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Introduction

‘This border is ... an artificial line that runs across and divides in two a country which has always been regarded as one, and which has always regarded itself as one. This border is economic, social and geographic nonsense.’

[Charles J. Haughey, circa 1986]1

Study overview: A failed political entity

Charles J. Haughey’s presidential speech at the 1980 Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis will forever be remembered for his infamous catchphrase that Northern Ireland as a political entity had ‘failed’. In dramatic fashion, the Fianna Fáil leader and taoiseach tore apart his predecessor Jack Lynch’s traditional support for an internal power-sharing assembly for Northern Ireland as a prerequisite to a united Ireland. Instead, Haughey offered his own solution to the Northern Ireland conflict – a solution that showed breath-taking antipathy for the Northern Ireland state and its institutions.

In this speech, Haughey argued that Northern Ireland was a failed state, economically and politically. He stated that the British government must recognise the Irish government’s legitimate right to play a role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. The taoiseach envisaged that this new chapter in Anglo-Irish relations would be facilitated via a so-called ‘intergovernmental relationship’, whereby the two sovereign governments in Dublin and London would come together to negotiate a political settlement to the Northern Ireland conflict.2

Haughey’s dictum that Northern Ireland was a ‘failed political entity’ became the hallmark of his stance on partition until his retirement in 1992. In his interviews and speeches during this period he regularly used this argument to oppose various British government-sponsored political initiatives for the establishment of a power-sharing, devolved, government in Northern Ireland.3 Only a unitary, thirty-two county Irish Republic, he maintained, would satisfy the aspirations of nationalist Ireland. His refusal to consider an ‘internal’ solution to help end the violence in Northern Ireland, even on an intermediate basis, fostered his image as the ‘bogeyman’ of Ulster Unionism. Haughey, however, cared little about upsetting Protestant sensibilities. It was their responsibility, he arrogantly reasoned, to fit into his vision of a newly constituted united Ireland.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise to learn that Haughey wholeheartedly opposed the Irish government’s support for the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Although he played a critical role in helping to kick-start the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process during the late 1980s and early 1990s, ultimately, he was disgusted by the political settlement that was reached under the terms of the Agreement. Echoing his traditional cries that Northern Ireland was a failed political entity, privately he allegedly ridiculed the Agreement as ‘inherently unstable, an unstable settlement in which the Provisional IRA [Irish Republican Army] demonstrates its willingness only to protect the nationalists within a failed state’.4

How did Haughey arrive at this fatalistic attitude to the Good Friday Agreement? There is no easy answer, not least because of the innate difficulty in unravelling the motivations behind his attitude to Northern Ireland over the course of his lifetime. In truth, Haughey presents the historian with a dilemma – what to believe? This is particularly true when assessing his stance on Northern Ireland. Did Haughey harbour a lifelong passion for a united Ireland, or did he merely use the emotive subject of partition as an electoral tool in the pursuit and maintenance of his political career?

This book answers these questions and other unresolved queries regarding the evolution of Haughey’s private and public position on Northern Ireland during his time in mainstream politics. It also offers readers a unique insight into Haughey’s attitude towards Anglo-Irish relations in so far as understanding and explaining his enduring disgust for the ‘preposterous’ existence of partition and the ‘artificial’ state of Northern Ireland.5

A political profile: Charles J. Haughey

Who was Haughey? How did his personality impact on his political thinking in relation to Northern Ireland and more generally Anglo-Irish relations? Such questions remain extremely difficult to answer and in truth, Haughey was – and remains – an enigma.

Although there are difficulties in assessing Haughey’s character, several observations can be made with confidence. He was arguably the most controversial and brilliant politician of his generation. He was arrogant, overambitious and quite often ruthless, and in the words of his one-time political protégé, Bertie Ahern, Haughey ‘didn’t tolerate fools easy’.6 He certainly held a Napoleonic vision of his place in Irish history, as Charlie McCreevy was to later sardonically pronounce: ‘He [Haughey] was smarter than everyone else, he was better than everyone else.’7 Haughey was also ahead of his time in appreciating the ‘value of image building’.8 For someone who never quite trusted the media he was obsessed with his personal public relations operations, which was always geared towards enhancing the public’s perception of his abilities, real or perceived.

Haughey was a politician who, in the words of a less than sympathetic Henry Patterson, blended the Renaissance prince and the Gaelic chieftain into one, a man that ‘did not regard himself as bound by the conventional values that applied to ordinary mortals’.9 Although Haughey came from humble beginnings, growing up on a council estate on Dublin’s north side, by the time he became taoiseach in 1979, he was living the life of an eighteenth-century aristocrat. He owned a large mansion in Abbeville, north Co. Dublin, a stud farm at Ashbourne in Co. Meath, and an island, Inishvickillane, off Co. Kerry. He had a fondness for fine clothes, especially £700 Charvet shirts from Paris, and was a known connoisseur of wines. He regularly went fox hunting and kept a Dublin gossip columnist, Terry Keane, as his long-term mistress.10

To balance these defects, Haughey was also clearly one of the brightest politicians to have ever entered Dáil Éireann, with a masterly understanding of his brief in each department that he served. As Professor Richard Conroy pointed out, Haughey was ‘an exceptionally intelligent individual, head and shoulders above his contemporaries … While he had many flaws he had an ability to take on new ideas at an early stage’.11 Indeed, Haughey had an unquenchable thirst for work and expected others to follow his example. In the words of The Times, Haughey had ‘qualities of clarity and imagination’ that made him stand out among his peers.12

Haughey had a certain charisma, which only added to his enigma. More often than not he was a first-class political strategist, adept at understanding the pulse of his followers within Fianna Fáil. Michael Lillis, who briefly acted as Haughey’s private secretary in the Department of Finance in 1967, remembered that his minister was ‘extraordinarily hardworking … most impressive and exceptionally intelligent’. Haughey, Lillis noted, was ‘practical, a decision-maker … who when he had made decisions was not afraid to then implement them’.13 The facts speak for themselves. In his capacity as minister in several Fianna Fáil governments, Haughey is credited for an array of bold initiatives, including bringing in succession rights for widows, free travel for pensioners and tax exemptions for artists.

J.J. Lee, albeit writing before the true extent of Haughey’s financial misdemeanours came to light, pointed out the positive features of the latter’s character:

He [Haughey] had abundant flair and imagination, immense public-self-control, an ability to cut through red tape with incisiveness that infuriated those wedded to the corruption of bureaucratic mediocrity, and an energy capable of sustaining his insatiable appetite for power.14

Whilst such an assessment may represent a fair description of the public face of Haughey, what of his private character? Having read many of Haughey’s private remarks and interviewed several people who worked closely with him, a quite different picture emerges. In fact, Haughey was an extremely emotional politician. On the one hand he was a charmer, always capable of getting people on his side. On the other, however, Haughey was capable of being extremely rude and occasionally vulgar, regularly using foul language. Journalist Geraldine Kennedy recalled how ‘grown men would be terrified of him’.15 Martin O’Donoghue, Fianna Fáil minister during the late 1970s and early 1980s, noted with venom the extent to which Haughey was a ‘corrupting and coercive force’ within Fianna Fáil.16 Perhaps Frank Dunlop most accurately summoned up Haughey’s character when he wrote that ‘Charlie’s personality was impossible to fathom.’17 In truth, it depended on which Haughey you ran into on a particular day.

Sometimes Haughey’s emotionalism got the better of his judgement, whereby short-term political gains came at the expense of more long-term planning. This was certainly the case in the context of Haughey’s relationship with British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, during the 1980s, not merely when it came to Northern Ireland, but as is addressed later in this study, also during the Falklands War in 1982. The manipulative, often sly, side of Haughey’s personality had a direct impact on his policymaking process.

When it came to Northern Ireland, and more generally in the realm of Anglo-Irish affairs, Haughey was obsessed with retaining control over policy. He found it difficult to trust people. During his three periods as taoiseach he had a particular aversion to some of his own civil servants, principally those working within the Department of Foreign Affairs. In his eyes, Iveagh House officials, to quote one revealing source, were nothing more than ‘gin-swilling arrivistes with affected manners of speech and behaviour in whom he had very little confidence’.18 Apparently, Haughey once referred to the Department of Foreign Affairs mandarins as ‘dog handlers’.19

The fact that Haughey did not trust his own civil servants impacted greatly on his sometimes knee-jerk reaction to Northern Ireland policy. In the words of British ambassador to Ireland Robin Haydon (1976–80) Haughey was a politician that ‘holds his cards close to his chest’ and would ‘make up his own mind about the line to be taken’.20 Such an approach at times meant that Haughey could quite literally make policy decisions on the spot, with little foresight or strategic planning. In the tradition of previous Fianna Fáil taoisigh, Éamon de Valera, Seán Lemass, and to a lesser extent Jack Lynch, Haughey always sought to retain personal control over his government’s policy vis-à-vis Northern Ireland policy and Anglo-Irish relations, working within the Department of the Taoiseach. As a confidential memorandum from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office reported in 1980, on the subject of Northern Ireland, Haughey was ‘in personal control’.21 Officials would be consulted if necessary, but otherwise they should know their place.

Haughey’s general leadership style reflected his determination to retain personal control over Fianna Fáil’s Northern Ireland policy. In the words of Ronan Fanning, Haughey had an ‘autocratic ministerial style’.22 He had a habit of shadowing his ministers from various departments, always eager to have a say in policy decisions.23 David Neligan, a senior mandarin in the Department of Foreign Affairs during the 1980s subsequently noted that Haughey ‘disparaged mercilessly some of his own ministerial colleagues …’.24 No doubt, one of the main reasons why he appointed Brian Lenihan as minister for foreign affairs in his first cabinet was because he could control and manipulate his colleague; Lenihan was known to be ‘frightened’ of Haughey.25 Yet, the paradox of Haughey’s character and his appetite for work, as pointed out by Justin O’Brien, was that ‘the very skills that differentiated him also nurtured the seeds for his downfall’. In the end Haughey was incapable of ‘delegating power, interfered in the work of ministers and stored up resentment’.26

In The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote of the qualities needed to become a successful leader: ‘a prince is successful when he fits his mode of proceeding to the times, and is unsuccessful when his mode of proceeding is no longer in tune with them.’27 When it came to the emotive subject of Northern Ireland, Haughey always tried, to varying degrees of success, to take the temperature of Fianna Fáil rank-and-file supporters. This was certainly evident during his involvement in the Arms Crisis and more generally during his presidency of Fianna Fáil. In reality, he was a product of his time, a politician full of contradictions.

In this respect, Haughey might, therefore, be labelled as Ireland’s version of American president Richard ‘Tricky Dicky’ Nixon. Once banished to the political side-lines following allegations of helping to import guns into Ireland during the early 1970s, Haughey made an extraordinary comeback, rising to become leader of Ireland’s largest political party Fianna Fáil in 1979. However, like his American counterpart Nixon, Haughey’s years in government were dogged with controversy and scandal, until finally he was forced out of office in 1992, hounded by allegations of political duplicity.

In the final analysis, Haughey’s reputation will forever be tainted by accusations of corruption and financial irregularities. This was a man who over the course of his political career received payments approximating to more than eleven million in the form of so-called ‘political gifts’ and donations.28 The extent of Haughey’s unearned income was staggering. While he may not have been ‘corrupt’ in the strictest sense of the word, his actions were certainly shameful. Here was a man, taoiseach of his country on three separate occasions, who sought to avoid paying tax by holding substantial sums of monies in offshore Ansbacher accounts.29 In the last assessment the sheer scale and extent of payments that Haughey received can only be described as having ‘devalued the quality of national democracy’, to quote the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal.30 The tribunal’s revelations were indeed astounding. Haughey’s image was in tatters.

Chapter outline

As an introductory note, readers should be aware that this study is a chronological analysis of Haughey’s attitude to the Northern Ireland question. Chapter One examines the background to our subject’s attitude to Northern Ireland, tracing his family connection to Ulster, through to his period as a minister in consecutive Fianna Fáil governments during the early to mid-1960s. From an early age Haughey was immersed in Northern Ireland political and social discourse. His parents Seán and Sarah Haughey were both from the republican area of Swatragh Co. Derry. As a child, Haughey regularly visited Swatragh, spending time with relatives. In later life he recounted with pride that ‘my father and mother were born here…my people have lived here for a very long time’.31

During the 1930s, his family home in Donnycarney, Co. Dublin was a talking shop, with Northern Ireland politics the focus of much debate. Haughey’s visits to Northern Ireland and the stories that he heard from his parents had a deep psychological impact on his outlook towards the partition of his country and more generally his attitude to Anglo-Irish relations. As he noted in 1986: ‘I can never arrive [at the border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland] without experiencing deep feelings of anger and resentment … The border is nonsense.’32

As Haughey entered his late teenage years these childhood experiences naturally impacted on the development of his political thinking. In fact, his association with Northern Ireland during the formative years of his life was a blend of republican radicalism, Anglophobia and later ministerial pragmatism. As Chapter One explains, as an impressionable nineteen-year-old commerce student at University College Dublin (UCD), Haughey played a prominent role in the burning of a Union Jack outside the gates of Trinity College Dublin (TCD) on VE Day, 8 May 1945. With a group of UCD students he reportedly helped to organise a march to TCD, with some of his supporters allegedly ‘bearing Nazi swastika flags’.33 This infamous incident was the first, but by no means last, public demonstration of Haughey’s instinctive anti-British feelings.

By the mid-1950s, as Haughey entered his early thirties, there was little indication that his youthful republicanism had waned. In 1955, in his capacity as honorary secretary of his local Fianna Fáil party branch, the Tomas Ó Cléirigh cumann, Dublin North-East, Haughey sent a memorandum on partition to the Fianna Fáil national executive. A six-page typed document, the Ó Cléirigh memorandum on partition offered an aggressive case as to why Fianna Fáil should use physical force to secure Irish unity34. As it noted: ‘We believe it is the duty of the Fianna Fáil Organisation to provide the leadership in the ultimate quest to secure a united Ireland. Therefore, the only policy open to us, which gives reasonable hope of success, is the use of force.’35

In the context of understanding the genesis of Haughey’s attitude to Northern Ireland, the Ó Cléirigh memorandum on partition offers fascinating evidence. Significantly, it advised that the Irish government, in conjunction with the Irish army, should enact a campaign of guerrilla warfare in Northern Ireland. It envisaged that this campaign would concentrate its resources on one or two areas in Northern Ireland with Catholic majorities (probably situated in Co. Derry and Co. Armagh).36 As is analysed in Chapter One, Haughey’s role in the production of this memorandum provides compelling, if not conclusive, evidence that by at least the mid-1950s, he harboured a deeply held ideological commitment to securing a united Ireland.

However, by the birth of the ‘swinging’ 1960s, a metamorphose in Haughey’s attitude to Northern Ireland seemingly occurred. With his appointment in 1961 as minister for justice in Seán Lemass’s Fianna Fáil government, Haughey quickly assumed a reputation as a fierce opponent of physical force republicanism, helping to crush the IRA’s border campaign (1956–62) in February 1962. A rising star within Fianna Fáil and widely mooted as a future party leader, he endorsed Lemass’s conciliatory, non-violent, approach towards Ulster Unionism, based on economic co-operation between Dublin and Belfast. Although during this period Haughey often referred to the deep resentment felt by the people in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland because of the maintenance of partition, he condemned as ‘foolish’ any attempts to secure a united Ireland by force.37

At first glance, it therefore seemed that on entering his early forties Haughey had abandoned his youthful anti-partitionist republicanism. Yet, as was the nature of Haughey’s political life sometimes the reality of the situation was not as one first expected. In fact, it is argued that Haughey’s support for the Lemass-led government’s conciliatory Northern Ireland policy during the 1960s, should not suggest that his deep-rooted commitment for the attainment of a united Ireland had waned. On the contrary, as an ambitious minister ascending the Fianna Fáil ladder, Haughey decided to bide his time, to hide from public glare his fundamental opposition to the Northern Ireland state. It was not until the outbreak of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland in the summer of 1969 that Haughey’s anti-partitionism was reignited.

Chapter Two explores the defining moment in Haughey’s political career: his role in the so-called ‘Arms Crisis’ from 1969 to 1970. As is argued, this was a pivotal event, not only for Haughey personally, but also for the Fianna Fáil organisation at large, which almost imploded during this debacle. In the words of Tom Garvin during these turbulent years Fianna Fáil ‘went through the political equivalent of a nervous breakdown’.38 What of Haughey’s role during the Arms Crisis? Although nearly half a century has passed a lively, indeed at times acrimonious, debate continues to engulf the discourse surrounding the part played by him in this affair. Whilst Haughey’s motivations will forever remain unclear, the fact is that in his capacity as minister for finance, and chairman of an Irish government sponsored sub-committee with control of a ‘special Northern Ireland relief fund’, he played a crucial role in helping to supply Northern Irish nationalists with guns and ammunition.39

This chapter provides compelling, if not conclusive, evidence that Haughey was fully aware that senior figures within the Irish state, including members of Irish Military Intelligence (IMI), were involved in attempts to import weapons into Ireland. Indeed, it is argued that Haughey was at the centre of these activities. To put it crudely his fingerprints are all over the Arms Crisis. Not only that, it is also claimed that Haughey, albeit indirectly, played a role in helping to establish the nascent Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). While it may never have been his intention to bring the PIRA into being, the fact remains that his subversive involvement in the distribution of monies, guns and ammunitions, indirectly facilitated the emergence of this terrorist organisation. To argue otherwise is counterfactual.

In the words of Vincent Browne, Haughey’s behaviour and actions during the course of this affair was ‘almost entirely reprehensible’. Haughey ‘arrogantly took it upon himself’, Browne acidly wrote, to supply guns to certain sections of the Catholic minority ‘without any explicit government sanction’.40 While the various attempts to import guns and ammunitions into Ireland ultimately failed, Haughey’s involvement with this covert activity forever tarnished his political credibility. The net result of Haughey’s actions would lead to his sacking as a government minister in May 1970 and see him face criminal prosecutions for allegedly using government monies to import arms.

Haughey’s credibility and political career were in tatters. Relegated to the Fianna Fáil backbenches in disgrace, it seemed as though he was destined to remain in the political doldrums. If nothing else, however, Haughey was a fighter. He quickly dusted himself off. During the early 1970s he travelled around the Fianna Fáil constituencies doing favours and winning friends. In the words of the British Embassy in Dublin, during his time in the political abyss, Haughey slowly ‘managed to rehabilitate himself’.41 His hard work eventually bore fruit and in 1975 Fianna Fáil leader Jack Lynch reluctantly restored Haughey to the frontbench as the party’s spokesperson for health. Many of the old guard within Fianna Fáil were aghast by Lynch’s decision. Jim Gibbons, Haughey’s arch nemesis during the Arms Crisis days, foretold that Haughey would destroy Fianna Fáil.42

It was no coincidence that Haughey’s return to the Fianna Fáil frontbench coincided with a dramatic change in the party’s official stance on Northern Ireland. By this period, sharp differences emerged within Fianna Fáil over Lynch’s Northern Ireland policy. To Lynch’s dismay, Fianna Fáil’s spokesman for foreign affairs, Michael O’Kennedy, requested that the British government make a commitment ‘to implement an ordered withdrawal from her involvement in the six-counties of Northern Ireland’.43 O’Kennedy’s remarks had the full backing of Haughey.44 By using O’Kennedy as a ‘stalking horse’, to quote a confidential source from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Haughey was attempting to undermine Lynch’s conciliatory approach to Northern Ireland and more generally his leadership.45 Under pressure from the hawkish elements within his own parliamentary party, Lynch was forced to accept this statement as the party’s official policy-line for the remainder of his period as Fianna Fáil leader.

Haughey’s political rehabilitation was completed following Fianna Fáil’s stunning general election victory in 1977. On forming a new government, Haughey was appointed minister for health and social welfare, a position that the incumbent taoiseach hoped would absorb his minister’s energies and distract him from his obvious political ambitions. Lynch was mistaken. Seven years on from the humiliation surrounding his ministerial sacking, Haughey was presented with the opportunity to resurrect his naked ambition to secure the leadership of his beloved Fianna Fáil. In December 1979 to the surprise and utter dismay of the majority of his cabinet colleagues, Haughey was elected Fianna Fáil leader and taoiseach. It remains the most remarkable comeback ever witnessed in Irish politics. The Haughey-era had thus begun.

Almost immediately, as is analysed in Chapter Three, Haughey sought to dismantle his predecessor’s Northern Ireland policy. He abandoned Fianna Fáil’s traditional support for an ‘internal’ solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland as a prerequisite to a united Ireland. From the new taoiseach’s perspective, Northern Ireland had failed as a credible entity, therefore a new departure, focused on a Dublin–London axis, was immediately required.46 This stance set the benchmark for Haughey’s approach to Northern Ireland for the remainder of his political career.

Haughey’s most substantial contribution to the Northern Ireland question occurred during his first reign as taoiseach from December 1979 to Fianna Fáil election defeat in June 1981. It is for this reason that Chapters Four, Five and Six, respectively, focus on these defining years in the development of Haughey’s public and private stance on Northern Ireland, and more generally Anglo-Irish relations. This study centres on two main and interrelated topics during this period. Firstly, the genesis and evolution of Haughey’s complicated relationship with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is examined. And secondly, his involvement with the Republican hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981. It is argued that the two Anglo-Irish summit meetings held between Haughey and Thatcher in May and December 1980, particularly the latter, had long-lasting consequences for British–Irish relations and more specifically the Irish government’s involvement in Northern Ireland affairs.

Chapter Four reveals that initially Haughey and Thatcher got on with one another. Lord Charles David Powell, a former key foreign policy advisor to the British prime minister, recounted some years later that after the first Anglo-Irish summit meeting between the two prime ministers in May 1980 ‘there was a glint’ in Haughey’s eye, which Thatcher had ‘found attractive’.47 This honeymoon period, however, did not last long. Haughey’s overselling of the second Anglo-Irish summit meeting in December of 1980 infuriated Thatcher. She was particularly upset by Haughey’s claim that in the context of the ‘totality of relationships’ between the British and Irish governments, that Northern Ireland’s constitutional future was to be renegotiated on behalf of Dublin and London. Thereafter, Thatcher never again trusted Haughey.48 As Thatcher’s chief press secretary, Bernard Ingham, later recalled: Haughey ‘thought he could twist her [Thatcher] around his little finger – he learned, no way!’49

In a more positive light, the Anglo-Irish summit meeting of December 1980, as explored in Chapter Five, undoubtedly heralded a new era in Anglo-Irish relations. Although Thatcher refused Haughey’s request for the holding of an Anglo-Irish conference to consider Northern Ireland’s constitutional future, the goalposts in British–Irish relations undoubtedly shifted. Over the ensuing years, senior Whitehall officials, including Sir Robert Armstrong (created Lord Armstrong of Ilminster in 1988), Thatcher’s cabinet secretary, recognised the Irish government’s ‘legitimate’ right to be consulted on the affairs of Northern Ireland, irrespective of Thatcher’s personal protests. Due to Haughey’s continued co-operation on cross-border security and intelligence and Thatcher’s commitment to foster the ‘unique relationship’ between the two countries, British officials argued that it was now time to realise that the solution to the Northern Ireland conflict ‘… is not to be found exclusively within a narrow Northern Ireland framework’, to quote a Foreign and Commonwealth Office memorandum, dated November 1980.50

This recognition by London of Dublin’s legitimate right to play a formal role in helping to find a workable solution to the Northern Ireland conflict was facilitated through the establishment of a series of British–Irish joint study groups in 1981, which first convened under the auspices of a supervisory steering group, comprised of senior British and Irish civil servants in London on 30 January 1981.51 The commissioning of the British–Irish joint-studies, together with the establishment of the Anglo-Irish intergovernmental council in 1982, played an important role in paving the way for the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and for the genesis of the Northern Ireland peace process during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Haughey’s association with the Republican hunger strikes, the first in 1980 and the second in 1981, is pieced together in Chapters Five and Six. For the first time, readers learn the extent to which Haughey was forced to play a marginal role during this enveloping crisis. In particular, because of his inability to influence British government thinking during the second Republican hunger strike campaign, Haughey found himself in the one position he despised most: politically impotent. On each occasion that he attempted to intervene directly with Thatcher and her officials in an effort to find a negotiated settlement to the hunger strike campaign, the door was shut in his face.52 As a result, Haughey cut a very depressing figure during this period, banished to the political side-lines as the Thatcher government dealt directly with the Republican movement over the heads of the Irish government.

Haughey’s anxiety and frustration was compounded by the Irish government’s support for Thatcher’s refusal to grant the so-called ‘five demands’ to the Republican prisoners.53 His willingness to endorse the Thatcher government on this highly emotive issue, together with his inability to influence the British prime minister’s thinking, left him open to accusations of political indecisiveness and certainly damaged his reputation as a firebrand nationalist. The Republican leadership, under Sinn Féin vice-president Gerry Adams, was particularly astute at propagating the message that Haughey had ‘sold out’ on his republican principles, having become ‘a collaborator’ with Thatcher’s government, to quote Owen Carron.54

The subject of the Falklands War in 1982 is central to Chapter Seven. This crisis was a defining moment for Haughey and Anglo-Irish relations. It explains how and why he made a ‘mess’, to quote Desmond O’Malley, of Anglo-Irish diplomatic relations during the crisis and the political fallout between Dublin and London thereafter.55 The taoiseach’s display of so-called ‘macho nationalism’56 during this period demonstrated the opportunistic nature of his political thinking, revealing the ruthless, even sly, side of his character. Haughey saw the Falklands crisis as the key moment to get his own back on Thatcher because of her unwillingness to allow him play any meaningful role during the second Republican hunger strike. Yet, the result of his stance during the affair, chiefly his decision that the Irish government withdraw support for the British government’s sponsored sanctions against Argentina, resulted in a dramatic deterioration in Anglo-Irish relations.

The fall-out had immediate consequences for Haughey’s plan of convincing the British government to permit Dublin a legitimate role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. During his remaining time in government, Thatcher refused to formally meet Haughey to discuss Northern Ireland, never mind consider permitting the Irish government a functional role in the affairs of Northern Ireland. As a result, Haughey decided to help kick-start a bold new initiative in relation to Northern Ireland. His inability to convince the British government to support his calls for an ‘Irish dimension’ resulted in the taoiseach deciding to drop a central plank of his Northern Ireland policy, in the immediate period, at least. Instead of promoting direct dialogue between the two sovereign governments in Dublin and London to find a negotiated settlement to the Northern Ireland conflict, Haughey proposed his own version of the Social Democratic and Labour Party’s (SDLP) so-called ‘Council for a New Ireland’. His involvement with the Ireland Forum from 1983 to 1984 is the underlying theme of Chapter Eight.

The New Ireland Forum was formally opened by taoiseach Garret FitzGerald at a public session of the gathering in May 1983. The forum comprised the four major Nationalist political parties on the island of Ireland: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the SDLP (this ensured that the forum represented more than 70 per cent of the population of Ireland). The central purpose of the forum’s working ‘was to devise ideas through which lasting peace and stability could be achieved in Ireland through the democratic process’.57 Over eleven months the forum met approximately ninety-six times, publishing its final report in May 1984. This chapter examines the workings of the forum, not merely from the perspective of Fianna Fáil, but it also analyses both FitzGerald’s and the British government’s attitude to this body.

Haughey was a regular contributor to the forum’s proceedings and his message was routinely the same: Northern Ireland was a failed entity, politically and economically. Therefore only a settlement, based on his calls for a unitary state, negotiated on behalf of the British and Irish government, could deliver lasting peace to Northern Ireland, he argued.58 To the frustration of FitzGerald and many others on the forum, Haughey refused to consider the two alternative models proposed by the final report as a solution to the Northern Ireland conflict, namely, a confederal/federal model or British–Irish joint authority over Northern Ireland. Although he was not ‘against’ the proposals, he said that the simple fact remained that a unitary state was the only viable option.59

Chapter Nine, the concluding chapter of this study, opens with an analysis of Haughey’s initial opposition and later support for the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. Throughout Fianna Fáil’s period in opposition from December 1982 to March 1987, Haughey played a peripheral role in the Irish government’s Northern Ireland policy and more generally in Anglo-Irish relations. Instead, to his frustration it was left to his political nemesis, Garret FitzGerald, to develop and nurture Irish government policy on Northern Ireland, under the auspices of the so-called ‘Armstrong–Nally Framework Talks’.60 These series of talks, comprising British and Irish senior civil servants, played an instrumental part in facilitating the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. At the heart of 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’ for her ‘no surrender’ attitude to the Republican hunger strikers during the early 1980s. Yet, Thatcher deserves far greater credit for her role in nurturing what became the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process. For instance, her willingness to put pen to paper and support the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, albeit reluctantly, helped to set a process in motion whereby the British and Irish governments, working in conjunction with the major political parties of Northern Ireland, came together to find a lasting settlement to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

This study also seeks to untangle the often neglected role played by civil servants in policymaking. It is the nature of civil servants, be it in Britain or Ireland, to shy away from publicity, to underplay their role in policy development. Unlike their political masters, diplomats usually refrain from writing memoirs or recording their contribution to the life of a nation. This form of self-inflicted censorship generally distorts historical truths and, on occasions, can airbrush out altogether the integral role played by prominent mandarins. This work seeks to address this historical imbalance. Somewhat forgotten figures, for example, Dermot Nally of the Department of the Taoiseach, and Robert Armstrong, secretary to the British cabinet, are restored to their rightful place within the history of Anglo-Irish relations during the 1980s.

Furthermore, readers should note that this book does not merely dip in and out of Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy during the 1980s, depending when he was in or out of government. On the contrary, the aim is to analyse how the Irish government’s Northern Ireland’s policy developed even when Haughey found himself on the Opposition benches. It is for this reason that several sub-sections of the book examine Fine Gael leader, Garret FitzGerald’s, construction of Northern Ireland policy during his periods as taoiseach in the early to mid-1980s. It is only by analysing FitzGerald’s support for the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 that one can adequately explain Haughey’s reasons for rejecting the Agreement.

The historiography: Covert republican or political opportunist?

Haughey’s public and private attitude to Northern Ireland is greatly neglected within the relevant historiography. In fact, those examining his approach to Northern Ireland have tended to cover this topic on a piecemeal and often ad hoc basis. Haughey’s finest biographies, notably Bruce Arnold’s Haughey and Justin O’Brien, The modern prince, respectively, attempted to delve into this subject.69 Yet, neither work was entirely successful, particularly given the unavailability of hitherto classified archival governmental and personal files related to the 1980s from several archival institutions in Britain and Ireland.70

More specialised studies related to Fianna Fáil and Northern Ireland have explored, to varying success, Haughey’s actions in relation to this topic. However, they generally offer an all-encompassing examination of Fianna Fáil’s Northern Ireland policy within a limited timeframe, rather than specifically focusing on the development or evolution of Haughey’s attitude to Northern Ireland.71 For instance, in her study, Fianna Fáil, Irish republicanism and the Northern Ireland troubles, 1968–2005, Catherine O’Donnell felt it necessary to only allocate several pages to Haughey’s contribution to Northern Ireland during the 1980s. The focus of her analysis was on the Fianna Fáil–Sinn Féin relationship, with Haughey’s involvement with the forces of Ulster unionism and the British government given only a passing footnote.72

General works relating to Fianna Fáil have, likewise, brushed over Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy, particularly during his three periods as taoiseach in the 1980s and early 1990s.73 Noel Whelan’s work, Fianna Fáil: a biography of the party, is typical of such an approach. In fact, Whelan’s survey account of Haughey’s contribution to Northern Ireland is littered with generalisations and in places inaccuracies. With regard to Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy on becoming taoiseach in 1979, for example, Whelan made the misinformed claim that Haughey ‘followed much the same policy as [Jack] Lynch’.74 As is explained in this book, such fleeting comments are wide of the mark.

Moreover, studies focused on modern Ireland and the history of Irish nationalism, have neglected to delve into Haughey’s political thinking in relation to Northern Ireland. In their respective works, Richard English and George D. Boyce, offered excellent insights into the development of Irish nationalism, both conceptually and from a practical perspective. Nonetheless, neither author thought it worthwhile to consider Haughey’s attitude to Irish nationalism or more generally Northern Ireland.75 Those works focused on Anglo-Irish relations during the Northern Ireland conflict have similarly neglected to analyse, in sufficient detail, Haughey’s Northern Ireland policy.76

The most controversial episode in relation to Haughey’s lifelong association with the Northern Ireland question was undoubtedly his involvement with the Arms Crisis. While there has been some first-class investigative journalism devoted to this subject, notably by the Magill magazine in 1980,77 together with several published works on the Arms Crisis,78 many questions still remain unanswered regarding Haughey’s role in this affair. Indeed, several of Haughey’s biographers79 and more general studies related to Fianna Fáil have, likewise, sought to explore his contribution to this pivotal event in modern Irish history.80 Yet, these works have offered only a superficial insight into Haughey’s actions and motivation. To quote Conor Cruise O’Brien, himself writing in the mid-1970s, ‘much still remains murky’ regarding the Arms Crisis and Haughey’s involvement in this affair.81

This study seeks to clear up many of these unanswered questions, not least the motivations behind Haughey’s actions during the Arms Crisis. In fact, a misinformed perception continues to dominate the historiography in relation to Haughey’s role during this affair. While most writers are in agreement that he played a prominent part in this seismic episode in the history of modern Ireland, many continue to question his motivations. A widely held myth continues to distort the true reasons behind Haughey’s actions, seeing his role in the conspiracy to import arms and ammunitions into Northern Ireland as little more than shrewd political opportunism on his behalf in a bid to topple and replace Jack Lynch as Fianna Fáil leader.82 Raymond Smith wrote that before the events surrounding the Arms Crisis Haughey ‘had never been identified in the public mind as holding any strong views on how the Northern Ireland question might be solved’.83 Stephen Collins, likewise, noted that the ‘real surprise of the Arms Crisis was not that it had happened but that Haughey should be centrally involved’.84

Bruce Arnold, in the vein of many other writers, claimed that Haughey’s militant stance towards Northern Ireland from the summer of 1969 culminating in his involvement in the Arms Crisis, was motivated not by any ‘burning zeal’ to secure Irish unity but was, in fact, ‘a republicanism created to defend a political flank’.85 The idea, Arnold wrote, that Haughey ‘was a committed, if covert, republican ... simply does not add up. There is no evidence for it’.86 Haughey, Arnold maintained, was frightened by Neil Blaney’s undisputed republican credentials, a reputation which could prove vital in any future bid for the presidency of Fianna Fáil. Haughey, therefore, converted to ‘covert republicanism’ during this period in an effort to outflank Blaney on the republican ticket.87

A perception has emerged amongst writers that Haughey neither held a deep-rooted ideological commitment to Irish unity nor genuinely cared for the plight of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. On the contrary, they argue that Haughey was motivated purely by his desire to be leader of Fianna Fáil.88 In particular, writers point to Haughey’s period as minister of justice during the early 1960s when under the Seán Lemass-led government he showed no remorse for his suppression of the IRA border campaign (1956–62).89 Indeed, Arnold alluded to the ‘fact’ that prior to the outbreak of the violence in Northern Ireland in mid-1969, Haughey was a strong advocate of the Lemass-style economic solution for securing an end to partition.90

However, Haughey’s clampdown of the IRA and his general endorsement of Lemass’s Northern Ireland policy, do not necessarily contradict his perceived alleged ‘greening’ by 1969/70. As Justin O’Brien observed, for an ambitious young minister, as ‘he ascended the ranks of the party and government, there was little to be gained in emphasising the gap between rhetoric and reality’ in relation to Northern Ireland.91 Better for Haughey to bide his time. This study argues that the outbreak of violence on the streets of Northern Ireland in 1969 struck a chord with Haughey, ‘his passion for Irish unity was revealed and his well-hidden anti-partitionist feelings reignited’.92 It would be misleading not to agree that political ambition was a motivating, if not central, factor in Haughey’s thinking during this period. However – and this is an important point – his actions were also motivated by a genuine and hitherto unrecognised deep-rooted commitment to a united Ireland. As Henry Patterson correctly explained, ‘For Haughey, the events of August 1969 produced a powerful confluence of ideological affinity and political ambition.’93

A further significant gap in the historiography of Haughey’s involvement with Northern Ireland, centres on his undervalued role in the genesis of the Northern Ireland peace process. In fact, apart from the seminal studies by Ed Moloney94 and Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick,95 respectively, Haughey’s contribution to the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process during the late 1980s and early 1990s has all but been ignored.96 Haughey’s biographers97 and more general studies related to the history of Fianna Fáil98 have, likewise, glossed over his integral role in helping to bring the gun out of Irish politics. Haughey’s decision during his retirement to generally refrain from speaking about his role vis-à-vis the Northern Ireland peace process has also played a part in distorting the historical facts. As he later explained: ‘The stage is already overcrowded with people attempting to claim credit.’99 Again, this work readdresses this imbalance, offering readers a fresh interpretation of Haughey’s public and private role in the embryonic stages of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Conclusion

Writing in the Irish Times in the immediate aftermath of Haughey’s shock resignation as taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader in late 1992, Frank Millar aptly described Haughey’s attitude to Northern Ireland and more generally Anglo-Irish relations. ‘Charles Haughey,’ Millar wrote, ‘will at least go down in history as the man who most wanted to have a profound effect on Anglo-Irish relations.’ Millar continued: ‘he [Haughey] was that rare creature in southern Irish politics – a man with an abiding interest in the North. Whatever about his views he at least had a keen sense of the place.’100 Millar had indeed got to the very essence of Haughey’s feelings towards Northern Ireland and his lifelong aversion to the partition of his beloved country.

Addressing the assembled media on his appointment as Fianna Fáil leader in December 1979, Haughey was asked by one journalist about his dismissal as a government minister in 1970 and his time in the ‘political wilderness’. ‘They are very much now a matter for history. I’m leaving them to the historian,’ was Haughey’s reply.101 Well, the time has now arrived for the historian to do his job. On the emotive subject of Northern Ireland this book brings to life many of Haughey’s hidden skeletons. It deconstructs the myths and picks apart the historical inaccuracies and simplifications when assessing his stance on Northern Ireland and more generally Anglo-Irish relations.