HUNGER STRIKES:GARRET FITZGERALD warned Margaret Thatcher that Ireland could be forced to cut off security ties with the British at the height of the hunger strikes.
The then taoiseach – days after being elected to office – told the British prime minister his government’s view of her handling of the crisis was starting to converge with that of the IRA. “This is naturally the last position in which we would wish to find ourselves,” he said in a secret letter, just declassified under the the 30-year-rule.
Five people had died on the protest fast by July 10th, 1981, when FitzGerald wrote the letter.
But the imminent death of Kieran Doherty, who had been elected to the Dáil, was particularly striking fear into the Fine Gael leader.
The government was extremely frustrated with Downing Street’s intransigence over a proposed solution by the Catholic Church-established Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, which had mediated between prisoners and the British.
FitzGerald told Thatcher that his newly elected coalition was unable to do or say anything to counter the lack of public confidence in the British government’s handling of the crisis.
“We are thus faced with the danger of a serious and progressive deterioration in bilateral relations,” he said. The government had “up until the present” believed there should be no political status for prisoners.
“In these last few days, however, the deplorable situation has been reached that the points of view of the government and the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace are seen to converge with that of the Provisional IRA in criticism of your authorities’ handling of these events.”
In a veiled threat to pull security ties with the British, FitzGerald said co-operation depended on public backing for it.
Five days later Thatcher responded: “ . . . the reaction of public opinion here [in Britain] to any suggestion that the authorities in the Republic were offering less than full co-operation in the detection and apprehension of terrorists would be sharp and bitter and there must be a risk that it would have an adverse effect on wider Anglo-Irish relationships.” – (PA)