Overview:Over just a few months in the first half of 1982, Anglo-Irish relations rapidly descended from caution to frostiness and then bitter acrimony.
They were characterised by “snide” and “obnoxious” remarks, unseemly threats to withdraw security co-operation or boycott trade, refusals to shake hands and take phone calls and ambassadors being summoned for dressings-down in Dublin and London.
The year 1981 had been a difficult one for both governments. This was partly because of the strains caused by the hunger strikes, though British officials were encouraged by meetings between Garret FitzGerald and Margaret Thatcher towards the end of the year during which tentative plans for inter-governmental summits were discussed.
‘Solid framework’
On January 14th, 1982, looking ahead to the forthcoming year, the British ambassador in Dublin, Sir Leonard Figg, expressed his hope that this would “provide a solid framework to cushion us both against the buffets which our shared history deals us”.
Within a matter of days, however, there was a glimpse of future problems as it became clear that the British government was much more tentative about Anglo-Irish co-operation on Northern Ireland than its counterparts. By January 22nd, Figg confessed that he was “ducking questions” on British plans for Northern Ireland in talks with the senior Irish civil servant Dermot Nally.
Prospects for progress were dented further when it became clear that Charles Haughey would replace FitzGerald as taoiseach after the February general election. If FitzGerald had been returned, British cabinet secretary Sir Robert Armstrong claimed that he “would have been inclined to ring up Dermot Nally” to suggest that the governments resume their joint efforts.
Republican stance
During the campaign, however, Haughey was seen to have adopted an increasingly uncompromising republican stance on the Northern Ireland question. In particular, he had made clear his opposition to a plan being drawn up by James Prior, Thatcher’s Northern Ireland secretary of state, to establish a devolved Northern Ireland assembly with limited powers. For that reason, Armstrong calculated that “if the initiative comes from this side, it is liable to be misinterpreted in Dublin”.
Despite this renewed “bombast” from the taoiseach, British officials still advised Thatcher to meet Haughey in Brussels at an EC convention on March 30th, if only to discourage him from supporting an SDLP boycott of Prior’s proposals. The meeting did not go well. Haughey pushed for an early meeting of the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Council, only to be rebuffed by Thatcher, while the taoiseach made it clear that he did not view Prior’s initiative with favour.
“Haughey Mark II differs greatly from the Mark I version we saw from November 1979 to May 1981,” British officials soon noted, although they believed his tougher line on the North was partly an attempt to distract attention from domestic political problems. Despite appearing to have “let his nationalist enthusiasm run away with him”, they still hoped that he could be “edged into a more realistic position through relationships with British ministers”.
All this was changed by Ireland’s stance over the Falklands War. The Irish had initially supported the British position but, partly because of “anglophobia, parallels with Northern Ireland, [and] genuine distaste at the prospect of bloodshed”, they began to oppose British policy in the European Community and United Nations from early May.
According to an extensive memorandum – produced by Figg – while the Irish position changed dramatically following the sinking of the General Belgrano, from the start of the crisis “the Irish tended to sympathise with Argentina as a ‘fellow victim’ of colonialism”.
A comparison was also made with the situation in Northern Ireland. “Those features of the Falklands crisis which most stirred British national feeling (an isolated but long established British community, intensely loyal, under pressure from a hostile neighbour) reminded the Irish of the Unionist community in Northern Ireland and helped them to identify with Argentina”, wrote Figg.
When it came to public opinion, Figg believed there were “less unworthy motives” in Irish opposition to British policy, including genuine distaste for war and “deep misgivings” about the jingoism of the British press which was widely read in Ireland.
‘Ireland’s opportunity’
However, Figg also claimed that Haughey was cynically following the old dictum that “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity”. Off-the-record briefings from the taoiseach’s department had begun to demonstrate a shift of policy, and there was a suggestion that the Irish representative at the UN, Noel Dorr, “had acted without his Governments approval” in initially supporting the British position.
It was felt that Haughey was sidelining diplomats at the Department of Foreign Affairs and instead relying on his political advisers to formulate policy. By early May, even Gerard Collins, Haughey’s minister for foreign affairs, admitted to the British ambassador “that I should have to ask the Taoiseach himself about Irish foreign policy, which to many Irishmen was becoming a bit confused”.
Again, on July 30th, Figg met one Irish official who suggested that Collins “was becoming increasingly unhappy with the Taoiseach’s line on Anglo-Irish relations and with the traditional republican tone of some ministerial speeches”.
As the British press began a backlash against the Irish government, Haughey visited Figg in the British embassy on May 6th to raise his objections. “People in Britain thought he was not a nice man,” he suggested, also complaining that Britain was doing nothing to assist Ireland with low agricultural prices which were damaging the Irish economy.
“As with other things which mattered so much to Ireland, the British seemed not to care but when they wanted something from the Irish, the Irish were expected to go along meekly. He had the feeling that many in Britain treated the Irish with derision or contempt.”
Figg noted that “Mr Haughey referred to security co-operation and asked how long they could be expected to be meek policemen on the border when their interests elsewhere were being ignored”.
The ambassador did not believe “this was meant to be taken seriously” but it did confirm his impression that relations had become “ragged”. On May 17th, Haughey was reported to have refused a call from Thatcher, who was herself seething.
‘Morbid sensitivity’
On May 26th, when Figg met Haughey again, the mood was even more tense, as Britain had been forced to exercise its UN Security Council veto to stop what it regarded as a hostile resolution demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities, which Ireland had supported. When Figg complained that this action “had meant our relations had taken a considerable turn for the worse”, this clearly “nettled” Haughey, who made “the old point about Ireland being a sovereign . . . country not bound to follow our lead”.
In response, Figg claimed that there was no question of Britain ever contesting Ireland taking an independent line.
On July 2nd, 1982, Figg was summoned by Collins to say that Haughey was angry about recent coverage of Ireland in the press and by comments made by some members of parliament. Collins, speaking without notes, said that he hoped the British could avoid “snide remarks” about the Irish government and its ministers. “This odd episode simply reflects Mr Haugheys morbid sensitivity at present after a gruelling few days in the Dáil,” recorded Figg.
At the end of the month British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd returned the favour by summoning Irish ambassador Eamon Kennedy and warning him that “anti-Irish feeling in Britain was growing”.
On July 20th, eight British soldiers were killed by two IRA bombs at Knightsbridge and Regent’s Park, London, which added to the sense of despair.
The impact of all this on Anglo-Irish relations “may well be more long lasting”, wrote Figg.
“As with the hunger strike, the Falklands issue touched raw nerves in Ireland and reminded us yet again of the virulence in some quarters of anti-British feeling and of the tendency of Irish politicians, if not to exploit this feeling, at least to be unwilling to speak out against it.”
He also noted that, as during the second World War, there was a perception that “when British vital interests are at risk, the Irish cannot be relied on to help and may indeed be positively hostile”.
John Bew is reader in history and foreign policy at the war studies department in King’s College London and co-director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence.