State Papers

Representatives were more interested in travel expenses than negotiations, Northern Ireland Office civil servant complained

Many voters ‘cannot recall Gerry Adams wearing anything but Armani’, senior NIO official wrote

Official warned partisanship, ‘culture of dependency’ and ‘permanent opposition mode’ would complicate process

Galway curate travelled countywide on a motorbike during the 1930s recruiting young men into IRA

Details of negotiations around Drumcree Orange parade in 1998 and response of emergency services to Omagh bombing in newly-released files

Gerry Collins said Libya could have retaliated against Margaret Thatcher by transferring trade to Ireland rather than smuggling arms to the IRA

A decision by Michael D Higgins to lift the broadcasting ban on Sinn Féin when he was minister for arts in 1994 caused tension between the British and Irish governments

Advice followed from the success of a gay rights case at the European Court of Human Rights

Wilson’s call for no loyalist reprisals following Enniskillen bomb atrocity made world headlines, and he was later appointed to the Seanad

Parties considered creating statue like Christ of the Andes as a means of overcoming decommissioning stand-off

Cost cited as reason for opposing admission of more Bosnian refugees into the country in 1992, newly released files show

Taoiseach Albert Reynolds was urged by the Liffey Trust to back plan for a Monaco-style track for north inner city

Dutch company intended to export the submarines from Ireland to Taiwan

Bertie Ahern opposed proposal due to policing costs, while Des O’Malley warned of trade impact with Arab countries, Iran

Harry Whelehan advised government that accepting EU treaty would remove need for similar actions, declassified papers show

Contingency planning exercise also considered which electoral system should be used to return new MLAs

Party’s vice-president Pat Doherty accused gardaí of harassing supporters while IRA was on ceasefire

Then taoiseach said David Trimble had ‘done nothing’ on eve of Nobel prize award and feared ‘a lot of dangerous people’ had been let out of prison

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams told Irish government officials to 'pretend we are the IRA' during secret talks in 1996

Ireland’s ambassador to London helped locate an ‘Irish domestic’ for the playwright’s English home

Estonia urged Irish government to publicly reject Russian claims but officials advised against ‘saying anything’

Former taoiseach’s initial excitement over import of horses at taxpayers’ expense quickly evaporated, National Archives files show

An RTÉ camera crew who told Americans to “f*** off” and a British submarine that towed an Irish trawler backwards feature in this year’s release

State papers: Then Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam proposed Barbados as a venue more suited to the multi-party talks.

State papers released this week in Belfast and Dublin cover a 10-year period as files are being declassified from between 20 and 30 years ago

Former Ulster Unionist MP John Taylor made a chilling prediction to a senior Irish diplomat about the Drumcree standoff in 1998

Anglo-Irish records from 1996–2002 from three government departments - the taoiseach, foreign affairs and justice

Former Zimbabwe ruler stayed in Co Kildare; Irish officials told he ‘would like to visit book shops’

Former SDLP leader John Hume claimed he drafted the IRA ceasefire statement for Gerry Adams, according to 'secret' file

Then president’s analysis of war in Somalia described as ‘somewhat emotional’ and ‘full of value judgements’

Taoiseach told John Major in 1992 he was prepared to withstand ‘German irritation’ about the plan

Confidential records show nationalists ‘scathing’ about appointment of first independent Police Ombudsman

Garda inquiry into killing of Catholic man on way to GAA match noted victim subject to ‘excessive amount of harassment’ by British forces

Officials examining prospect of Irish unity in 1993 said it would take 50 years for Catholic population to overtake Protestant. In fact, it took less than 30 years

Irish officials were secretly warned that elements within loyalism were pushing for attacks on economic targets in Dublin after the IRA bombed the London Docklands in February 1996

State papers: Perception on the Shankill Road in 1990s was ‘fear of encroachment’

Former taoiseach was in the habit of responding to reports using yellow stickers

Taoiseach opted to set up Environmental Protection Agency despite mandarin’s resistance

‘Not particularly well-informed’ Ed Koch lauded ‘good attitude’ of British on peace trip

Newly released files from 1991-1998 allow for fresh assessment of the peace brokers