of his innocence and sombrely remarked that the ‘political implications will be far reaching’. When asked about the ongoing plight of the Catholics in Northern Ireland Haughey said that he would continue to help them ‘in every way’. He also said he could not answer a question on whether the Irish army should be sent into Northern Ireland and jokingly added: ‘Ask John Kelly, here standing behind me!’184 Interviewed later that evening on RTÉ’s ‘7 Days’ programme Haughey said that he had been ‘shocked’ and disagreed strongly with Lynch’s recent comments at the UN in which the taoiseach suggested that the majority population of Northern Ireland had the right to vote themselves out of a united Ireland.185 In Haughey’s mind the stage was now set for a leadership challenge against Lynch. Indeed, he said as much during his interview on RTÉ television. He conceded to his interviewer that he had ‘always been interested in the leadership of the party’.186
The taoiseach, however, was able to use Fianna Fáil parliamentary party members’ overwhelming desire to maintain unity and stay in government against the protests of the anti-partitionists within the organisation. An opinion poll carried out after Haughey’s dismissal showed that seventy-two per cent of the electorate supported Lynch’s decision and eighty-nine per cent of those who voted for Fianna Fáil in the last election still supported him as their preferred choice of taoiseach.187 On 26 October, following Lynch’s return from a meeting of the general assembly of the UN, he was met at Dublin Airport by the entire government and some fifty TDs and senators, including Fianna Fáil heavyweights Frank Aiken and Seán MacEntee. It was a brilliant public display of support for Lynch and as the Irish Times noted, ‘if anyone, after that display, wishes to say that they are better Republicans than Mr Lynch in Fianna Fáil, then they have a formidable task ... it was the Republic par excellence’.188
In the end, realising that he had little hope of defeating Lynch (for the meantime, at least), Haughey backed down and within days voted confidence in the Dáil for his taoiseach and Jim Gibbons; the very minister whose word could have put him behind bars for twenty years!189 That said, the sacking of Blaney and Haughey and their subsequent public humiliation, caused uproar among some Fianna Fáil supporters, including party elected representatives. Not for the first time Blaney led the protests. An Irish Times editorial quoted him as having stated on British television that had he been taoiseach he would have sent the Irish army into Northern Ireland in August 1969.190 Within the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party several TDs reportedly supported the two disgraced former ministers, including North-County Dublin TD, Desmond Foley, and South-West Cork TD, Flor Crowley.191
A consortium of Fianna Fáil grass-roots was equally incensed by Lynch’s treatment of Blaney and Haughey. The Evening Herald quoted Haughey’s election agent, Pat O’Connor, who announced that the people of Dublin North-East were in a rebellious mood.192 Haughey’s own Fianna Fáil branch, the Tomas Ó Cléirigh cumann, issued a resolution to party headquarters calling for the reinstatement of Haughey and Blaney in the cabinet and Lynch’s resignation.193 In Donegal, preparations were made to give Blaney a hero’s welcome. ‘Bonfires blaze for Blaney’ was the headline in the Evening Herald.194
In June 1970, Patrick Hillery received reports from Jack Daly, a prominent Fianna Fáil activist in Clare, that there were ‘a number of “malcontents”, who were trying to stir up opposition to the Taoiseach ...’.195 In the same month, irate Fianna Fáil members even issued death threats to Seán MacEntee, who had proposed Kevin Boland’s removal from the joint secretaryship of Fianna Fáil; they also threatened to burn MacEntee’s house to the ground.196 Clearly, the pledges of loyalty to the Fianna Fáil leadership were seen by the Blaneyites and Haugheyites as empty formulae, intended to gloss over their differences with Lynch, not to eliminate them.197
A ‘phased British withdrawal’: Haughey and Northern Ireland, 1971–78
Jack Lynch’s ‘victory’ over the anti-partitionists within Fianna Fáil at the 1971 Ard Fheis, forever dispelled the suggestion that the use of physical force to secure Irish unity was a legitimate policy, which could be utilised by the Irish government if the ‘appropriate’ circumstance arose.198 Under Lynch, the Fianna Fáil leadership successfully stood out against the Blaney/Haughey camp within the organisation that had advocated physical force nationalism. In the aftermath of the 1971 Ard Fheis, the Fianna Fáil national executive rallied behind Lynch pledging its ‘... approval and full support ...’ for his ‘handling’ of the party’s Northern Ireland policy.199 Likewise, the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party members, including a now sheepish Haughey, recorded that they ‘fully supported’ the taoiseach’s stance on Northern Ireland.200
Therefore by the summer of 1971 the Fianna Fáil government had not only survived the most turbulent period in the party’s history, but in the process became a much more effective and cohesive unit. The removal of Lynch’s leading opponents from the cabinet eliminated the division that had paralysed and distorted the government’s Northern Ireland policy over the previous years. Henceforth, Fianna Fáil’s stance on Northern Ireland, channelled through Lynch, followed a moderate and conciliatory approach. Ambiguity, sympathy or support for political violence was unequivocally rejected by the Lynch-led Fianna Fáil government.201
Writing to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in March 1971, the British ambassador to Ireland, Sir John Peck, aptly summed up the extent that Lynch had marginalised the Blaney/Haughey anti-partitionist-camp within Fianna Fáil. Despite his repeated public outbursts, Peck noted, Blaney was pleading quietly for ‘tolerance’, Haughey ‘never uttered a word’, while Lynch finally cooked ‘Mr Boland’s goose’. ‘Mr Lynch is master,’ Peck noted, ‘the party of Republicanism has formally and overwhelmingly endorsed the policy laid down by Mr Lynch.’202 Kevin Boland subsequently pinpointed the 1971 Ard Fheis as representing a turning-point for Fianna Fáil’s stance on Northern Ireland. He acidly wrote that on the subject of partition, ‘there was no Fianna Fáil policy on that matter anymore’. Instead, there was the bi-partisan policy of a unified approach. ‘It was,’ he exclaimed, ‘the policy of Cumann na nGaedheal, the one-time government “under contract with the enemy to maintain his overlordship”.’203 In Boland’s eyes, echoing Peck’s comments above, Fianna Fáil had become the ‘Party of Pragmatism’ rather than the ‘Republican Party’.204
Disgusted with Fianna Fáil’s alleged volte-face on Northern Ireland, in May 1971, Kevin Boland resigned from the party. Later that year he established a new political party, Aontacht Éireann. Aontacht Éireann failed to make an impact on Irish politics and eventually disbanded in 1976. Boland was left to complain that the people ‘didn’t want a Republican Party’.205 Boland’s exit was soon followed by Blaney’s expulsion from Fianna Fáil in 1972. Blaney easily retained his seat in Donegal as an independent Fianna Fáil TD, but remained in the political wilderness thereafter. He never wavered from his conviction that the use of physical force was a legitimate Fianna Fáil policy ‘... if the circumstances in Northern Ireland demanded’.206
Although Haughey also considered leaving Fianna Fáil, it did not take him long to rule out this proposition.207 Instead he decided to stick it out, to play the long-game, believing that sooner rather than later Lynch would be overthrown. Little did he know that Lynch was to retain the presidency of Fianna Fáil for several more years, eventually retiring in 1979. In the intermediate period Haughey publicly accepted Lynch’s leadership and towed the party-line. Speaking on RTÉ’s ‘7 Days’ programme in early November 1971, Haughey said that his future was in Fianna Fáil. ‘It was the one organisation,’ he noted, ‘which had the capability to provide political stability which we need and it is through that party that I hope to make any contribution I can to the life of my country.’ Asked about his involvement with the Arms Crisis he dodged the issue. ‘The time has come to move away to more important things,’ he said.208 He concluded his interview by stating, somewhat disingenuously, that he had ‘always subscribed to the aims and objectives of a united Ireland by peaceful means’. However, he added a caveat. ‘I believe in a healthy political party like Fianna Fáil there should be plenty of room for debate and discussions as to possible alternative methods, possible alternative
