From ‘as British as Finchley’ to ‘no selfish strategic interest’: Thatcher, Northern Ireland and Anglo-Irish Relations, 1979-1990 Fiona Diane McKelvey, BA (Hons), MRes Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences of Ulster University A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Ulster University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 I confirm that the word count of this thesis is less than 100,000 words excluding the title page, contents, acknowledgements, summary or abstract, abbreviations, footnotes, diagrams, maps, illustrations, tables, appendices, and references or bibliography Contents Acknowledgements i Abstract ii Abbreviations iii List of Tables v Introduction An Unrequited Love Affair? Unionism and Conservatism, 1885-1979 1 Research Questions, Contribution to Knowledge, Research Methods, Methodology and Structure of Thesis 1 Playing the Orange Card: Westminster and the Home Rule Crises, 1885-1921 10 The Realm of ‘old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago’: Ulster Unionists at Westminster after 1921 18 ‘For God's sake bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country’: 1950-1974 22 Thatcher on the Road to Number Ten, 1975-1979 26 Conclusion 28 Chapter 1 Jack Lynch, Charles J. Haughey and Margaret Thatcher, 1979-1981 31 'Rise and Follow Charlie': Haughey's Journey from the Backbenches to the Taoiseach's Office 34 The Atkins Talks 40 Haughey’s Search for the ‘glittering prize’ 45 The Haughey-Thatcher Meetings 49 Conclusion 65 Chapter 2 Crisis in Ireland: The Hunger Strikes, 1980-1981 67 A Brief Background to the 1980 and 1981 Hunger Strikes 70 The Battle Begins, the First Hunger Strike, October-December 1980 71 ‘Crime is crime is crime’: The Second Hunger Strike, March-October 1981 78 FitzGerald and the Hunger Strikes 89 Conclusion 104 Chapter 3 GUBU: Irish Neutrality and the Falklands War, 1982 107 Haughey Returns to the Taoiseach’s Office 109 The Republic of Ireland During the Falklands War 111 GUBU: Irish Scandals, 1982 128 Conclusion 132 Chapter 4 The Return of FitzGerald, 1983-1984 135 Enter FitzGerald 137 British Thinking 143 Tentative Irish Initiatives 147 The New Ireland Forum 151 Brighton and ‘out out out’ 159 Conclusion 167 Chapter 5 Negotiating the Anglo-Irish Agreement 169 A Meeting of Minds? Anglo-Irish Forums, January-March 1985 171 ‘The Americans made me do it’: the USA and the AIA 177 Armstrong-Nally Forums, March-June 1985 180 The ‘Real Lives’ Affair 188 The Last Push: Anglo-Irish Negotiations, July-November 1985 189 The Anglo-Irish Agreement, November 1985 198 Conclusion 199 Chapter 6 ‘The Jezebel who sought to destroy Israel in a day’: Implementing the Anglo-Irish Agreement, November 1985-December 1986 201 Belfast Says No! Unionist Resistance to the AIA 202 ‘This is the little school girl they want to send to England’: Dublin and the ECST 206 The Unionist Protests Continue 208 The Marching Season, Summer 1986 218 October-December 1986 222 Conclusion 230 Chapter 7 ‘The Bogey-Man’: Haughey and Thatcher, 1987 233 The Unionist Protest Continues, January 1987 235 ‘We have worked together before and we can work together again’: The Return of Haughey 237 ‘Hidden eyes were watching everywhere,’ Summer 1987 245 Autumn 1987 251 ‘Innocent until proved Irish’: Anglo-Irish Relations and the ECST 254 ‘There is no such thing as 100% security’: The End of 1987 255 Conclusion 262 Epilogue “No selfish strategic interest”: Anglo-Irish relations, 1988-1990 265 ‘Appalling savagery’: 1988 266 ‘Confidence once lost cannot be restored’: 1989-1990 269 Conclusion 273 Appendix 1 279 Bibliography 281 i Acknowledgements I begin by thanking my supervisors, Dr. Kyle Hughes and Dr. Robert McNamara for their continued support and guidance throughout my post-graduate career. I have thoroughly enjoyed completing this PhD and will always be thankful I had you as my advisors. I would also like to thank Professor Don MacRaild. Without your vote of confidence, I would never have considered embarking on post-graduate research. Thank you for believing in me and pushing me in the right direction. I am also grateful to the DEL for awarding me a scholarship to complete this project. Thank you also to Chris Collins from the Margaret Thatcher Foundation for helping with my various Freedom of Information Requests. I would also like to mention the staff at the National Archives of Ireland for all their help and light-hearted teasing when I have visited. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my family and friends. My parents, Anne and David, my brother Mark and my Grandparents Archie and Margaret for their unwavering support throughout these three years. Special credit to my Dad for allowing me to move into your study. I now happily hand the desk back to you! My friends Alison, Brook, Kelly and Mark for their support and seemingly endless stream of excuses for taking a break. ii Abstract During a parliamentary speech in November, 1981, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said that to her, “Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom; as much as my constituency is”. This statement is commonly paraphrased and quoted as ‘Northern Ireland is a British as Finchley.’ The quote is often used as evidence of Thatcher’s dedication to maintaining the union with Northern Ireland. It is surprising then that in 1990 Peter Brooke, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said in a public speech that the Thatcher Government had “no selfish economic or strategic interest” in Northern Ireland and that should the majority vote for unification, they would consent. The principal aim of this project is to discover why the Thatcher Government’s attitude towards Northern Ireland changed. It will be dominated by an exploration of how both governments addressed the issue of the perpetual Northern Irish crisis. This study will delve into the personal relationships between the key Anglo-Irish political figures of the decade, namely Thatcher, Charles J. Haughey and Garret FitzGerald. Public interest in Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister was heightened following her death in 2013, the aftermath of which saw re-runs of television documentaries and interviews with her colleagues. Scholarly interest in the period has also grown due to the release of governmental records under the twenty-year and thirty-year rule in London, Dublin and Belfast. Overall, this is a timely study that aims to extract key information from the newly released records in order to explore Anglo-Irish relations between 1979-1990. Existing literature on Thatcher’s premiership is comprehensive. However, a specific study of the attitude of the Thatcher Government towards Northern Ireland and Anglo-Irish relations has yet to be undertaken. iii Abbreviations AG Attorney General AIA Anglo-Irish Agreement AIIGC Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference BBC British Broadcasting Corporation CEU Council of Europe CSJ Campaign for Social Justice DFA Department of Foreign Affairs DUP Democratic Unionist Party ECHR European Convention on Human Rights ECST European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism EEC European Economic Community FCO Foreign and Commonwealth Office GUBU Grotesque Unbelievable Bizarre and Unprecedented ICJP International Committee for Justice and Peace ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross INLA Irish National Liberation Army IRA Irish Republican Army MEP Member of European Parliament MOD Ministry of Defence MPA Member of Parliamentary Assembly MP Member of Parliament NICRM Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement NIF New Ireland Forum NIO Northern Ireland Office No. 10 Number Ten Downing Street NORAID Irish Northern Aid Committee OD (I) Cabinet Northern Ireland Sub-Committee PIRA Provisional Irish Republican Army RTÉ Raidió Teilifís Éireann iv RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party TD Teachta Dála UDA Ulster Defence Association UDR Ulster Defence Regiment UK United Kingdom UN United Nations US/USA United States/United States of America UUP/OUP Ulster Unionist Party/Official Unionist Party UVF Ulster Volunteer Force WW1 World War One WW2 World War Two v List of Tables Table 1) Results of UK General Election, 1945-1974 p. 23 vi 1 Introduction An Unrequited Love Affair? Unionism and Conservatism, 1885- 1979 Northern Ireland always tended, sooner or later, to bring out in mainland leaders an opposite set of emotions: of indifference, boredom or the kind of despair which makes all action seem futile.1 The question of Ireland, and its relationship with the United Kingdom (UK), was from the first Home Rule Bill of 1885 one of the great dividing lines of British politics.2 The Conservative party’s political dominance in Britain between 1886 and 1906 was inaugurated and arguably entrenched by its stand of defending the 1801 Act of Union. To be a British Conservative was to be Unionist. It was intimately bound up with perceptions of national and strategic interest, popular imperialism and mistrust of the largely catholic electorate of Ireland. Yet, following the creation of the Northern Ireland state in 1921, the sting went out of the Irish question in British domestic politics. The Irish Free State, which was created in 1922, would become almost Hibernia incognito while Northern Ireland and its polarized politics was overlooked. Throughout the twentieth century, Conservative policy on the Irish question fluctuated due to the political, social and economic climate in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.3 Research Questions, Contribution to Knowledge, Research Methods, Methodology and Structure of Thesis This thesis examines the changing nature of British government policy in Northern Ireland during Margaret Thatcher’s long term in office. When Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party she indicated that she would repair relations between the Conservatives 1 Hugo Young, One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher (London: Pan, 1993), p. 465. 2 Two of the best studies on the history of the Irish issue in British politics are D.