man to succeed a weak and dithering Jack Lynch as leader of Fianna Fáil and taoiseach, but by an irritation with the limp leadership of Jack Lynch – Haughey had been, by far, the dominant presence in government while minister for finance from 1966 until his dismissal in May 1970.
Under the influence of Ken Whitaker, Lynch began to formulate a coherent policy on Northern Ireland – Whitaker and Lynch had become close while Lynch was briefly minister for finance for 1965 to 1966 and they remained close thereafter, even when Whitaker moved out of the civil service to become governor of the Central Bank in early 1969.
But never during all the months of turmoil from August 1969 onwards, until the dismissal of the ministers in May 1970, did Lynch make any attempt to cohere Northern policy at cabinet level. He was repeatedly challenged by Neil Blaney on the core of his (Lynch’s) policy of ‘unity by consent’ and he never directly confronted Blaney or sought to fire him until May 1970. The cabinet and Northern policy was a shambles and that is a crucial background to the Arms Crisis, as was a failure to understand that what was at stake in the North was a revolt against the Northern state with which Lemass and Lynch courted friendly relations.
Throughout the period of the early conflict Haughey never spoke publicly on the Northern Ireland issue, which weakens the theory that his motivation for his involvement in the attempted arms importation was to outdo Blaney on the republican flank – why would anybody support Haughey because of his belligerency on Northern Ireland if they didn’t know about it?
But he did meet representatives from the nationalist community in Northern Ireland and he did hear, from them and from the Irish army intelligence officer, Captain Jim Kelly, of the insistent demand for arms from nationalist leaders, including Gerry Fitt. (Gerry Fitt later denied that and won libel actions on the basis of his denials, but the evidence of his demand for arms is persuasive – present in Fitt’s house on Antrim Road, Belfast, on the night in August/September 1969 that he sought arms from Capt Jim Kelly, there were, aside from this latter two, John and Billy Kelly, both in the IRA, and Paddy Kennedy, a Stormont politician – all of these, aside from Fitt, confirmed in separate interviews with me that Fitt had made this request.) It was widely perceived at the time that nationalists were in grave danger of another ‘pogrom’ and arms were needed to protect nationalist communities.
Haughey agreed privately to make money available to purchase arms and that these would be purchased from a £100,000 fund established in August 1969 by Dáil Éireann for the relief of distress in Northern Ireland. He never sought cabinet approval for the use of the fund for purchasing arms, but then he had been almost a solo operator since his appointment in 1966 as minister for finance, largely because of the weakness of Jack Lynch as taoiseach.
There is also the fact that on 6 February 1970 the cabinet discussed making arms available to civilian nationalists in Northern Ireland after which meeting the chief of staff of the Irish army, Lieut-General Seán MacEoin, was informed by the minister for defence, Jim Gibbons, in the company of the director of intelligence of the Irish army, Michael Hefferon, that the army was to prepare for incursions into Northern Ireland and it was to prepare to arm defence committees (these were committees formed in nationalist areas comprised of members of the two republican movements – the IRA had split by this stage – and other civilians). A record of this is in Dublin’s Military Archives. It states:
At a meeting of the government held this morning (Friday 9 February 70) I [Jim Gibbons, minister for defence] was instructed to direct you [the chief of staff Lieut-General Seán MacEoin] to direct you to prepare the Army for incursions into Northern Ireland. The Taoiseach and other Ministers have met delegations from the North. At these meetings urgent demands were made for respirators, weapons and ammunition, the provision of which the government agreed. Accordingly, truckloads of these items will be put in readiness so that they may be available in a matter of hours.
Jim Gibbons was aware from late 1969 into 1970 that an army intelligence officer, Jim Kelly, was involved in seeking to procure arms on the Continent, and he did nothing to stop that. In early April 1970, Gibbons ordered Lieut-General MacEoin to have rifles and ammunition sent urgently to the border at a time of a renewed eruption of assaults on nationalist communities in Belfast.
On the evening of Saturday 18 April 1970, Haughey phoned Peter Berry, the formidable secretary of the Department of Justice, to enquire if a consignment – which he did not identify – that was due to arrive at Dublin Airport could be allowed through customs on an undertaking that it would go directly to Northern Ireland. Berry was appalled and instantly refused. He had already had information that Haughey and Blaney, through the agency of Captain Jim Kelly and John Kelly, the Belfast IRA member, had been involved in an attempt to import arms, and he claimed he had so informed Jack Lynch. A few days later he again discussed the issue with Lynch, who asked Haughey and Blaney if what Berry told them was true. Apparently both denied any involvement in the prospective importation. At a subsequent cabinet meeting Lynch alluded to the issue, said the ministers had denied involvement and said that was the end of the matter. This was asserted shortly afterwards by Kevin Boland, minister for local government, and Patrick Hillery is quoted as confirming this to the author of his biography – Berry claimed he first told Lynch of the plans to import arms in October 1969.
But that cabinet meeting in late April 1970 was not the end of it. When Liam Cosgrave, leader of Fine Gael, learned about the attempted importation for the first time, Lynch acted and fired Haughey and Blaney on 6 May 1970. Kevin Boland resigned in protest. In other words, Haughey and Blaney were fired not because of suspicions of involvement in an attempted arms importation but because the opposition had got to hear about it!
On 28 May 1970, Haughey and Blaney, along with Captain Jim Kelly, John Kelly and a Belgian businessman, Albert Luykx, who was living in Dublin, were charged with conspiracy to import arms. Charges against Blaney were dropped in early July 1970 and in September 1970 the other four stood trial. They were acquitted on 23 October 1970.
In the course of his evidence to the court on the conspiracy charge, Haughey denied specific knowledge and any involvement in the attempted arms importation. His denials weakened the defence of the other accused, who claimed the attempted importation was done with the approval and knowledge of the government, or at least of the minister for defence. Haughey’s denial also conflicted with what he told Kevin Boland in a private meeting a few weeks before the sackings – he informed Boland of the impending arms importation and of the plans to send the guns to civilians in the North. Boland was appalled at the prospect of guns being given to people outside the control of the Irish government.
Whereas his co-defendants in the Arms Trial had good reason to believe they were acting with government authorisation, Haughey himself knew that while there was a decision to make arms available, in certain circumstances, to civilians in the North, there was no decision to use public funds for a covert importation of arms, funded by the exchequer. By then he probably believed himself to be beyond the normal protocols of government decision-making and thought he had an entitlement to take decisions outside constitutional authorisations. However, it is difficult to believe he intended to fund a paramilitary organisation that would also threaten the southern state – there is no evidence to support that.
The army directive referred to here and in this book, strangely, was missing when the first of the two Arms Trials was underway, and there is some evidence that in between the ending of the aborted first Arms Trial and the commencement of the second an alternative record of the ministerial directive of 9 February 1970 may have been constructed that would have been less helpful to the defence. It also seems Jack Lynch and other ministers may have had a close involvement in the prosecution of Haughey and the other defendants, and that is curious – did Jack Lynch contrive to use the institutions of justice to buy himself time to consolidate his positon within the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party?
‘A Failed Political Entity’ provides further insight to that crucial juncture in modern Irish political history, among many other key events expertly
