FROM THE ARCHIVES:THE ARMS crisis broke at 2.50 on the morning of May 6th, 1970, with a brief government announcement that taoiseach Jack Lynch had fired two of his senior ministers, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, and a third, Kevin Boland, had resigned. Lynch's stated reason was that they did not subscribe fully to government policy on the North: there was no mention of arms or their importation. In the highly dramatic and unclear situation, Dick Walsh sketched in the background for that morning's newspaper. -
JOE JOYCE
THE FIRST hint of drama came at half-past twelve this morning when the head of the Government Information Bureau, Mr Eoin Neeson, telephoned newspaper offices and asked how long could the papers be held for a story. He did not say what story.
Less than an hour later a Fianna Fail T.D. was in The Irish Timesoffice to say that Mr. Blaney and Mr. Haughey were resigning and that Mr. Boland had resigned in sympathy with them.
Of this, there had been one slight hint last week when, during the debate on the Budget, Mr. Blaney told Mr. Michael O’Leary (Labour) in the Dail: “We are going to be here (next year), bar some strange, extraordinary happening, and there could be one.”
Mr. O’Leary interpolated: “An earthquake?”
Said Mr. Blaney: “No, but it would be next door to it.”
Mr. Lynch’s move, nevertheless, came with surprising suddenness, though not without demands from Fine Gael and Labour for Mr. Blaney’s removal from office.
It was the culmination of a division within Fianna Fail which showed itself most vividly during the party’s Ard-Fheis in the Mansion House earlier this year.
Then, Mr. Blaney had gained support from about two-thirds of the speakers from the floor during the debate on the Government’s action at the time of the crisis in Northern Ireland.
The turning point seemed to come when the Taoiseach rose to invoke the names of Republicans, living and dead, and to challenge the assembly on the issue of leadership.
Now was the time, he said, and this was the place to change .
The Ard-Fheis rose emotionally to his support, but equally emotionally it rose to cheer when Mr. Blaney, his forces seemingly spent, stood and pointed at Mr. Lynch to say that he did not wish to sit in this man’s chair, to have the Taoiseach’s place.
For the moment there was apparent unity. But the suspicion that Mr. Blaney was associated with the movement of arms to Republicans in Northern Ireland was not dispelled.
If delegates to the Ard-Fheis took as their text the speech of Neil Blaney in Letterkenny town, Northern Republicans took the Minister at his word. There were rumours – and more than rumours – of men moving into the Republic from Derry to train and to collect weapons.
Mr. Boland was immediately associated with Mr. Blaney’s activities. Mr. Haughey was linked, by implication, following reports that he had been the third of a tripartite line-up at a crucial Cabinet meeting last August which favoured stronger action over Northern Ireland. The differences openly expressed at the Ard-Fheis had been manifest, it was clear, in the Cabinet, and were even stimulated by members of the Government. With each twist of events in the North, the situation in Dublin was aggravated.
Ironically, the economic crisis of the Republic has not been considered an important element in the controversy. Neither has the possibility of Ireland’s entry into Europe, which has already been described by the Minister for External Affairs, Dr. Hillery, as the most important decision in the history of the State.
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