the taoiseach said that a British declaration of its intent to withdraw from Northern Ireland would ‘be helpful’. He spoke of the Irish government’s anxiety towards having a meaningful role in the future of Northern Ireland and for the restoration of a devolved government. He also called on the British government to make a declaration of their ‘willingness to encourage Irish unity …’. Furthermore, he reaffirmed his government’s opposition to the use of violence. He said he wanted a process of ‘discussion and negotiation between those concerned in Northern Ireland and the Irish and British Governments, leading to consent and agreement on appropriate structures of Government’. Irish unity, he conceded, was a long-term aspiration rather than an ‘immediate policy’.21
Lynch’s comments, to quote the Irish Independent, represented ‘the face of realism’.22 Although the taoiseach had noted that a British declaration of its intent to withdrawal from Northern Ireland would ‘be helpful’, his comments demonstrated that in the immediate term the Fianna Fáil government’s Northern Ireland policy was focused on the acceptance of an internal settlement in Northern Ireland. A British declaration, he had subtly suggested, could come thereafter. Addressing a heated meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party on 28 September, at which several ministers, TDs and senators spoke, but not Haughey, Lynch once again ‘reiterated party policy on Northern Ireland emphasising the consistency of Fianna Fáil policy both at present and during the time of his two predecessors in office’. ‘At all times,’ a clearly irritated Lynch pointed out, ‘this policy had been endorsed by successive parliamentary party meetings and Ard Fheiseanna.’23
Speaking in the Dáil on 17 October, Lynch reiterated his belief that ‘The immediate priority is … to establish in Northern Ireland a system of devolved administration which the majority of people in both sections of the community can support and sustain …’.24 Pressed by Opposition deputies whether his calls for the establishment of a power-sharing administration in Northern Ireland ‘without any insistence on an all-Ireland dimension’ were at odds with the 1975 Fianna Fáil policy paper on Northern Ireland, Lynch was resolute. ‘I reject entirely that suggestion,’ he said.25
Despite what he might say in public, Lynch’s comments were an attempt to distance Fianna Fáil from its 1975 proposal for a British ‘withdrawal’ from Northern Ireland. The crucial difference between the traditional Fianna Fáil call for a declaration of intent to withdraw and that of Lynch’s policy of calling for a declaration of interest in Irish unity was not widely picked up on by Fianna Fáil backbenchers and many within the media. However, what was apparent was that Lynch was losing touch with grass-roots supporters in relation to Northern Ireland. British ambassador to Ireland, Robin Haydon, privately referred to as ‘Sir Spy’ by Pádraig Ó hAnnracháin,26 accurately assessed the mood, reporting back to London that grumblings within Fianna Fáil over Lynch’s stance on Northern Ireland were widely growing. According to Haydon, Lynch’s approach to Northern Ireland ‘no longer reflected the grass-roots, republican, nationalist feelings of his party and laid insufficient stress on the aim of “reunification”’.27
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