role in nurturing what became the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process. For instance, her willingness to put pen to paper and support the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, albeit reluctantly, helped to set a process in motion whereby the British and Irish governments, working in conjunction with the major political parties of Northern Ireland, came together to find a lasting settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
This study also seeks to untangle the often neglected role played by civil servants in policymaking. It is the nature of civil servants, be it in Britain or Ireland, to shy away from publicity, to underplay their role in policy development. Unlike their political masters, diplomats usually refrain from writing memoirs or recording their contribution to the life of a nation. This form of self-inflicted censorship generally distorts historical truths and, on occasions, can airbrush out altogether the integral role played by prominent mandarins. This work seeks to address this historical imbalance. Somewhat forgotten figures, for example, Dermot Nally of the Department of the Taoiseach, and Robert Armstrong, secretary to the British cabinet, are restored to their rightful place within the history of Anglo-Irish relations during the 1980s.
Furthermore, readers should note that this book does not merely dip in and out of Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy during the 1980s, depending when he was in or out of government. On the contrary, the aim is to analyse how the Irish government’s Northern Ireland’s policy developed even when Haughey found himself on the Opposition benches. It is for this reason that several sub-sections of the book examine Fine Gael leader, Garret FitzGerald’s, construction of Northern Ireland policy during his periods as taoiseach in the early to mid-1980s. It is only by analysing FitzGerald’s support for the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 that one can adequately explain Haughey’s reasons for rejecting the Agreement.
The historiography: Covert republican or political opportunist?
Haughey’s public and private attitude to Northern Ireland is greatly neglected within the relevant historiography. In fact, those examining his approach to Northern Ireland have tended to cover this topic on a piecemeal and often ad hoc basis. Haughey’s finest biographies, notably Bruce Arnold’s Haughey and Justin O’Brien, The modern prince, respectively, attempted to delve into this subject.69 Yet, neither work was entirely successful, particularly given the unavailability of hitherto classified archival governmental and personal files related to the 1980s from several archival institutions in Britain and Ireland.70
More specialised studies related to Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland have explored, to varying success, Haughey’s actions in relation to this topic. However, they generally offer an all-encompassing examination of Fianna Fáil’s Northern Ireland policy within a limited timeframe, rather than specifically focusing on the development or evolution of Haughey’s attitude to Northern Ireland.71 For instance, in her study, Fianna Fáil, Irish republicanism and the Northern Ireland troubles, 1968–2005, Catherine O’Donnell felt it necessary to only allocate several pages to Haughey’s contribution to Northern Ireland during the 1980s. The focus of her analysis was on the Fianna Fáil–Sinn Féin relationship, with Haughey’s involvement with the forces of Ulster unionism and the British government given only a passing footnote.72
General works relating to Fianna Fáil have, likewise, brushed over Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy, particularly during his three periods as taoiseach in the 1980s and early 1990s.73 Noel Whelan’s work, Fianna Fáil: a biography of the party, is typical of such an approach. In fact, Whelan’s survey account of Haughey’s contribution to Northern Ireland is littered with generalisations and in places inaccuracies. With regard to Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy on becoming taoiseach in 1979, for example, Whelan made the misinformed claim that Haughey ‘followed much the same policy as [Jack] Lynch’.74 As is explained in this book, such fleeting comments are wide of the mark.
Moreover, studies focused on modern Ireland and the history of Irish nationalism, have neglected to delve into Haughey’s political thinking in relation to Northern Ireland. In their respective works, Richard English and George D. Boyce, offered excellent insights into the development of Irish nationalism, both conceptually and from a practical perspective. Nonetheless, neither author thought it worthwhile to consider Haughey’s attitude to Irish nationalism or more generally Northern Ireland.75 Those works focused on Anglo-Irish relations during the Northern Ireland conflict have similarly neglected to analyse, in sufficient detail, Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy.76
The most controversial episode in relation to Haughey’s lifelong association with the Northern Ireland question was undoubtedly his involvement with the Arms Crisis. While there has been some first-class investigative journalism devoted to this subject, notably by the Magill magazine in 1980,77 together with several published works on the Arms Crisis,78 many questions still remain unanswered regarding Haughey’s role in this affair. Indeed, several of Haughey’s biographers79 and more general studies related to Fianna Fáil have, likewise, sought to explore his contribution to this pivotal event in modern Irish history.80 Yet, these works have offered only a superficial insight into Haughey’s actions and motivation. To quote Conor Cruise O’Brien, himself writing in the mid-1970s, ‘much still remains murky’ regarding the Arms Crisis and Haughey’s involvement in this affair.81
This study seeks to clear up many of these unanswered questions, not least the motivations behind Haughey’s actions during the Arms Crisis. In fact, a misinformed perception continues to dominate the historiography in relation to Haughey’s role during this affair. While most writers are in agreement that he played a prominent part in this seismic episode in the history of modern Ireland, many continue to question his motivations. A widely held myth continues to distort the true reasons behind Haughey’s actions, seeing his role in the conspiracy to import arms and ammunitions into Northern Ireland as little more than shrewd political opportunism on his behalf in a bid to topple and replace Jack Lynch as Fianna Fáil leader.82 Raymond Smith wrote that before the events surrounding the Arms Crisis Haughey ‘had never been identified in the public mind as holding any strong views on how the Northern Ireland question might be solved’.83 Stephen Collins, likewise, noted that the ‘real surprise of the Arms Crisis was not that it had happened but that Haughey should be centrally involved’.84
Bruce Arnold, in the vein of many other writers, claimed that Haughey’s militant stance towards Northern Ireland from the summer of 1969 culminating in his involvement in the Arms Crisis, was motivated not by any ‘burning zeal’ to secure Irish unity but was, in fact, ‘a republicanism created to defend a political flank’.85 The idea, Arnold wrote, that Haughey ‘was a committed, if covert, republican ... simply does not add up. There is no evidence for it’.86 Haughey, Arnold maintained, was frightened by Neil Blaney’s undisputed republican credentials, a reputation which could prove vital in any future bid for the presidency of Fianna Fáil. Haughey, therefore, converted to ‘covert republicanism’ during this period in an effort to outflank Blaney on the republican ticket.87
A perception has emerged amongst writers that Haughey neither held a deep-rooted ideological commitment to Irish unity nor genuinely cared for the plight of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. On the contrary, they argue that Haughey was motivated purely by his desire to be leader of Fianna Fáil.88 In particular, writers point to Haughey’s period as minister of justice during the early 1960s when under the Seán Lemass-led government he showed no remorse for his suppression of the IRA border campaign (1956–62).89 Indeed, Arnold alluded to the ‘fact’ that prior to the outbreak of the violence in Northern Ireland in mid-1969, Haughey was a strong advocate of the Lemass-style economic solution for securing an end to partition.90
However, Haughey’s clampdown of the IRA and his general endorsement of Lemass’s Northern Ireland policy, do not necessarily contradict his perceived alleged ‘greening’ by 1969/70. As Justin O’Brien observed, for an ambitious young minister, as ‘he ascended the ranks of the party and government, there was little to be gained in emphasising the gap between rhetoric and reality’ in relation to Northern Ireland.91 Better for Haughey to bide his time. This study argues that the outbreak
