Diplomatic relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom 1916-2016

Speech of Professor Mary McAleese, St Mary's University, Twickenham

Churchill Room, Portcullis House, Westminster

Wednesday February 24 2016

February 24 1916

The story of diplomatic relations between Ireland and Great Britain over the course of the past century, at its simplest is a story that moves from darkness to light, from enmity to friendship, from conflict to peace, from obsession with the past to focus on the future. Queen Elizabeth with deft diplomacy sketched the turbulent history of these two neighbouring but often not so neighbourly islands in her memorable speech in Dublin Castle in May 2011.

«Of course, the relationship has not always been straightforward; nor has the record over the centuries been entirely benign. It is a sad and regrettable reality that through history our islands have experienced more than their fair share of heartache, turbulence and loss. [...]With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all».

Reflecting on those difficult centuries I had remarked at the same event that:

"Inevitably where there are the colonisers and the colonised the past is a repository of bitter division. The harsh facts cannot be altered [...] but with time and generosity [...] perspectives can soften and open up space for new accommodations».

A measure of the consequences of those harsh unalterable facts is the fact that until the Queen's historic visit no British Monarch had set foot in Dublin for one hundred years. In July 1911 the Queen's grandfather George V had visited Ireland on his accession tour as King of the United Kingdom, the British Dominions and Emperor of India. His first cousin Wilhelm II was at the time King of Prussia and German Kaiser. He would be the last German Kaiser. His other first cousin Nicholas was Emperor of , Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland. He would be the last Russian Tsar. I mention these names because without much help they conjure up an important part of the geopolitical maelstrom which was the backdrop to Anglo-Irish relations in the early twentieth century. The day of Empires was shortly coming to a close. Ireland was then part of the British Empire. In 1916 the Empire was at war. 200000 Irish men fought and over 30,000 died for the Empire in that deadliest of wars. Posters on street corners in 1916 exhorted Irish men to do their bit for Ireland, meaning the Empire, to be a hero, to do the honourable thing and take up weapons to kill the Hun. The presumption was that every Irish man owed allegiance and loyalty to the British empire. But there was another tide in Ireland and it was not new. It was the idea of a self-governing Ireland where loyalty was to the and their right to self-determination. It was synthesised in a famous lecture by the man who was to become Ireland's first President, the Protestant nationalist scholar, . On November 25 1892 in a lecture entitled "the necessity of De-Anglicising Ireland", delivered to the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin, he had appealed to everyone: "to do his best to help the Irish race develop in future upon Irish lines even at the risk of encouraging national aspirations because upon Irish lines alone can the Irish race once more become what it was of yore- one of the most original, artistic, literary and charming peoples of Europe".

The notion of Home Rule for Ireland had long been in the ether – since in fact the beginning of the 19th century when the Act of Union abolished the Irish parliament and moved political control of Ireland to . Parnell following the tradition of O'Connellite constitutional politics had built the Irish Parliamentary Party into a highly influential political force at Westminster. As historian A.J.P. Taylor says: "More than any other man he gave Ireland the sense of being an independent nation". His day was long over in 1916 but his political legacy was still evident as the push for Home Rule proved. But Home Rule was to both provoke and highlight the fractures in Irish society; the Protestant-Catholic divide, the North - South divide, the nationalist- Unionist divide, the Irish-British divide, the imperial/republican divide, the planter/native divide; all conducing to a clash of loyalties and identities and a strong resistance to the legitimacy of the views of the other. The British government's promise of Home Rule died on the vine of Unionist opposition which had threatened civil war before the Great War began. In response Irish republicans made their bid for Irish freedom on Easter Monday 1916, choosing a time when the war was in the doldrums and its popularity waning. For better or for worse the die was cast. The Rising would end in the cathartic executions of the leaders of the Rising, the demolition of Redmond's political base by the rising tide of Sinn Fein and a war of Independence in which Maurice Walsh says the newly formed IRA crafted: «the first successful revolt anywhere against the British Empire. Far from being anti-democratic it was part of the post Great War turmoil which saw the collapse of empires [...] and the growth of democracy». Ronan Fanning argues in Fatal Path that without the Rising and Britain's fateful response to it Ireland would not have achieved the independence it enjoys today. But as former Irish Ambassador Sean O' h'Uiginn has said the British/unionist insistence on partitioning the island «pushed into a corner called » problems which derived «essentially from unfinished business between the two islands». In making peace with the idea of Irish independence the Empire also had to make peace with the larger harsh reality that the sun was going down on the British Empire. It was hard to accept, coming so soon after the its heyday at the turn of the century. Attitudes hardened. Irish nationalist resentment of British imperialism and British unionist resentment of Irish independence and what it considered Irish disloyalty to the Empire, conspired to lose track, among other things, of the significant Irish contributions made by Irish citizens of all religions and politics to both World Wars. Irish neutrality during the Second World War was the remembered headline while the visit in 1946 of Lord Mountbatten on behalf of the British Government was written out of even the footnotes. He presented the Irish President with a beautiful copper beech in gratitude for the help given to the Allies during the War. Despite that spontaneous acknowledgment the decades which followed were characterised by frostiness rather than friendliness. Meanwhile Northern Ireland failed to resolve its sectarian and political problems. The British Government took a hands off approach to Northern Ireland and a view that what happened there was an internal matter for the United Kingdom, so excluding the Irish government from a say in affairs North of the Border. I and others on all sides whose lives were damaged by are entitled to ask what might have happened if the British Government had listened more attentively to my predecessor when on August 1st 1969 as Ireland's Foreign minister he came to this city to plead with his UK counterpart Michael Stewart that city was "a powder keg" that needed very sensitive handling. He was told that: it was a matter for the Northern Ireland Government" and ‘there is a limit to the extent to which we can discuss with outsiders – even our nearest neighbours – this internal matter.’1 and again a few weeks later as the conflict escalated, back here again to try and help avoid the looming disaster, he was told by Lord Chalfont "This is not a situation in which the citizens of Ireland are involved".2

1 Per Noel Dorr. Quotation taken from the Irish side’s note of the meeting in National Archives of Ireland file 2000/6/557. Noel Dorr has written about these events in much greater detail elsewhere. See ed. Michael Kennedy and Deirdre McMahon Obligations and Responsibilities: Ireland and the United Nations 1955-2005 (Institute of Public Administration, Dublin, 2005) 253-280 and Noel Dorr Ireland at the United Nations: Memories of the Early Years (IPA, Dublin, 2010) chapters 10 and 11. 2 Per Noel Dorr. This quotations is taken from the confidential report by the Irish side on the meeting. National Archives of Ireland 2000/6/558. Copy also in the possession of Noel Dorr. The records show regrettably that Hillery's comprehension, analysis and judgment of events and realities on both sides, over that tragic period were considerably more astute, realistic and prophetic than those he encountered here in London. Ireland and Britain subsequently joined the on the same day in 1973, two sovereign nations, equals and partners in the single most exciting advanced political and economic consensus based initiative in world history. British and Irish politicians, diplomats and civil servants met more frequently and talked together over a greater range of issues. The massification of second and third level education on both islands brought new streams of thinking and new actors into civic life and the body politic. The grip of old elites loosened. The grip of old shibboleths too. Distinguished former Irish Ambassador Sean o'hUiginn has observed that there was in fact close cooperation between the British and Irish governments on many practical issues but Northern Ireland was as he describes it "a potentially limiting fault line". In the aftermath of the introduction and failure of internment and the prorogation of the devolved Unionist administration in Northern Ireland, it was Ted Heath who, breaking with past attitudes, involved the Irish government led by , in discussions on the future of Northern Ireland. From that came the Sunningdale Agreement with its power-sharing executive, a brave attempt at building a shared society based on parity of esteem, it was brought down by strong loyalist opposition. A dreadful period ensued when as one key player also a former Irish ambassador to the U.K. remarked: "there was neither trust nor empathy" between the two governments thanks to disagreement on issues as widely divergent as the hunger strikes and the Falkland war. The lowest ebb was probably in 1984 when proposals for the future of Northern Ireland suggested by the Irish Government's New Ireland Forum, were bluntly dismissed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with three words- "Out Out Out". Yet it was Margaret Thatcher's commitment to the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement constructed by both the British and Irish governments, which provided evidence to unionism that there would be no escape from the Irish dimension and no permanent unionist veto. That agreement often characterised as a clumsy failure was nonetheless an important stepping stone for it signalled a significant change in British attitudes which in turn led to a change of heart by republican paramilitaries, one harvested radically by the great peace-maker and political thinker John Hume in his persuasive discourse with Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams. Between them they eventually brought about a conversion to the use solely of constitutional politics to achieve the political ambition of a United Ireland. Despite the ongoing background of violence, the relationship between the two governments strengthened thanks to two sets of formidable personal relationships. The first was the genuine personal friendship between and a beleaguered John Majors which allowed them to navigate a very difficult realpolitik, curse and swear at one another yet remain friends who could laugh and importantly stay friends even after a serious disagreement. Next came the relationship between Bertie Aherne and Tony Blair, with Bill Clinton making up a powerful and effective triumvirate ably assisted by the diplomatic skills of Senator George Mitchell. Their level of engagement with the protagonists in the conflict is a master class in getting the job done. They micromanaged the participants to the Good Friday Agreement, and eventually even succeeded with the St Andrew's Agreement in bringing Dr. Paisley and the DUP on board. Their mutual engagement was always courteous, respectful and civil. It gave public witness to how politics could and should be conducted. It proved the worth of good neighbours and the power of collaboration. They softened the language and tone of interjurisdictional politics and in doing so were able to let a new future in. Old wounds so often before reopened by the bitter word or the work of bombs and bullets, began to heal. Trust and hope was generated by a new era in diplomatic relations and they began to bridge the chasms of history. The genius of the twin referenda North and South revealed the huge will for peace in the hearts of those on all sides. North and South, Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and Nationalist, took ownership of the agreement and gave it a secure backstop. There was no going back. The three sets of relationships so essential to a permanent peace, were in an interlocking web underpinned by the will of the people and an international treaty. Northern Ireland was to remain in the UK for as long as that was the will of its people. The republic removed from its Constitution its assertion of territorial rights over the North. Regular referenda would be held to in future to test the level of support for unity with the rest of Ireland and if a majority favoured it, the British government would not stand in its way but would with the Irish government, facilitate the constitutional change. Structures within the North would promote intercommunal collaboration and shared governance. Cross- border structures would build the North South relationship and East West structures would grow the relationships between the two islands. A fair and humanly decent structure, the future promised by the GFA is now being lived. It is being grown from embryo to toddler (complete with the odd tantrum) and hopefully to strong adulthood in the fullness of time. It is a project of all the people and all the politicians of both these islands. We all hold it in a sacred trust. Six months on from the Good Friday Agreement Her Majesty the Queen and I opened the island of Ireland peace Tower at Messines, Belgium, in honour of all those Irishmen, Catholic and Protestant, unionist and nationalist who had died in the Great War. A story which had been used to foster division rapidly became a platform of shared memory uniting Catholic and Protestant and North and South, in respectful acknowledgment of Ireland's solid contribution to that war and the men who created it with their lives. It would however be another thirteen years before an invitation to Queen Elizabeth could be issued to visit the Republic as the Peace Process plodded painfully through the resolution of complex and controversial outstanding issues. It is a credit to the main political players and the people of Northern Ireland that the conditions eventually arrived which allowed the Queen to visit Ireland and with such spectacular success. Among her first engagements was a visit to the Garden of Remembrance which honours the memory of all those who over generations died trying to end British rule in Ireland. To quote Briona NicDhiarmada " Here, on the same spot where the defeated rebels were held before being marched off, some to prison ,some to their deaths before British firing squads, Queen Elizabeth bowed her head and laid a wreath in memory of her erstwhile enemies. It was a remarkable moment in the long and turbulent history of these two neighbouring islands" It was also a healing moment and a telling indicator of where we both were on that long road from darkness to light. In the run up to her visit there were those who did not want the visit, others who thought it too soon, or too dangerous. Her Majesty's lasted four days, considerably longer than any State Visit during my fourteen years as President. That in itself was a statement of intent both ways and an act of faith in one another. Two days later I got a letter that summed it all up- it was from a ninety year old Irish Republican woman who was strongly anti-monarchy and in particular as she put it- had no time for the monarch next door and definitely did not want her visiting Ireland. She said that having watched the four days on television she was sure it "had been choreographed by the angels". Whatever about angels one thing was certain after those four days, Ireland and Britain were now good neighbours, friends, partners and as the Queen put it; "we are able to bow to the past and not be bound by it". These hundred years have seen massive changes. Things that were deemed strong and invincible a century ago have disappeared into the footnotes of history. Things that seemed weak and set for failure have grown strong and enduring. Conflicts that seemed intractable have been quelled by the politics of peace. Ireland and Britain are today egalitarian democracies underpinned by respect for human rights. We meet now on the international stage as equals and as good neighbours. In back of the world of politics and diplomacy are legions of men and women from Ireland who have made their lives in Britain and vice versa. The web of personal connections is richly textured and strong. It is infused with a new confidence and trust in one another. I pay tribute to the men, women and young people on all sides who have worked to recalibrate the historically skewed relationships between these islands. Today's peace came at an awful cost in terms of lives lost, bodies and hearts permanently broken and bitter lessons learnt. Its momentum is clear. In May 2011 Sinn Fein had refused invitations to the dinner in the Queen's honour at Dublin Castle. Three years later when President Higgins made the first State visit by an Irish President to Britain, Martin McGuinness was at the dinner table at Windsor Castle. Her Majesty the Queen summarised the state of relations well: "We, the Irish and British, are becoming good and dependable neighbours and better friends; finally shedding our inhibitions about seeing the best in each other. [...] indeed, there is today no closer working relationship for my Government than that with Ireland". No better epitaph for the past no better signpost to the future.