Sir, – Dr Stephen Kelly (August 24th) rightly draws attention to the significant role played by Charles Haughey in the peace process. This role went back, however, long before the late 1980s to which Dr Kelly refers. Immediately after first becoming taoiseach, in 1979, Charles Haughey summoned Lady Valerie Goulding and myself, we were both in the Seanad at the time, and informed us that peace in Northern Ireland would be a prime objective of his time in office. He instructed me to step up discussions which I had previously engaged in with James Prior, Northern Ireland secretary, and asked Lady Valerie to continue with contacts she already had. We both did as requested and indeed on one occasion my late wife, Pamela, and I, stayed overnight at Hillsborough Castle as guests of Mr and Mrs Prior. However the foundations of the peace process go back even further than that, back indeed to Jack Lynch who, as taoiseach, instructed me during the period when the Irish ambassador had been withdrawn from London, to make contact with James Prior, whom I had known for many years, and who was then a cabinet minister in the British government. Other very early meetings directed towards finding a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland of which I am aware, because I was involved in them under the auspices of Jack Lynch, included meetings with John Hume, Paddy Devlin and the then Duke of Devonshire. None of these meetings or discussions were made public at the time for obvious reasons. The foundations of the peace process in fact go back over several decades. Many individuals played a role, some publicly, some very privately. All of them deserve our deepest appreciation and perhaps it is time some of this was put on the public record.
None of this detracts in any way from the key role of Albert Reynolds, whose relationship and agreement with John Major was so crucial to the peace process, and without which we might still be struggling to find peace in Northern Ireland. – Yours, etc,
Prof RICHARD CONROY,
Ailesbury Road,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin 4.