The complexity of the negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998 and the range of people who deserve credit for bringing three decades of violence to an end are underlined by the latest annual release of State papers by the National Archives.
The 30-year rule under which official documents are released has been modified in recent years to allow the disclosure of more recent sensitive papers dealing with Irish-British relations. This has happened in response to the British government decision to move to a 20 year rule.
It means that while most of the documents in the latest release come from 1994, special provision has been made to allow for the disclosure of Anglo-Irish files up to 2004 from the Departments of the Taoiseach, Foreign Affairs, Justice and the Attorney General’s Office.
The volume of the material in the latest release will take years to mine thoroughly for a full understanding of what happened during this crucial period. They will provide an opportunity as well as a challenge for historians to disentangle the complex web of meetings and contacts that eventually delivered peace.
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One of the striking features of the files from the 1994 to 1998 period is the important role played by the then taoiseach John Bruton, who died last February, in developing the process that ultimately led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
Bruton was a believer in the primacy of constitutional politics and a vocal opponent of those who used violence to achieve political ends. When he became taoiseach a few months’ after the first IRA ceasefire many commentators expressed doubts about his capacity to continue the process begun by his predecessor Albert Reynolds.
Those doubts were reinforced by the IRA’s decision to break the ceasefire with the Canary Wharf bombing of 1995 but the latest files show how committed he was to getting the ceasefire restored. One key moment came in March, 1996, when he visited John Hume’s holiday home in Donegal to be shown a document drawn up by Fr. Alex Reid, a key intermediary between the IRA and the Irish government.
During his period in office Bruton worked with minister for foreign affairs Dick Spring to get republicans and unionists to accept the Joint Framework Document of 1995 agreed with British prime minister, John Major. His good relations with unionists were critical to getting them to buy into that document which proved a critical step on the road to the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
The latest release of files show that Major and Bruton deserve considerable credit for persisting with the peace process and giving it so much of their time after the IRA betrayal of trust. They laid the foundations for the ultimate success of Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair a year after they both lost office in 1997.