THE ANNUAL release of State Papers reminds us of a world some of us knew but most had forgotten. Thirty years ago, Ireland was – in many ways – a bleak place. We were just one generation on from the leadership of those who had taken part in the stormy birth of the nation and were in a political muddle about the economy, contraception and the North. The world had suffered two oil crises and inflation and unemployment seemed endemic. The limitations of independence for a small nation contained unforeseen challenges.
It is clear from the papers that the weakness of James Callaghan’s Labour government in Britain hindered progress on the North and made for fractious relations at ministerial level between Dublin and London. His successor Margaret Thatcher would later provide an even greater challenge for Irish diplomacy.
This was the year of the “dirty protest” in Northern prisons. At this remove it seems reasonable to believe that more politically skilful handling by the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) might have headed off that polarising confrontation. Yet as we know now, there was worse to come in the shape of the hunger strikes. It is difficult to dismiss the feeling that some form of conflict in the prisons was inevitable.
In this regard it is interesting to learn from papers released in London that Sir Brian Cubbon, permanent under-secretary at the NIO, placed some credence in an approach – via an intermediary – on the part of the Provisional IRA saying that it was time to talk. Though Cubbon’s view that the approach should be ignored was endorsed by Callaghan, in it we can see that even in the most intractable of stand-offs, there is usually someone trying to figure out the next move and how to gain most from it. At the time Cubbon believed that the “position of their prisoners is in the final analysis one of their most fundamental concerns”. Eventually, the treatment of prisoners became an important part of the Belfast Agreement.
Perhaps it is too easy to see all of these events as unfolding according to a predetermined plan. Yet it is reassuring to note that senior figures in the Departments of the Taoiseach and of Foreign Affairs were working to an overall plan, which by-and-large remained unchanged until, ultimately, it was realised. The tragedy is that so many more lives were lost and families devastated before the men of violence put down their weapons.