Major told Bruton he struggled to ‘believe a word Sinn Féin/IRA say’

UK prime minister John Major was frequently accused of being too cautious during the peace process but he confided to taoiseach John Bruton in 1996 that he was slow to move “because nobody believes a word Sinn Féin/IRA say”.

Relations between Bruton and Major, and their respective officials, were overwhelmingly friendly and business-like, newly declassified files from the Department of An Taoiseach show.

The two leaders faced a common challenge of getting the IRA to resume its ceasefire in a credible and permanent way and for Sinn Féin to sign up to the Mitchell Principles of non-violence, under which they would publicly accept the norms of democratic politics.

The IRA had been on ceasefire since August 1994 but resumed terrorist activities in February 1996 with a lorry bomb in London’s docklands that killed two people and wounded 40 others.

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In June, it bombed the centre of Manchester, causing widespread destruction and injuring more than 200 people. In the same month, IRA members murdered garda Det Jerry McCabe in Adare, Co Limerick, in an operation that Sinn Féin and the IRA initially denied involvement in.

The focal point for most of the engagement between Bruton and Major was to manoeuvre Sinn Féin and the IRA into a position where the organisation overall accepted Mitchell and resumed a ceasefire with words and actions that other parties in Northern Ireland, particularly unionist ones, found credible.

The overall relationship is captured in a short letter from Downing Street to the taoiseach on October 11th congratulating Bruton’s condemnation, in the Dáil the day before, of an IRA attack in Lisburn.

“You said exactly what needed to be said in the aftermath of the cynical and despicable bomb attack in Lisburn,” the prime minister wrote.

“I very much welcome the tone you adopted and it has been well received in Britain . . . Sinn Féin have excluded themselves from the talks and will have a hard task now to convince anyone that a new ceasefire is credible.”

SDLP concern

Achieving such credibility lay behind the notion that Sinn Féin participation in talks should be preceded by, first, Sinn Féin rejecting violence and adopting Mitchell, the announcement after of an IRA ceasefire and then, three months later, Sinn Féin entering talks formally with the other Northern Ireland parties.

In a phone conversation on October 26th, Bruton warned Major of SDLP concerns over the proposed three-month quarantine for Sinn Féin before entering talks after a restored IRA ceasefire.

According to a note of the conversation, Bruton said: “My people have spoken to Séamus Mallon, who is an unbending opponent of Sinn Féin, that cannot be in doubt. He tells us that any three-month time frame before Sinn Féin could enter talks after they have called a ceasefire would be very injurious, electorally, to the SDLP.

“Sinn Féin would, in those circumstances, have enormous sympathy among all nationalists in Northern Ireland in the run-up to the election, whenever it will take place. Nothing would suit Sinn Féin better than to be in the sin-bin during that period.”

Major said he found what Bruton was saying to be very interesting but he was unsure what to say back.

“Our services are telling us,” he said, “that there is a lot of evidence that the IRA are ready to place more bombs.”

Bruton said he and his officials believed Gerry Adams.

“Have you any hard evidence as the basis for that belief?” asked Major.

“No, or rather, yes,” said Bruton somewhat cryptically. “I have reports from our services that the Adams group are in a more confident mode within the [Sinn Féin/IRA] movement since last August and this leads me to believe that he has the capacity to deliver.”

“I am disinclined to believe anything from them,” said Major. “A timeframe is really not a new hurdle. . .”

“But really, what more would you know in three months?” wondered Bruton. “These people have been engaged in a campaign of violence for 25 years. If they want to, they can turn it off for the three months and then resume preparatory action.”

Major replied: “What will be said, and believed in the House of Commons, if we let Sinn Féin in without such a test period, is that every time Sinn Féin get irritable, they let off a few bombs and that the government then rush to accommodate them ...”

Major resistant

The conversation ended after about 30 minutes, with Major anxious about unionist concerns and what he might face in the Commons. He said he would talk to John Hume.

On November 6th, Bruton called Major for a lengthy catch-up. “We are coming close to decision points,” said Bruton, “ ... on the possibility, I think the likelihood, of an IRA ceasefire”.

Sinn Féin would enter talks to state their acceptance of the Mitchell principles, followed by an IRA statement – “a very strong statement indeed”, said Bruton, “I think it is very important that we take this opportunity now”.

Major believed Sinn Féin’s immediate entry into the talks without the three-month quarantine “would not be seen as credible” to his cabinet colleagues nor saleable to unionists.

He likened Sinn Féin’s posturing on/off over what needed to be said and done to get into the talks as the party being “engaged in a black widow quadrille to try and convince people that they are going to make movement without in practice doing so, and if others are then convinced, seeking to shoulder the blame on to others for the lack of progress”.

Returning to this this lack of trust further in their conversation, Major was even blunter in his reluctance to agree Sinn Féin’s immediate entry to talks.

“In terms of the British position,” Major told Bruton, “in terms of the way people are feeling over here, I have no difficulty whatever in stand pat [ie not shifting position] because nobody believes a word Sinn Féin/IRA say.”

On November 8th, senior Irish officials met Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. The Sinn Féin president complained that, in his view, the British were seeking to assert “the legitimacy of the six-county state”.

Any statement from “P O’Neill”, the nom de guerre used by the Provisional IRA when making public announcements, would not talk about “the intention of the present leadership”.

Including such a reference was “a non-runner” said Adams, according to a report to Bruton by former department secretary general Pádraig Ó hUiginn. (File: 2021/98/5)