The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) representatives who attended a British-Irish Association conference for young politicians in 1995 were a “particularly narrow-minded bunch”, according to one of their fellow delegates.
Internal documents released by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) as part of the State Papers show that the DUP members annoyed other delegates at the event and refused to socialise with them.
In a briefing note dated April 5th, 1995, press officer Colin Wrafter updated his DFA colleague Patrick Hennessy in the Department’s Anglo-Irish Division about the conference which had been held in Oxford from March 31st to April 2nd.
Former taoiseach Garrett FitzGerald, Fine Gael TD Paul Bradford (then-co-chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly), Minister of State for Northern Ireland Michael Ancram and SDLP chair Mark Durkan were among those in attendance at Keble College.
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FitzGerald and then-tánaiste Dick Spring spoke at the event, while a number of academics gave presentations during the weekend.
Wrafter said the “overall impression” of the conference was that “the mood was relaxed and positive”.
“It was noted that many UUP delegates were prepared to enter into serious but friendly discussion with the members of the Southern parties present,” he wrote. “However, in contrast, the DUP delegates were all young men without any experience of electoral office.”
Wrafter said the DUP representatives failed to integrate with the other delegates.
“The only time some of the DUP members came into the college bar was when the conference organiser, Mary Keen, brought them to meet Michael Ancram. Once their chat was over, they left.”
Wrafter wrote that, despite the efforts of Keen and Stephen King from the UUP, the DUP delegates “staged a walkout when the Tánaiste rose to speak on Friday night”.
On the Saturday evening, DUP members “placed copies of the Protestant Telegraph and a booklet entitled ‘The Framework of Shame and Sham’ on the benches in the dining hall, much to the annoyance of some delegates”, the file noted.
“In a private conversation, Councillor Drew Nelson (UUP) wondered if the sending of such junior and inexperienced DUP members was a kind of calculated insult as they were ‘a particularly narrow-minded bunch’.”
Mr Wrafter noted that the participants “were drawn from the ranks of young politicians in all parties in the Republic, Northern Ireland and Great Britain (including the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru) but not Sinn Féin, PUP or UDP”.
He continued: “By excluding serving politicians from the panel of speakers, the Conference managed to have a variety of issues raised in a non-provocative way and the responses from the young politicians were largely, although not exclusively, couched in non-confrontational and relatively positive terms.”
