of Northern Ireland. Lemass therefore decided to act. On the night of 16 April 1963, Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin North-East, George Colley spoke at a major symposium on North–South co-operation. Significantly, Colley’s speech was the first occasion that a Fianna Fáil elected representative officially granted de facto recognition to Northern Ireland.128 Although never publicly acknowledging that he was the instigator of Colley’s speech, the circumstantial evidence does confirm that Lemass did instruct his backbench colleague to speak on the subject of recognition. By doing so Lemass believed he could bypass Ulster Unionists’ demand for the formal de jure recognition. With the recognition debate resolved, Lemass hoped to focus instead on cross-border co-operation.129
To Lemass’s disappointment, O’Neill quickly poured cold water on the prospect of North–South co-operations. Speaking at Stormont he categorically ruled out ‘general discussions so long as the Dublin government refused to recognise the constitutional position of the Six-Counties’.130 Confronted by another rejection from Belfast for cross-border co-operation prior to Dublin granting de jure recognition to the Northern Ireland state, Lemass decided to personally intervene. Addressing a gathering of Fianna Fáil supporters in Tralee, Co. Kerry in July 1963, Lemass said:‘We recognise that the government and parliament there exist with the support of the majority in the six county area – artificial though that area is.’131 While not recognising Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom de jure, Lemass did accord de facto recognition to the state. Lemass now waited for a response from O’Neill.
The Northern Ireland prime minister, however, was slow to respond to the taoiseach’s overtures. Ironically, O’Neill’s decision to eventually succumb to Lemass’s advances was not as a result of Dublin’s latest initiative, but because of ongoing infighting within the Ulster Unionist party; with minister for commerce, Brian Faulkner, being O’Neill’s main antagonist.132 In December 1964, in a preconceived attempt to out-manoeuvre O’Neill, Faulkner expressed his willingness to meet the minister for industry and commerce, Jack Lynch, to discuss North–South trade.133 An invitation that Lynch suggested he would be willing to accept in the early months of 1965.134 O’Neill read the signals. He feared that Faulkner would steal the political headlines by becoming the first Unionist politician to meet a minister from the Republic since the mid-1950s.135
Here lay the seeds for the famous Lemass–O’Neill meeting of January 1965. To Lemass’s surprise in early January of that year, O’Neill instructed his private secretary, Jim Malley, to invite Lemass to Belfast. On the morning of 14 January 1965, Lemass and Thomas Kenneth (T.K.) Whitaker left Dublin for Belfast. At 1pm, the Irish party arrived in Belfast and was greeted by O’Neill at his official residence at Stormont. The agenda for the meeting provided a comprehensive list on cross-border issues; importantly, it avoided discussions on political and constitutional matters, careful to respect the jurisdiction of the Northern Ireland government. The meeting with O’Neill was a milestone in Lemass’s Northern Ireland policy.
Ten years after first compiling a comprehensive list of possible areas of cross-border co-operation between Belfast and Dublin (as contained within the memorandum produced on behalf of the Fianna Fáil standing-committee on partition matters in 1955), Lemass now sat face-to-face discussing those very same items with the prime minister of Northern Ireland. During his one-hour meeting with O’Neill, the men discussed tourism, education, health, industrial promotion, agricultural research, trade, electricity and justice matters.136 Lemass must have found the entire episode a rewarding experience, after so long in de Valera’s shadow, he was in a position to fully implement his economically motivated Northern Ireland strategy.
The available evidence supports the argument that Haughey, who was appointed minister for agriculture in October 1964, endorsed Lemass’s trip to Belfast. On originally receiving the invitation from O’Neill, Lemass had telephoned his minister for external affairs, Frank Aiken. Although somewhat surprised, like Haughey, he too fully supported Lemass’s plan to meet O’Neill.137 Besides Aiken, Lemass informed two other unknown cabinet ministers of his impending visit to Belfast.138 It is not clear whether Haughey was one of the unnamed ministers. Jack Lynch was certainly not aware of Lemass’s visit to Northern Ireland; he later recalled that Lemass had kept the planned trip to Belfast strictly confidential.139
Unfortunately, given the nature of the Irish cabinet minutes there is no official record of ministers’ reaction to Lemass’s announcement of his intent to travel to Belfast.140 Members of Lemass’s cabinet differ in their recollection of whether or not he informed the government before he met O’Neill. Haughey recalled that Lemass did raise his planned meeting with O’Neill, but he did not permit a debate on the subject.141 Minister for local government, Neil Blaney subsequently noted that Lemass, in fact, did not raise his scheduled meeting with O’Neill with his cabinet colleagues.142 Blaney’s observations seem inadmissible, considering he did not attend the last cabinet meeting, on 12 January, prior to Lemass’s trip to Belfast.143
During the remainder of January and February 1965, Lemass sought to put his discussions with O’Neill on cross-border co-operation into action. On 4 February, Lynch and Erskine Childers (minister for transport and power) held separate meetings with Northern Ireland minister for commerce, Brian Faulkner, in Dublin, on issues relating to cross-border trade and tourism. On 9 February, cross-border relations reached a further highpoint when O’Neill travelled to Dublin to meet Lemass for a second summit meeting. This was the first occasion that the prime minister of Northern Ireland had visited Dublin in an official capacity since Sir James Craig had met Michael Collins in 1922. O’Neill was warmly received by Dublin. Accompanied by his wife, he had lunch with Lemass, Aiken and Lynch at Iveagh House. Following lunch, discussions commenced with a general informal conference on cross-border relations.144
Following the Lemass–O’Neill meeting there was a flurry of ministerial meetings between Irish and Northern Ireland ministers both in Belfast and Dublin. On 12 February, Haughey met his ministerial counterpart from the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Harry West, in Dublin. Although this was a social encounter, with wives present at a dinner in Haughey’s home in Raheny, it was a sign of how far relations between Dublin and Belfast had moved on.145 The very fact that the two governments had commenced discussions on cross-border issues at ministerial and civil-service level was noteworthy, ‘signifying the commencement of a policy of normalisation in North–South relations which only a few years before seemed unattainable’.146
Indeed, on 9 February, Haughey had stood in for Lemass at a debate at Queen’s University Belfast, held under the auspices of the Literary and Scientific Debating Society. During the course of his speech, Haughey laid out some of his vision for the future of North–South co-operation on agricultural matters and more generally on the ‘future of Irish politics’. Apart from focusing on his support for food processing, he spoke of the need to break down barriers between North and South. It was ‘the function of politics’, he said, ‘to reconcile, to bring together and so to create an atmosphere in which men could give of their best to’.147 Haughey was eager to convert his own words into concrete actions. In March and again in May of 1965, he held further talks with Harry West.148
Haughey’s attitude towards Northern Ireland during this time was determined by the ongoing Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area negotiations (the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement was eventually signed on 14 December 1965) and ultimately the Irish government’s desire to secure membership of the EEC. Like Lemass, Haughey strongly favoured Ireland fostering closer ties with Europe in anticipation of the country’s eventual membership of the EEC. The minister for agriculture made his views clear during a speech at the Irish Club in London on St Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1965.
As Haughey delivered his speech to assembled dignitaries, including the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, he must have considered how far he had travelled along the political path of reconciliation. His escapades in helping to burn a Union flag in 1945 must have seemed a distant memory. Two decades on, he was now a respected statesman, propagating to his audience the merits of cordial British–Irish relations, in the context of his support for British and Irish membership of the
