the Agreement was a commitment by the British and Irish governments to reject political violence, that Irish unity could only be achieved by peaceful means and to acknowledge the principle of consent. From Dublin’s perspective the significance of the accord rested on the British government’s recognition – for the first time since the enactment of partition – that the Irish government had a ‘consultative’ role to play in the affairs of Northern Ireland, as a defender of the interests of the nationalist minority.61
Haughey’s response to the Agreement has puzzled many commentators to this day. To the amazement of most informed people, including many senior figures within Fianna Fáil, he immediately opposed the Agreement. Even before the Agreement was signed, Haughey sent Brian Lenihan to the United States to lobby against it. Under Haughey’s instructions, Fianna Fáil voted against the Agreement when it was debated in the Dáil on 21 November 1985, where it was endorsed by eighty-eight to seventy-five.62 In the days and weeks following the signing of the Agreement, he went on a propaganda crusade, articulating the perceived disastrous consequences that the Agreement would have for Anglo-Irish relations and the prospects for securing a united Ireland. He disingenuously argued that the Agreement constituted a ‘major setback’ for Irish unity.63
However, when Fianna Fáil entered government in 1987, Haughey gave his public blessing to the Agreement, albeit somewhat begrudgingly. Addressing the party faithful at the 1988 Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, the incumbent taoiseach acknowledged his government was obliged to recognise the accord as it was an ‘international agreement entered into between two sovereign governments, which cannot be abrogated unilaterally’.64 In truth, while Haughey reluctantly accepted the Agreement, he never saw it as an adequate formula. For the remainder of his time in political office, Haughey’s preoccupation focused on securing agreement from the British government for the holding of multi-party talks among the political parties on either side of the Irish border, under the auspices of the two sovereign governments, to consider the constitutional relationship between Belfast, Dublin and London.
The concluding sub-section of Chapter Nine delves into Haughey’s important, but hitherto neglected, contribution to the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process. Firstly, in his clandestine dealings with the Sinn Féin leadership during the 1980s and secondly, when assessing his relationship with Thatcher’s successor as British prime minister John Major, during the early 1990s. It is certainly one of the greatest ironies of Haughey’s political career that given his involvement in helping to facilitate the emergence of the nascent PIRA in 1969 (albeit indirectly) that he had a prominent hand to play in taking the gun out of Irish politics. His role is all the more ironic, not to mention peculiar, considering that he strongly opposed the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
Despite attempts by many of Haughey’s detractors to airbrush out his contribution to the origins of the Northern Ireland peace process, the fact remains that it was him, not Garret FitzGerald during the mid-1980s or indeed his successor as Fianna Fáil leader and taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, during the mid-1990s,65 who should be credited as the ‘grandfather’ of the Northern Ireland peace process. Of course, it is disingenuous to suggest that FitzGerald did not play an integral role in the grand arena of Anglo-Irish relations during the early to mid-1980s in an effort to bring about peace, as noted above, his ability to win from Thatcher recognition on behalf of the British government that Dublin should have a ‘consultative’ role in Northern Ireland was a major breakthrough. However, this was only one strand in finding peace in Northern Ireland.
Indeed, it was Haughey and not FitzGerald who took the bold political gamble to open up secret talks with the Republican movement in 1986. This decision by Haughey was all the more brave considering that at this time the PIRA were committing acts of brutality and murder on a daily basis. It is, therefore, equally disingenuous of some writers (including key political actors and prominent journalists) to attempt to erase Haughey’s role in the birth of the Northern Ireland peace process. In his autobiography, Albert Reynolds made the ludicrous claim that Haughey ‘had been reluctant to make advances on the North …’.66 Such arguments, although false, remain common among political commentators and politicians. As this study reveals, the reality is altogether different. Haughey, with the encouragement of Redemptorist priest Fr Alec Reid, took great personal risk in opening up a clandestine channel of communication between Fianna Fáil and Gerry Adams’s Sinn Féin during the late 1980s.
Haughey’s relationship with John Major is where the story of the former’s contribution to the Irish government’s Northern Ireland policy was brought to an abrupt end. During the last years of his premiership, the basis of Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy focused on convincing the British government to agree to convene all-party constitutional talks among the Northern Ireland political parties (including Sinn Féin) under the auspices of a joint British–Irish government initiative to consider the constitutional future of Northern Ireland. Following intense behind the scenes lobbying on behalf of the Irish government, Major eventually agreed to kick-start a new Northern Ireland peace initiative. In late 1991, following three years of discussions between Gerry Adams and the SDLP leader, John Hume, Haughey presented Major with a blueprint document to help bring the conflict in Northern Ireland to an end (the so-called ‘Draft 2’).67
To his disappointment, Haughey never had the opportunity to discuss his proposal face-to-face with Major. The events of Haughey’s past finally caught up with him when Seán Doherty, minister for justice during Fianna Fáil’s brief spell in office in 1982, claimed that Haughey had been fully aware of the 1982 telephone tapings of journalists Bruce Arnold and Geraldine Kennedy. Despite Haughey’s denials, Fianna Fáil’s coalition partner in government, the Progressive Democrats (PDs), indicated that they could no longer support his position as taoiseach. As a result, on 30 January 1992, Haughey announced his retirement as Fianna Fáil leader. He formally resigned as taoiseach several days later on 11 February.
It therefore fell to Albert Reynolds, Haughey’s successor as Fianna Fáil leader and taoiseach, to move forward with the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process. Reynolds’s contribution to this process was first acknowledged with the signing on behalf of the British and Irish governments of the Joint Declaration on Peace (colloquially referred to as the ‘Downing Street Declaration’) in December 1993. The culmination of Reynolds’s involvement with the Northern Ireland peace process arrived two years later with the signing of the Framework Document in February 1995. The climax to the peace process occurred with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998, following gruelling multi-party talks. With the support of the political parties of Northern Ireland (with the exception of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)) the British and Irish governments signed up to the Agreement.
Although Haughey had long endorsed the path towards finding a peaceful settlement to the Northern Ireland conflict, which ultimately witnessed the Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries decommission their weapons, he was disgusted by the political settlement that was reached following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. In retirement, he purportedly denounced taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader, Bertie Ahern’s, greatest political achievement as ‘inherently unstable, an unstable settlement in which the Provisional IRA demonstrates its willingness only to protect the nationalists within a failed state’.68
Readers should note that this book is not solely a biography of Haughey in relation to his stance on the Northern Ireland question. To write a book of that nature would be to greatly undervalue the subject under investigation. Rather its intention is to provide a more rounded and nuanced analysis of the Irish government’s Northern Ireland policy during the second half of the twentieth century, always of course, within the prism of Haughey’s political career.
It is for this reason that the study also introduces readers to prominent events and personalities related to Northern Ireland and more generally Anglo-Irish relations. For instance, the genesis and development of Thatcher’s Northern Ireland policy is examined and her relationship with the Irish government. Thatcher remains a divisive figure in Irish political discourse. Within Republican circles she is particularly despised. Many will never forgive the ‘Iron Lady’
