State papers: in brief
It would be a "psychological mistake" to charge the Republic with belatedness in developing a complete abhorrence for terrorist outrages only after the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May 17th, 1974, remarked the British ambassador in Dublin in a telegram sent to the Foreign Office in London three days after the explosions.
Having now experienced what Northern Irish society had endured for so long, the South was adopting a supportive posture toward British security efforts. But the mood in the Republic was "volatile", and it could be counter-productive to ram home the point that at last the South had seen what violence was really like.
The general assumption in the press and among the public, Sir Arthur Galsworthy went on, was that "loyalist extremists were responsible". But this was not accompanied by any general "anti- Northern Protestant reaction". Perhaps surprisingly and despite the "predictable" IRA attempt to pin the atrocities on Britain ("British agents, the SAS etc"), it was the Provisionals themselves who were attracting most of the opprobrium on account of their own long- standing association with violence. This, Galsworthy concluded, was both a "helpful" and a "healthy" response from a British perspective. - Richard Bourke
Army nervous about joint action
The Army's reticence about co-operating with British security forces arose, in part, out of nervousness about superior IRA marksmanship along the Border, according to a British army officer reporting to his government on a meeting in February 1974 with the Chief of Staff, Maj- Gen O'Carroll. Despite recent successes in fostering links between the Garda and the RUC, the Army appeared comparatively stand-offish with its British counterparts. Accordingly, the brigadier recorded his "depressing impression" that Maj-Gen O'Carroll's men were not keen on closer contact with the British army, while O'Carroll himself was "politely unenthusiastic" about proposals for concerted action.
The brigadier suspected that the Irish forces were uneasy about the possibility of public criticism should they be seen to be collaborating with "the forces of occupation". But he further surmised that while closer contact would lead the Army into sharper conflict with the Provisionals, "they are not confident of their ability to come out on top in a shooting match". - Richard Bourke
Skeleton in Britain's cupboard
The settlements out of court in respect of the civil actions taken by people alleging brutality against the British authorities for deep interrogation techniques employed against detainees in Northern Ireland after August 1971 constituted a "skeleton in our cupboard", according to a Foreign Office assessment of the adverse publicity generated by the cases.
Any publicity attaching to the ongoing proceedings seemed likely to work against the British interest. Therefore, a Foreign Office memorandum suggested adopting the "low-profile defensive approach" to public relations surrounding the cases as advocated by the Ministry of Defence. While accepting the charge of ill-treatment against those subjected to deep interrogation, the British could at least continue to refute allegations of torture or brutality.
A characterisation of this "defensive approach" was made available to British agencies internationally in the form of a short question-and- answer paper prepared by the MoD for distribution through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. A sample passage from the paper reads: "Q: Does the Ministry of Defence now admit inhuman treatment and torture? A: Certainly not". ... - Richard Bourke
Abortion in a united Ireland
An apparently innocent query to the Taoiseach, Mr Jack Lynch, about the position of abortion in a united Ireland was seen as a "trap" by a civil servant, according to State Papers in 1970.
The letter-writer from Blackrock, Co Dublin, had asked: "What is the position regarding abortion now and in a united Ireland?"
In response, a civil servant wrote to the secretary of the Minister for Justice: "The letter obviously is a trap. I assume - though it is not certain - that the writer is opposed to divorce, and that his point is 'where are we going to stop in our efforts to please the North?' But he may be a 'unionist' who thinks he can back the Government into a corner." - Alison Healy
Taxi drivers at pubs and pictures
Dublin taxi drivers were abandoning their vehicles to go to "picture houses" and pubs during working hours, a memo from the Garda Carriage Office claimed in 1962. The claim was made after taxi and hackney drivers sought more taxi ranks for their cars.
At that time, there were 604 taxis on the streets of the capital. The carriage inspector, Mr Edgar Devlin, recommended that there was enough accommodation for taxis in the city centre. "It has been found that taxi owners and drivers abuse the road space allotted to them by leaving their vehicles locked and unattended for long periods on stands during slack hours, The drivers of these vehicles attend local picture houses and in some cases, frequent licensed premises, thus depriving the use of the stand to other drivers." - Alison Healy
Joyce cleaned up for President
Civil servants were careful to avoid embarrassing the President, Mr Erskine Childers, and his wife when they visited Belgium in May 1974. The Department of Foreign Affairs was planning an evening of theatre for the couple and their guests, and had asked the actress Siobhán McKenna to stage the show. She was to read extracts from 11 works, including several pieces by James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. When an explanatory list came to Ulysses, an official had carefully noted that the extract was the final part of Molly Bloom's soliloquy and he wrote "strictly non- pornographic" in brackets after it. - Alison Healy
Adams's brother made protest
Mr Dominic Adams, a brother of the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, protested to a civil representative in 1973 about the removal of street lighting in west Belfast by the British army. Mr Adams wrote to a community relations officer as follows: "We have been asked by the people of the area to inform you of the attitude of the British army who . . . have begun a campaign to return the area to darkness. Their latest tactic is to remove the copper plates of the lights."
He asked the official to approach the military with a view to stopping this practice. A letter in the file from the headquarters of the 39 Infantry Brigade confirmed that the British army had extinguished some of the lights, but also blamed "yobbos" - Eamon Phoenix