that such centres were 'unacceptable' to it on the grounds that they gave political
credibility to the IRA at the expense of Catholic-elected representatives 59
in Northern Ireland.
Exclusive of these tangible developments, the most disturbing feature, to the Irish Government, of British contacts with the IRA was the reports of an undertaking to withdraw from Northern Ireland.
According to
Irish Times
correspondent, Conor O'Clery, after the first 'Lanesi d e 1 meeting,officials at Stormont began to lace their after dinner conversations and political tete-a-tetes with predictions of a pul 1 out.60
58 .... , r
lbid. , p. 15. 59
Times,
24 February 1975.The condition upon which this depended, it was suggested, was the failure of the Constitutional Convention: if and when it did so, the
61 British would commence their withdrawal.
Among those who believed that the Provisional IRA had received a British commitment to withdraw was one of their more widely-known leaders, Dave O'Connell (Daithi 0'Connaill), who claimed that
The overall feature of that truce was a statement by the British Government that it was committed to disengage from Ireland, but it could not say so publicly.62
More substantially, it appears that the Government in Dublin were also convinced that the Provos genuinely believed they had received such a commitment. And the Rev. William Arlow was in no doubt that they had. In an interview over RTE on 25 May 1975 he claimed
... the British government have given a firm commitment to the Provisional IRA that they will withdraw the army from Northern Ireland. This would be under circumstances such as if the present Constitutional Convention fails to produce an agreed structure of government for the
province.64
Over three years later he was 'absolutely certain' that the British undertaking, constituted not just a prediction of disengagement but an
65 actual commitment to withdraw.
Not unexpectedly, the Northern Ireland Secretary denied Arlow's allegations in a brief but firm statement.
There is no truth in the statement made by the Rev. William Arlow concerning an alleged agreement about the withdrawal of British troops.66
McAllister,
SDLP
, p. 149.As cited in Whale and Ryder, 'Decade of Despair', p. 15.
ibid.
Belfast Telegraph,
26 May 1975, as cited in McAllister,SDLP,
p.149. O'Clery, Arlow Interview,Irish Times
, 9 June 1978.Times, 26 May 1974, p. 1. 61 62 63 64 65 66
The British Government, however, itself appeared to substantiate Ar l o w 1s claim by two genuine acts of disengagement. The first concerned economic withdrawal. According to the one report, the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill of 1975, a major measure of nationalisation and refinancing, was drafted so as to exclude the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff and, thereby, to present a 'meaningful sign' of withdrawal to the Provisional leadership. A similar exclusion applied to the aircraft manufacturing concern of Short Brothers and Harland.67
The second act of disengagement was mi 1itary/strategic. In this period five Government bases were closed in Northern Ireland — an air traffic control centre, an FCO radio station, two RAF establishments,
68
and a Royal Navy depot. If these indications were not the British consideration for a Provisional IRA ceasefire, then as empirical evidence they surely support a conclusion of some form of British disengagement at a time when it was extremely dangerous for them to be seen as such.
It could, of course, be suggested that the British Government was pursuing a sustained policy of official ambiguity, and through this, hoped to both delude the Provisionals into keeping 'the gun on the shelf', and encourage the intransigents within the Convention to reach an accommodation with the moderates. But this is imputing a particularly dangerous and Machiavellian character to British policy-makers that they otherwise did not display between 1968 and 1979 — and for good reasons. Deluding the Provisionals would have had the most violent of reper cussions when they had realised it, and interestingly, they have never claimed in the six years since the ceasefire that they were so taken in. And if it was to encourage the Loyalists, who were an overwhelmingly majority in the Convention, to reach a settlement with parties such as the SDLP, then against all reasonable expectations, the failure of the
'imposed' (to Loyalists) Sunningdale Agreement would need to have passed from the active memories of all concerned..
67
Whale and Ryder, 'Decade of Despair', p. 15.
Nevertheless, the paucity of
irrefutable
evidence requires that the claims of a British commitment to withdraw from Northern Ireland be advanced with caution. This is not the place in which to enter into a more detailed analysis either as to what exactly what was transacted between the Provisional IRA and officials of the NIO, or of thecontroversy which the Rev. Arlow's claims attracted. Because of the focus of this thesis it must suffice to note that the Irish Government was clearly disturbed by the persistence with which British Ministers admitted the IRA to negotiations, as was later indicated in the Dail by Garret Fitzgerald, the Minister for Foreign Affairs throughout this period.
On the IRA side, the idea that their methods might secure sympathy or support from elected politicians, or that elected politicians might be brought to the conference table at the point of a gun, has received no support in the Republic since the events of May 1970. Since that time the various IRAs have had no grounds for any illusion as to the willingness of any Government here to deal with them or tolerate them.
Unfortunately this was not true of the U.K. Government. A Conservative Northern Ireland Secretary met IRA
Spokesmen personally and conceded to them special treatment in prison akin to that of prisoners of war — thereby
deluding them into thinking that persistence with their campaign would bring that Government to the conference table with them, and his successor authorised his officials to enter into discussions with political representatives of Provisional IRA, not easily distinguishable from members of that organization. These actions have probably prolonged violence in Northern Ireland by a number of years.69
Thus, also from an Irish perspective, the British Government, had undermined a basic principle upon which a power-sharing devolved government should be established, i.e. 'the defeat of violence, by convincing the IRA that it cannot win'.7^ Furthermore the advantages to the Convention which Rees had hoped to create by a stable environment were negated. In Northern Ireland the controversy which the withdrawal allegations attracted did nothing for the spirit in which it was
conducted, while in the Republic, there was understandably no improvement
Fitzgerald, 'Statement on Northern Ireland, 12 October 1977', p.19. Garret Fitzgerlad, 'Five Years of British Muddle',
Sunday Times>
The British Government, however, itself appeared to substantiate Arlow's claim by two genuine acts of disengagement. The first concerned economic withdrawal. According to the one report, the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill of 1975, a major measure of nationalisation and refinancing, was drafted so as to exclude the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff and, thereby, to present a 'meaningful sign' of withdrawal to the Provisional leadership. A similar exclusion applied
C-7
to the aircraft manufacturing concern of Short Brothers and Harland. The second act of disengagement was military/strategic. In this period five Government bases were closed in Northern Ireland — an air traffic control centre, an FCO radio station, two RAF establishments,
68
and a Royal Navy depot. If these indications were not the British consideration for a Provisional IRA ceasefire, then as empirical evidence they surely support a conclusion of some form of British disengagement at a time when it was extremely dangerous for them to be seen as such.
It could, of course, be suggested that the British Government was pursuing a sustained policy of official ambiguity, and through this, hoped to both delude the Provisionals into keeping 'the gun on the shelf', and encourage the intransigents within the Convention to reach an accommodation with the moderates. But this is imputing a particularly dangerous and Machiavellian character to British policy-makers that they otherwise did not display between 1968 and 1979 — and for good reasons. Deluding the Provisionals would have had the most violent of reper cussions when they had realised it, and interestingly, they have never claimed in the six years since the ceasefire that they were so taken in. And if it was to encourage the Loyalists, who v/ere an overwhelmingly majority in the Convention, to reach a settlement with parties such as the SDLP, then against all reasonable expectations, the failure of the
'imposed' (to Loyalists) Sunningdale Agreement would need to have passed from the active memories of all concerned..
Whale and Ryder, 'Decade of Despair', p. 15.
upon Cosgrave's pessimistic prediction that 'little likelihood' existed of a constructive outcome.7*
The Irish Government, moreover, took steps which left London in no doubt as to its views on the 'accommodation' which had been reached with the Provisional IRA. In July 1975, Dave O'Connell,
reportedly their Chief-of-Staff was arrested in the Republic; a month later the Taoiseach broke his silence on Northern Ireland to demand
72
'effective action' to end sectarian violence there. However, despite these reminders of Irish irritation, it took some time for the British Government to respond favourably — and it did so then less out of accession to the former's demands and more as a consequence of events in Ireland. Although the end of the ceasefire was never officially declared, August 1975 may be held as its termination. That month saw the commencement of a period of sectarian assassinations which eventually led, in the following November, to the closure of the incident centres. Even so, meetings between the Provisionals and British officials persisted intermittently until July 1976 and the assassination outside Dublin of the British Ambassador to Ireland
73 (Mr Christopher Ewart-Biggs) and a woman official of the NIO.
The third factor undermining Anglo-Irish relations between June 1974 and June 1977 — the susceptibility of the Labour Government at Westminister to extreme Unionist pressure — was at first sight the
least necessary of all the disturbances to which they were subject.
For instance, there was in Dublin an understanding that the circumstances of the British Government were not propitious for the development of an
'initiative' on Northern Ireland, as evidenced by the following passage from a speech by the (former) Minister for Foreign Affairs:
No doubt a British Government with a threatened parliamentary majority facing grave domestic and
political problems in Great Britain, finds it difficult to give the kind of single-minded attention to
Dail Eireann,
Official Report
, vol. 275, 5 November 1974, cols. 928-9.72
Financial Timer,
, 18 December 1975. 73Northern Ireland that was given in 1969 and again in 1972/73 ..J 4
Additionally, and on the British side, James Callaghan's
succession of Harold Wilson as Prime Minister on 5 April 1976 brought with it an incidental advantage. From as early as 1973 he had an obvious affinity and respect for Fitzgerald. In the memoirs of his period as Home Secretary (1967-1970) Callaghan noted his 'close
sympathy'76 for the then opposition T.D. (Irish Member of Parliament) — which remained undiminished, indeed increased, in the ensuing years.
In March 1977 he told a National Press Club gathering in Washington, D.C.,
I do not wish to cut across anything that Garret
Fitzgerald will say ... I believe he is coming to address you next Friday. Well let me give you a free trailer to Garret Fitzgerald, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of Eire. You will hear a witty, erudite speaker, a man of very deep conviction and of very great knowledge ... I don't want to cut across anything that Garret is going to say ...76
But ironically, it may have been the ideas that Callaghan's memoirs contained which dimmed the prospects of closer Anglo-Irish relations in this period.
A House Divided
, in company with Harold77 78
Wilson,
The Labour Government
and Richard Crossman'sDiaries,
'Northern Ireland: From a speech by Dr Garret Fitzgerald, T.D. , Leader of Fine Gael, in Moylough, Co. Galway, 27 September, 1977', Garret Fitzgerald,
The Role of Fine Gael
(a booklet appearing without publication details), p. 16, (hereafter cited as Fitzgerald, 'Moylough Speech').75 James Callaghan,
A House Divided: The Dilemma of Northern Ireland
(London: Collins, 1973), p. 152, (hereafter cited as Callaghan,A House
Divided
) .7 6
As cited in London Press Service, Verbatim Service 064/77, 'Extracts From Questions After Premier's Washington Press Club
Statement' (also referred to as National Press Club Washington), pp. 6-7. Whether this admiration was reciprocated by Fitzgerald is open to
speculation: there are no similar references to Callaghan in his publications or other published repositories of his views.