MARGARET THATCHER personally vetoed any initiative that would have led to further Anglo-Irish co-operation and British officials were urged to keep any correspondence with their Irish counterparts “long, worthy, meaty and dull” in 1981, papers released by the National Archives in London reveal.
Communication between London and Dublin remained civil, if muted, despite the tense atmosphere caused by the hunger strikes and the disruption of the Irish general election in June.
Following the celebrated Anglo-Irish summit of December 1980, British and Irish officials had agreed to conduct a series of “joint studies” investigating the “unique relationship” between the two countries.
Over the following year, British officials sometimes complained about the “carping” of their Irish counterparts at the lack of progress. Behind the scenes, Thatcher personally scrutinised nearly every page of official correspondence between the two governments, scribbling notes and warning her civil servants against any further creep in Anglo-Irish co-operation.
Meanwhile, from February 1981 Ian Paisley announced his “Carson Trail” of rallies and public meetings, partly in protest to the Haughey-Thatcher dialogue. There was no sign of political progress in Northern Ireland. In early July, a proposal by Humphrey Atkins, the Northern Ireland secretary of state, to establish an advisory committee made up of 50 elected representatives to help govern Northern Ireland, failed to gain any traction.
It was at a meeting with the home secretary, foreign secretary and Northern Ireland secretary on March 19th, that Thatcher that first expressed “some concern” that Anglo-Irish talks were “moving faster than she had originally contemplated”. In particular, she suggested “some of the phraseology which had come up was particularly worrying”.
Rather than establishing a “council” to formalise co-operation between the two governments, for example, Thatcher recommended the more anodyne “committee”. She feared Haughey “would certainly exaggerate the significance of whatever was achieved”.
She also expressed her preference for the term “UK-Irish” co-operation rather than “Anglo-Irish” co-operation.
When Thatcher was made aware of Irish requests for more written communication, she jotted “careful!” in her trademark blue fountain pen. Acting on these instructions, her cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, reported that the first round of meetings in March had so far been “thoughtful and constructive”, though the Irish had to be “slapped down on a few matters”. The prime minister was reassured that officials “had been instructed to keep to the cautious line agreed upon”.
There were to be three aims in the British approach to dealing with Dublin: first, to “keep up the pressure on points where the Irish are on the defensive” (such as the extradition of IRA suspects); second, to keep the joint studies in “sufficient motion” to encourage Haughey to continue with them; and third, to make them “long, worthy, meaty and dull”.
One area where officials were allowed more leeway to express themselves was in discussion documents about the “misconceptions” that underlay Anglo-Irish relations. Raising familiar themes, British documents focus on the fact that the Northern Irish Protestant “believes that there is a prejudice in the Republic against Protestants”. As evidence for this, officials pointed to the attitude of the Catholic Church to inter-faith marriage, “the shrinkage of the Protestant community in the South since independence” and “a reluctance to challenge Roman Catholic clerical opinion on matters well outside religious affairs”, such as divorce and contraception. They also complained about the notion that the UK retained Northern Ireland “for quasi-imperial reasons.
Yet Thatcher’s concerns were not allayed. After the third set of meetings between Irish and British officials, which took place in Dublin in May, she reacted furiously to what she saw as “the most alarming set of papers on the UK-Irish situation I have read”. In a handwritten note, she warned that that they would cause such a backlash in Northern Ireland as to “set Anglo-Irish relations back for years” and might even lead to an increase in Protestant paramilitarism.
Chief among her concerns were Irish proposals for an “over-formalised” North-South council, which would be given “prior consideration” on all major political initiatives. “No,” she scribbled in the margins.
“No,” she wrote again, in response to what her officials described as “an excessively detailed and premature blueprint” for an Anglo-Irish parliamentary consultative body, which would make its proceedings public. There was also an emphatic “No” to the suggestion that the North- South council would have powers to sanction expenditure on economic development projects.
Thatcher reacted most angrily to the joint report on citizenship rights, which suggested that Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland be treated in the same way as those in Britain – by being given full voting rights and holding elective office, or sitting in juries.
Rather than attempt to revise or amend the latest Irish draft on co-operation, British officials were instructed to draw up a new document from scratch, with much diluted proposals. Armstrong conceded this “might be interpreted as a clear sign of a significant reduction in the temperature of Anglo-Irish relations” but perhaps “such a shock is necessary” as the Irish “have pushed their luck too far”.
An immediate crisis was averted by the calling of the Irish general election of May 21st. Though Haughey lost, the Foreign Office urged Thatcher to write him a note of condolence as he might be back in power before long, and “in opposition he may be tempted to be less than co-operative on Northern Ireland”.
When Garret FitzGerald, the new taoiseach, and Thatcher spoke by telephone for the first time on July 1st, the hunger strike dominated exchanges. Armstrong warned Thatcher that, while FitzGerald supported the “joint studies”, he bemoaned the “excessive secrecy” around them. As to the possibility that some of the correspondence might now be leaked to the press, Armstrong reassured the prime minister that British officials had “always lived with this possibility” and existing drafts “were carefully bowdlerised with it in mind”.
In sum, it was felt FitzGerald’s approach “may prove unacceptable; but we can only find out by probing forwards; he himself may not last, but we need to keep him in play for the time being”.
On September 2nd, the British embassy in Dublin suggested the new government’s outlook for the next few months was “unsettled, possibly stormy”. FitzGerald had two priorities: ending the H-Block impasse; and passing economic austerity measures through the Dáil with a minuscule majority.
In September, FitzGerald surprised British officials by announcing a “constitutional crusade” to make the Irish state a more attractive proposition to Northern unionists. His intention was to return to the principles of Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis and remove the “majority ethos” in the Republic.
The proposals were cautiously welcomed at the British embassy, although the ambassador, Sir Leonard Figg, doubted it would make any difference to unionists. Figg also raised the question of “whether the Irish electorate wishes to confront the nitty-gritty which unification would entail”, in economic and political terms.
In a more substantive report by the Foreign Office on September 28th, the crusade was described as “a brave attempt by Dr FitzGerald to change some of the basic premises of the current situation”. Unfortunately, it had been “launched in typical FitzGerald style”. In other words, the proposals “stemmed from his personal convictions; but they were presented in an impetuous and disorganised way”.
Even if it failed, however, officials felt it “confronted the Irish with the need to make far-reaching adjustments to their own society if they ever hope to achieve unification by consent – and that is all to the good”. It would also “make the Republic a more civilised state”.
Armstrong visited FitzGerald in Dublin on October 16th, where the taoiseach reassured him that the discussion of his forthcoming meeting with Thatcher would be “low-key”. FitzGerald also made it clear to Armstrong he took his share of responsibility for any previous misunderstandings that may have occurred between him and Thatcher. Thatcher did not reciprocate this emollient tone, objecting to a scheduled meeting between the taoiseach and her new secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Jim Prior, following IRA bombs in London.
It was not until November 6th that the two premiers finally met in London. Thatcher made it clear to her officials that she would not – as had been her position at her first meeting with Haughey a year before – discuss Northern Ireland.
Thus the year ended as it had begun. British documents for 1981 provide few clues about the origins of the Anglo-Irish Agreement that Thatcher and FitzGerald were to sign four years later, though it is clear that Irish and British officials were co-operating behind the scenes.