British attitudes to Irish:IRELAND SUFFERED "from an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Britain which dates from the period of the Ascendancy and is still potent", concluded a senior official in the British embassy in Dublin at the end of 1978.
John Goulden's report, described as "a think piece" and entitled "What's wrong with Anglo-Irish relations", was produced in December after 12 months of tension between Dublin and London.
Distancing himself from the conclusions of the report, the British ambassador in Dublin, Robin Haydon, circulated it to colleagues, describing it as "stimulating and provocative". For Haydon, the Anglo-Irish connection was "one of the most fascinating and tangled relationships that could exist between two governments, two peoples and two countries".
Goulden's paper criticised the assumption that Northern Ireland was "the only important political issue dividing two countries which are otherwise very close; and that we should emphasise the other aspects of the relationship - trade, tourism, family ties, the currency link, the common travel areas etc - in order to keep the Northern Ireland Irish issue in perspective".
Instead, the report argued that there were more fundamental problems in the relationship, to which the issue of Northern Ireland was of secondary importance. It referred to the Civil War, asserting that this was "not about partition so much as about the status of the Republic and its relationship to the crown". In fact, partition had been "kept on ice for much of the last 55 years". Moreover, most people in the Republic regarded Northern Ireland as "a remote territory" and its population "a rather unattractive group".
Goulden argued that any analysis of Anglo-Irish relations must start with the problem of Irish "identity". This was not to say that "blame for the defects of the relationship rests solely with" the Irish. Indeed, it was felt that the British "know the Irish less well than they know us; we rely more than they do on caricature; and our attitude to them is often disparaging".
If anything, a serious part of the problem was that the British show "indifference", in comparison to the intense Irish "love/hate attitude" that the Irish feel towards them.
The biggest problem was that "Britain dominates the Republic in virtually every sphere", accounting for "almost half their foreign trade". Many Irish workers were members of British trade unions and it was also claimed that the young often regard England as an "escape route". It was claimed that "many Irishmen have a sense of loyalty to Britain" and the majority "have some form of attachment, if only through family ties with Britain". The British were "individually very popular, more so than any other foreigners, including the Northern Irish". On the one hand, Britain was seen as "the country which wilfully destroyed the Irish cultural legacy". What was "even more galling for true Irish nationalists", however, was the fact that British cultural influence was "nowadays largely self-imposed". There was "visible proof of this in the mammoth TV aerials reaching out to pick up British programmes". British newspapers also "have a respectable share of the market", with the Daily Mirror rivalling The Irish Times in circulation.
The report claimed that further cultural exchange on these terms, such as offering Irish citizens places on Open University, would be counter-productive. If anything, it was suggested that the [British] government should consider jamming British TV and radio reception in Ireland.
The report argued that anti-British feeling was most pronounced among two groups: traditional republicans and the professional classes. The republicans were described as often being "descendants of the Irish peasantry, raised on the Irish folk memory of past wrongs", educated at Christian Brothers' schools or members of the GAA.
Moreover, although hardline republicans formed only a small minority, "their resentment about the Famine, the Black and Tans, Cromwell etc is shared by most of their fellow Irishmen".
The professional classes - lawyers, academics, journalists and politicians - were "more modern in outlook" but nonetheless "neurotic" about the Anglo-Irish relationship. This tendency was partly due to the fact that many of them were on the "frontier" of the relationship, experiencing the greatest interaction with Britain, and the sentiment was often most discernible among those who were married to British people.
As a political issue, Northern Ireland was important insofar as it provided "material for friction, by ensuring that the British army remains entrenched in Anglo-Irish relations, and by keeping the IRA in business". Partition "provides a respectable excuse for Irish feelings against the British", allowing them to "overlook the fact that their resentment is more deep-rooted".
For this reason, it was "natural" that there should be such opposition to someone such as Conor Cruise O'Brien, who challenged this narrative; it was a "further sign of an adolescent mentality".
"Normality can come only when the Irish grow up politically by escaping from Britain's shadow and finding their own identity", it was concluded. Unfortunately, "with Irish culture and language at an advanced stage of decline, it will be difficult to find a separate Irish identity - the more so if that identity has also to embrace the unionists in a context of a united Ireland".
Despite its provocative tone, the report finished by suggesting that Ireland was beginning to escape the shadow of Britain as it "diversifies its foreign policy" and acts increasingly independently in Europe. It was advised that attention should be paid to cultivating warm personal relations with individuals within the Irish State, as these "can often be cordial even when the two countries are going through a cool patch".