Preface
1. Paragraph 10, Joint Declaration between British and Irish Prime Ministers, Downing St, 15 November 1993.
Introduction
1. F. X. Martin, in Art Cosgrave (ed.), A New History of Ireland, Vol. II, Oxford, 1987, p. 58.
2. Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilisation, Hodder & Stoughton, 1995, p. 4.
3. Ludwig Bieler, Ireland, Harbinger of the Middle Ages, Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 4.
4. Quoted by Martin, op. cit., p. 57.
5. Houston and Smyth, Irish Emigration in Canada, University of Toronto, 1990, and Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast, p. 19.
6. David Dickson, ‘The Other Great Irish Famine’, in Cathal Poirteir (ed.), The Great Irish Famine, Mercier/RTE, 1995, p. 50.
7. T. A. Jackson, Ireland Her Own, Lawrence & Wishart, 1991, p. 217.
8. American Irish Newsletter, Political Education Committee of the American Ireland Foundation, New York.
9. On 17 February 1867.
10. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. CCIV, Col. 1053.
11. Quoted in Tim Pat Coogan, The IRA, Fontana, 1987, p. 21.
Chapter 1
1. Austin Currie, interview with author, 10/3/94.
2. W. Flackes, Northern Ireland, a Political Directory, BBC Books, 1983, p. 74.
3. When a group of young Nationalists began to revive the then nearly moribund Brotherhood, or Fenian movement, in 1907, they cloaked their activity under the guise of seemingly innocent discussion groups, known as Dungannon clubs.
4. He and I worked together on the Irish Press for a period. His descriptions of northern life are based on some conversations with me, and on interviews with Martin Dillon for The Last Colony, Channel Four, 4/7/94.
5. Recommendation of the Irish Committee to the Cabinet on 17/2/19. See Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins, Arrow, 1991, pp. 333 ff.
6. Steve Bruce, The Red Hand, 1992, p. 149.
7. David Bleakley, Conflict and Consent in Irish Politics, Mowbray, 1975, p. 53.
8. The seminar, ‘The Witness Seminar on British Policy in Northern Ireland 1964–1970’, is one of an ongoing series conducted by the Institute of Contemporary British History, founded in 1986. The proceedings are recorded and transcripts provided for the participants to correct or amend for the benefit of posterity. However, certain of my friends decided that the proceedings of the two seminars which the Institute had conducted on Northern Ireland while this book was being researched were worthy of contemporary attention, and transcripts were made available to me.
9. By Peter Rose, who read a paper setting the scene for the conference.
10. Ibid.
11. An account of Tallents’ activities can be found in Coogan, Michael Collins, op. cit., pp. 369 ff.
12. Ibid., p. 371. He changed the term to ‘disquieting’ in his final draft.
13. James Callaghan, A House Divided, Collins, 1973, p. 117.
14. Ibid., p. 1.
15. Ibid.
16. Northern Ireland Hansard, Vol. 16, Col. 1091.
17. Andrew Boyd, Brian Faulkner, Anvil, 1972, p. 26.
18. The suggestions were made by Brian Maginess, the Attorney-General, and Sir Clarence Graham, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Ulster Council. Under pressure Graham later backed away from the suggestion. It had originated within the ranks of the Unionist Society, an opinion group, and the Young Unionist associations, which are traditionally more liberal than the party leadership. The controversy may be said to have continued on and off from 1959 to 1969 when a Catholic, Louis Boyle, was refused the nomination of the South Down Unionist Association in that year’s Stormont election. By then a small number of Catholics had found their way into the Unionist Party, representing those Catholics – their number is difficult to compute – who for various reasons, chiefly economic, were, and are, privately in favour of the Union. However, the subsequent exacerbation of divisions occasioned by the Troubles has rendered the issue otiose.
19. Quoted by Boyd, op. cit., p. 36.
20. Hansard, North of Ireland Debates, Vol. 16, Col. 1095.
21. Terence O’Neill, The Autobiography of Terence O’Neill, Rupert Hart Davis, 1972, pp. 42–3.
22. David Bleakley, op. cit., p. 62.
23. Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State, Pluto, 1992, p. 227.
24. Report of Joint Working Party on the Economy of Northern Ireland, HMSO, London, October 1962.
25. Estimates vary as to what rate of housing would have been needed to do both. It seems that three times the number provided, some 18, 000 per annum, would not be an unreasonable calculation. The statistical picture of housing and social conditions may be examined in further detail in a number of publications. Two in particular are suggested: General Report, Census of Population, 1961, HMSO, Belfast, 1965; and The Hall Report on the Northern Ireland Economy, HMSO, London, 1962.
26. Roche, Birrell, Hillyard and Murie, Housing in Northern Ireland, Centre for Environmental Studies, University Working Papers, London, October 1971.
27. Stormont Senate debates, 8/10/94.
28. Belfast Newsletter, 6/3/61.
29. ‘The Town that I Loved so Well’.
30. Quoted in Tim Pat Coogan, Ireland Since the Rising, Pall Mall, 1966, p. 318. The chapter ‘The North’ in this work is based in part on research conducted on the ground into the situation as it was in the Six Counties circa the mid-sixties. Much of the information in this book concerning northern conditions at that time is based on that research.
31. These were contained in the Belfast Regional Survey and Plan, known as the Matthews Report, published in Belfast in 1961–3.
32. Antrim, Ballymena, Bangor, Carrickfergus, Carnmoney, Lame, Lurgan and Newtownards.
33. Michael Collins was only chairman of a provisional government when he met Sir James Craig early in 1922 in two meetings which proved to be of little value in halting the sectarian killings in Northern Ireland. The meetings and the Craig–Collins Pact which emerged from them are described in Coogan, Michael Collins, op. cit., pp. 339 ff.
34. Carter was addressing the Irish Association in Dublin on 19 March 1957. His talk, which was reported in the press of the time, is quoted in Tim Pat Coogan, De Valera, Hutchinson, 1993, p. 670.
35. Quoted by Patrick Buckland, A History of Northern Ireland, Gill and Macmillan, 1981, p. 152.
36. The Protestant Telegraph, 4/1/67.
37. Cooper originally made his observations in a review published in Hibernia (2/11/73), part of which was reproduced in Tim Pat Coogan, The Irish: A Personal View, Phaidon, 1975, p. 181.
38. The Protestant Telegraph, 10/8/68.
39. Ibid., 30/11/66.
40. Ibid., 22/3/69.
41. Hugh McClean, who was one of a three-man group sentenced to life imprisonment in 1966 for the murder of Peter Ward. The other two were Gusty Spence and Robert Williamson.
42. David Boulton, The UVF, Gill and Macmillan, 1973, p. 29.
43. Belfast Newsletter, 3/10/64. Quoted by Farrell, op. cit., p. 234.
44. Farrell, op. cit., p. 236.
45. Quoted by Farrell, op. cit., p. 236. For the origins of the UVF see also David Boulton, op. cit.
46. Belfast Newsletter, 16/3/66.
47. Boyd, op. cit., p. 57.
48. Ibid., p. 58.
49. Ibid., p. 57.
50. Ibid., p. 59.
51. Text in author’s possession.
52. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 728, Cols. 721–2.
53. At the Witness Seminar on British policy.
54. Coogan, Ireland Since the Rising, op. cit., p. 317.
55. Ireland Since the Rising, 1966, and The IRA, 1970.
56. Coogan, The IRA, op. cit, p. 328.
57. Ibid., p. 418.
58. The robbery campaign, which was chiefly confined to the Republic, extended between 1967–70, falling into disfavour when, in April 1970, an unarmed garda was shot in Dublin.
59. Mallie and Bishop, The Provisional IRA, p. 70.
60. Quoted in Barry White, John Hume, Statesman of the Troubles, Blackstaff, 1984, p. 44.
61. The original edition was published in 1973. Anew, expanded edition was published in 1993 by Pluto.
62. Eamonn McCann, War and an Irish Town, Pluto, 1993, p. 83.
63. O’Neill, op. cit., p. 137.
64. Interview with author, 10/3/94.
65. Ibid.
Chapter 2
1. Boyd, op. cit., p. 23.
2. McCann, op. cit., p. 92.
3. Ibid.
4. Interview with Michael A. Murphy for Ph.D. thesis, 7/6/89. Copy in author’s possession.
5. McCann, op. cit., p. 99.
6. O’Neill, op. cit., p. 106.
7. Ibid., p. 102.
8. Ibid., p. 105.
9. White, op. cit., p. 69.
10. The full text of the speech was carried in most of the Irish daily papers and in the Belfast Telegraph the next day. It also appears as an appendix in O’Neill’s autobiography (op. cit.).
11. For example: apart from obvious figures like Eamonn McCann, Michael Farrell and Bernadette Devlin, the group included Paul Bew and Paul Arthur, both professors at Queen’s University and widely respected as broadcasters and commentators, Michael Wolsey, now a senior journalist with Independent Newspapers, Tom McGurk, a broadcaster and TV script-writer, and Anne Devlin, a playwright and script-writer.
12. Bernadette Devlin, The Price of My Soul, André Deutsch, 1969, pp. 139–41.
13. The facts of the police invasion of the Bogside were subsequently confirmed by several sources, including the Cameron Commission. Eyewitnesses interviewed by the author and contemporary writers such as McCann.
14. The Commission is generally referred to as the Cameron Commission after its chairman, a Scottish High Court Judge, Lord Cameron. Its other members were Professor Sir John Biggart and Mr James Joseph Campbell. It sat in private with the assurance that no evidence given to it would be used as a basis for prosecutions.
15. O’Neill, op. cit., pp. 112–13.
16. Terence O’Neill, The Last Card, NLI (No. 7), p. 110.
17. Bruce, op. cit., p. 30.
18. Bleakley, op. cit., pp. 40–1.
19. Quoted by Flackes, op. cit., p. 105.
20. Interview with Michael A. Murphy for Ph.D. thesis, 27/7/89. Copy in author’s possession.
21. Ibid.
22. Interview with Murphy, 7/6/89, op. cit.
23. Norman St John Stevas likened it to F. E. Smith’s legendary maiden speech, and James Callaghan foresaw a place in cabinet for her.
24. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 782, Cols. 287–8.
25. Ibid.
26. Paddy Devlin, Straight Left, Blackstaff Press, 1993, p. 108.
27. The word ‘idly’ was in Lynch’s original script, but was accidentally omitted from the teleprompter when he delivered the broadcast.
28. McCann, op. cit., p. 117.
29. Ibid.
30. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollins, 1992, pp. 548–9.
31. Richard Crossman, Crossman Papers, 1975, p. 619.
32. P. Devlin, op. cit., p. 106.
33. Quoted by Bew and Gillespie, Northern Ireland Chronology, 1968–93, Gill and Macmillan, 1993, p. 18.
34. White, op. cit., p. 86.
35. Mallie and Bishop, op. cit., p. 111.
36. Crossman, op. cit., p. 620.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., p. 623.
39. Ibid., p. 622.
40. Ibid.
Chapter 3
1. Two of the best, both for ‘feel’ and detail, are contained in Mallie and Bishop, op. cit., and P. Devlin, op. cit.
2. Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., pp. 234–5.
3. Because of the unusual circumstances, the sermon was recorded for the Clonard archives. The archivist, Fr O’Donnell, kindly presented me with a copy.
4. According to Mallie and Bishop, op. cit., p. 107: ‘Head Constable Rooney decided to baton charge the Catholics, judging them to be the greatest danger to his men.’
5. P. Devlin, op. cit., p. 107.
6. Ibid., p. 106.
7. Callaghan, op. cit., p. 82.
8. Scarman was assisted by two Northern Ireland businessmen, William Marshall, a Protestant, and George Lavery, a Catholic.
9. McCann, op. cit., p. 125.
10. According to White, op. cit., p. 91, he told Hume: ‘I can’t stand this much longer. I’m fifty-nine.’
11. McCann, op. cit., p. 125.
12. Flackes, op. cit., p. 57.
13. For a description of how these and other parties evolved from the Anglo-Irish war of 1919–21 and the subsequent civil war, see Coogan, Ireland Since the Rising, The IRA, Michael Collins, or De Valera, all op. cit.
14. P. Devlin, op. cit, pp. 109–11.
15. Mallie and Bishop, op. cit., p. 122.
16. P. Devlin, op. cit., p. 115.
17. Ibid.
18. McCann, op. cit., p. 128.
19. Sean MacStiofain, Revolutionary in Ireland, Gordon Cremonesi, 1975, p. 143.
20. In Martin Dillon, The Dirty War, Arrow, 1990, xv.
21. Coogan, De Valera, op. cit., p. 386.
22. Quoted in Captain James Kelly, Orders for the Captain, Kelly Kane, 1971, p. 171.
23. Mallie and Bishop, op. cit, p. 120.
24. J. Bowyer Bell, The Irish Troubles, St Martin’s Press, 1993, p. 176.
25. Institute of Contemporary British History.
26. P. Devlin, op. cit.
27. Institute of Contemporary British History seminar on Ireland 1970–4.
28. Institute of Contemporary British History conference.
29. In the course of a dinner conversation with Kevin McNamara.
30. Quoted in Tim Pat Coogan, Disillusioned Decades 1966–87, Gill and Macmillan, 1987, p. 209.
31. Bowyer Bell, op. cit., p. 186.
Chapter 4
1. Quoted in Coogan, The Irish: A Personal View, op. cit., pp. 214–15.
2. P. Devlin, op. cit, p. 147.
3. Bew and Gillespie, op. cit., p. 17.
4. Boyd, op. cit., p. 68.
5. Ibid.
6. Martin Dillon, The Enemy Within, Doubleday, 1994, p. 98.
7. The names changed over the years. The cabinet committee that dealt with the Anglo-Irish war period and the introduction of partition was called simply the Cabinet Committee on Ireland. That which negotiated with de Valera in the pre–World War II era was known as the Irish Situation Committee.
8. Dillon, op. cit., p. 96.
9. Devlin, op. cit., p. 153.
10. Ibid.
11. Brian Faulkner, Memoirs of a Statesman, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978, pp. 14–15.
12. White, op. cit., p. 112.
13. It was repeated on RTE on 3/11/94.
14. For the Institute of Contemporary History.
15. Sunday Times, 17/10/71.
16. On 14 February 1974.
17. Quoted in Coogan, The Irish: A Personal View, op. cit., p. 192.
18. Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., pp. 546–7.
19. Piaras F. MacLochlainn, Last Words, Kilmainham Jail Restoration Society, 1971.
20. Command Paper 4823, HMSO, London, 16/11/71.
21. Republican News, Belfast, 11/9/71.
22. Crossman, op. cit., p. 478.
23. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 826, Col. 1584.
24. Ibid.
Chapter 5
1. Date of interview with Wade, 16/5/94.
2. Martin Dillon, op. cit., p. 106.
3. The Times, 1/2/72.
4. Hansard, Vol. 830, Cols. 37/et seq.
5. Conor O’Cleary, Phrases Make History Here, O’Brien Press, 1986, p. 142.
6. McCann, op. cit., p. 107.
7. Barry White, John Hume, Blackstaff, 1984, p. 122.
8. Andrew Boyd, op. cit.
9. Irish Press, 25/3/72.
10. Patrick Buckland, A History of Northern Ireland, Gill & Macrnillan, 1981, p. 163
11. Farrell, op. cit., p. 296.
12. Irish Times, 4/9/74.
13. The Scarman Report: Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969, Cmd. 566, HMSO, Belfast, 1972.
14. The Widgery Report: ‘Report of the Tribunal appointed to Enquire into the Events of Sunday, 30th of January, 1972, which Led to the Loss of Life in Connection with the Procession in Londonderry on that Day’. HC 220, 1971–72, HMSO, London, 1972.
15. White, op cit., p. 128.
16. Ibid., p. 130.
17. This account is based on the minutes of the meeting kept by the late Myles Shevlin, the recollections of the late Daithi O’Conaill, of Gerry Adams and of Lord Whitelaw, author.
18. William Whitelaw, The Whitelaw Memoirs, Aurum Press, 1989, p. 100.
19. Frank Burton, The Politics of Legitimacy, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978, p. 107.
20. Fathers Faul and Murray, ‘Death and a Lie’, September 1976, p. 1. National Library of Ireland, FR. 320, pamphlet 98.
21. The Diplock Report: Report of the Commission to consider legal procedures to deal with terrorist activities in Northern Ireland, Cmd. 5185, London, 1972.
22. Farrell, The Orange State, op. cit., p. 304.
Chapter 6
1. Robert Fisk, The Point of No Return: The Strike which broke the British Government, Andre Deutsch, 1975.
2. The Future of Northern Ireland, Discussion Paper, NIO, HMSO, London, 1972.
3. Northern Ireland Constitutional Proposals, CMD, 529, London, March 1973.
4. Quoted in Farrell, op. cit., p. 307.
5. Ibid., p. 309.
6. Bew and Gillespie, op. cit., p. 70.
7. Irish Times, 20/5/74.
8. Ibid., 22/5/74.
9. Ibid., 26/5/74.
10. White, op. cit., p. 170.
11. Quoted in Fisk, op. cit., p. 223.
12. Quoted in the Irish Times, 4/9/74.
13. Interview with Murphy, 27/7/89, op. cit.
14. Interview with author, 21/5/94.
15. Irish Times, 16/1/74.
16. Interview with Murphy, 27/7/89, op. cit.
Chapter 7
1. Irish Times, 21/11/81.
2. By the Irish Press on the morning of the signing. I had been told of the agreement’s contents some days earlier.
3. Irish Times, 13/6/74.
4. As recently as 12 December 1994, on RTE’s Pat Kenny Show, he said that his relations with Mrs Thatcher were always very satisfactory.
5. O’hAnrachain described the incident to me during a series of conversations we held in 1985–6 while I was assisting him with his memoirs. O’hAnrachain, who had served under de Valera, Sean Lemass, and Lynch before Haughey, would have produced an Irish version of Tom Jones’ celebrated Whitehall diaries had he lived, but unfortunately he died in 1987 with the task uncompleted.
6. An Irish civil servant who was present at the exchange told me she thumped the table and informed him furiously that he knew very well that there was no question of a united Ireland being involved.
7. Irish Times, 22/5/82.
8. Ibid., 26/5/82.
Chapter 8
1. Mike Mansfield, Presumed Guilty, Heinemann, 1993, p. viii.
2. Ibid., p. 234.
3. Ibid., p. 82.
4. Irish Press, 23/7/79.
5. Coogan, De Valera, op. cit, p. 64.
6. Irish Times, 3/8/79.
7. Irish Press, 29/4/81.
8. Irish Times, 16/5/81.
9. The Revd Eric McComb, speaking at the funeral of a UDR victim of the IRA on 24 January 1984, said: ‘We don’t need the Sinn Fein Cardinal to be advocating votes for those who are out to murder these men.’
10. Bew and Gillespie, op. cit., pp. 271–2.
11. Belfast Newsletter, 17/12/92.
Chapter 9
1. Coogan, The Irish: A Personal View, op. cit., p. 205.
2. The document, ‘Staff Report’, is quoted from extensively in Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., Chapter 26.
3. An tOglach, 15/8/18. Collins’ ‘Notes on Organisation’ were subsequently reproduced in Piaras Beaslai, Michael Collins and the Making of a New Ireland, Phoenix Publishing Company, 1926, pp. 203 ff.
4. My book on Collins, which appeared at his centenary in 1990, radically altered the prevailing opinion.
5. 30 January 1994.
6. The Green Book is extensively quoted in Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., Chapters 33 and 34.
7. Copy of original in author’s possession.
8. Belfast Telegraph, 13/1/82.
9. Irish Times, 13/12/74.
10. MacStiofain, op. cit., p. 238.
11. See p. 213 Merlyn Rees’ Memoirs
12. Private source.
13. Copy in author’s possession.
14. Copy in author’s possession.
15. The course of the 1992–3 discussions, and documents involved, including the Rees letter, are described in the final chapter of the 1995 edition of Coogan, The IRA, op. cit.
16. Information in author’s possession.
17. Tim Pat Coogan, On the Blanket, Ward River Press, 1980, pp. 52 ff.
18. The report, published by HMSO, 30 January 1975, was also widely published in the press.
19. Copy in author’s possession.
20. Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., p. 67.
21. The full text of the Cardinal’s statement is reproduced in Chapter 13 of Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., which also contains the objections of Amnesty International and civil liberties groups to what was happening.
22. The full text is given in Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., Chapter 13.
23. Ibid., p. 207.
24. Joseph Maguire to author, Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., p. 3.
25. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 994, Col. 27.
26. Ibid., Vol. 995, Col. 1028.
27. The originals of the H Block communications from Sands and others are preserved in Sinn Fein archives. Some, like this one dated 31/1/81, are reproduced by David Beresford in Ten Men Dead, Coogan, Grafton, 1987, p. 54. Sinn Fein hold a vast amount of Sands’ writings and it is hoped, if the conditions permit, to reprint these at some future date.
28. Beresford, op. cit., p. 129.
29. Coogan, Disillusioned Decades, op. cit., p. 233.
30. Beresford, op. cit., p. 406.
31. Quoted by the Irish Times, 19/9/91.
32. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 4, Col. 17.
33. Irish Times, 5/10/81.
34. Hansard, House of Commons, Vol. 992, Col. 134.
35. Ibid., Vol. 9, Col. 966.
36. Interview with Murphy, 7/6/89, op. cit.
Chapter 10
1. Facsimile of British intelligence officer’s letter reproduced in Beaslai, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 96.
2. In The Dirty War, op. cit., p. 28, Martin Dillon described Kitson thus: ‘Frank Kitson at twenty-seven years old was a district intelligence officer who devised techniques for terrorising the terrorists. This involved using “counter-gangs” which could be attributed to the enemy, namely the Mau Mau, in order to discredit them.’
3. There is a voluminous literature on various aspects of the underground war, some of it of dubious value. I would recommend readers to a relatively short reading list for this aspect of the struggle: Bruce, op. cit.; Michael Carver, Out of Step, Hutchinson, 1989; Coogan, The IRA, op. cit.; Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit.; Dorrill and Ramsay, Smear, Grafton, 1991; Mark Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, Faber & Faber, 1992.
4. Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit., pp. 31 ff., describes the operations of the MRF.
5. Dorrill and Ramsay, op. cit., p. 215.
6. Ibid., p. 217.
7. Copy in author’s possession.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Rees, op. cit., p. 302.
11. Hibernia, 3/10/75.
12. Beaslai, op. cit., p. 91.
13. McNamara at Oral History conference, London.
14. Urban, op. cit., p. 7.
15. Irish Times, 6/10/79.
16. Interviewed by the BBC’s War School programme after he left Northern Ireland in January 1980, General Creasey said: ‘I believe that given the national will, and efficient use of all our resources, both military, police and civil, that are at the disposal of the modem state, terrorism can be defeated and in fact that defeat is inevitable.’
17. Dorrill and Ramsay, op. cit., p. 217.
18. Urban, op. cit., p. 13.
19. Ibid., p. 11.
20. Ibid.
21. Quoted by Raymond Murray, The SAS in Ireland, Merrier, 1990, p. 229.
22. These included his solicitor and Frs Faul and Murray, who investigated the case.
23. Quoted by John Stalker, Stalker, Harrap, 1988, p. 38.
24. Quoted in some detail by Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit., pp. 226 ff.
25. Dorrill and Ramsay, op. cit., p. 216.
26. Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit., p. 197.
27. Interview with author, 24/2/95.
28. The account of what happened is based on a memo supplied to me by Fisk. It was written by Fisk in Beirut on 11 February 1995.
29. New Society, 11/10/73.
30. One officer did read back his notes, and Fisk still has a copy of the tape.
31. Fisk memo to author, op. cit.
32. Ibid.
33. Quoted by Merlyn Rees, op. cit., p. 344. Fisk wrote the article for The Times, 22/3/75.
34. A detailed list of newspaper and magazine articles, books, TV and radio programmes is given in Murray, op. cit., p. 467.
35. Paul Foot, Who Framed Colin Wallace?, Macmillan, 1989.
36. Peter Wright, with Paul Greengrass, Spycatcher, William Heinemann, 1987.
37. Dorrill and Ramsay, op. cit., p. 237.
38. Letter to author, 11/2/95.
39. Interview with author, 4/5/94.
40. Quoted in Urban, op. cit., p. 54.
41. The programme became the basis for a huge amount of coverage in all the major newspapers of Ireland and England. But some of the best writing on the Holroyd case is contained in smaller journals published contemporaneously, notably Lobster, Private Eye and, in particular, Campbell’s own series which accompanied the Channel Four programme, Victims of the Dirty War, in the Statesman.
42. Quoted by Duncan Campbell in Statesman, 4/5/84, first article of series.
43. Ibid.
44. Colin Wallace corroborated this incident to me, unprompted and independently of Holroyd. He named the RUC personnel involved in the decision, recording the comment of one prominent officer that he hoped it would ‘teach the Catholics a lesson’.
45. London Independent, 2/9/87, articles by David McKitterick and John Ware.
46. Quoted by Urban, op. cit., p. 77.
47. The Guardian, 14/3/77.
48. Ibid., 17/4/84.
49. Urban, op. cit., p. 74.
50. Ibid.
51. Coogan, Michael Collins, op. cit, 182–3.
52. Ibid., pp. 355–6.
53. The details of how the Stalker Inquiry came to be first set up and then aborted have been exhaustively discussed in the media (both print and electronic) of the English-speaking world, but the best account is Stalker’s own indispensable work (op. cit.).
54. Ibid., p. 34.
55. Ibid., p. 30.
56. Ibid., p. 50.
57. Ibid., p. 52.
58. Ibid., p. 54.
59. The dead men were Corporal Michael Francis Herbert and Corporal Michael John Cotton. They were shot on 20 March 1970, at Mowhan, South Armagh.
60. Stalker, op. cit., p. 53.
61. Michael O’Connell, Truth, the First Casualty, Riverstone, 1993, p. 222.
62. Flackes, op. cit.
63. Quoted by Urban, op. cit., p. 22.
64. Ibid.
65. I have described this person’s activities at length in The IRA, op. cit.
66. Urban, op. cit., p. 217.
67. Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., p. 453.
68. The Sunday Times, 14/5/95.
69. Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit., p. 378.
70. Martin Dillon makes a convincing case for this argument in a closely researched chapter (‘The Sting’, pp. 58–92) in The Dirty War, op. cit.
71. Ibid., p. 84.
72. The sentence was related to the robbery of the Allied Irish Bank in Dublin’s Grafton Street on 12 October 1972. During the robbery the raiders addressed each other by military tides, ‘Sergeant’, ‘Corporal’ and so on, and forced the manager to assist them by kidnapping his wife, sister-in-law and children.
73. Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit., p. 110.
74. Ibid.
75. The other members of the inquiry were Edgar Fay, QC, Recorder of Plymouth, and Dr Ronald Gibson, former chairman of the BMA Council.
76. Quoted in T. P. Coogan The IRA p. 439, HarperCollins, London, 1995.
77. The findings were carried extensively in the major Irish and English newspapers. See also Coogan, The IRA, op. cit, pp. 333 ff., and Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., pp. 132 ff.
78. Quoted in Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., pp. 333–4.
79. Quoted in Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., p. 137.
80. The Sunday Times, 23/10/77.
81. Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., p. 138.
82. Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., p. 334.
83. Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., p. 139.
84. Ibid., p. 138.
85. Ibid., p. 394.
86. Ibid.
87. Mallie and Bishop, op. cit., p. 408. The authors deal comprehensively with the supergrass issue on pp. 393–410. See also Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., pp. 393–5.
88. Quoted by Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., p. 393.
89. Stephen C. Greer, ‘Supergrasses and the Legal System’, Law Quarterly Review, April 1986.
90. Some aspects of the INLA, its leadership and feuding are dealt with in Coogan, The IRA, op. cit. But for a full-length book on the subject readers are recommended to Jack Holland and Henry McDonald, Deadly Divisions, Torc, 1994.
91. Holland and McDonald, op. cit., p. 138.
92. Coogan, The IRA, op. cit., p. 411.
93. Irish News, 10/3/87.
94. Holland and McDonald, op. cit., p. 297.
95. This became public knowledge at his trial on 29 October 1991.
96. Flackes, op. cit., p. 331.
97. Fortnight magazine, September 1992.
98. Sunday Press, 16/8/92.
99. Principally in Martin Dillon, The Shankill Butchers: A case study in mass murder, Hutchinson, 1989.
100. Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit., p. 253.
101. Ibid., p. 260.
102. Flackes, op. cit., p. 330.
103. In the unlikely surroundings of the Franciscan friary at Gormanstown, Co. Meath, at which we were both invited to usher in the New Year of 1980 by giving our prognostications for the coming decade. Both of us being threatened with optimism, we were proved wrong.
104. Foreign Office Papers, quoted by Murray, op. cit., p. 14.
105. Urban, op. cit., p. 40.
106. Ibid., p. 6.
107. On 3 December, while addressing the Newry and Mourne District Council, and on 30 October, while addressing an audience of Belfast businessmen.
108. Murray, op. cit., p. 259.
109. Urban, op. cit, pp. 56–7.
110. Dillon, The Dirty War, op. cit., p. 200.
111. Martin Dillon, Stone Cold, Arrow, 1992, p. 136.
112. Murray, op. cit., p. 258.
113. John Hume, interview with author, 14/5/94.
Chapter 11
1. Liz Curtis, Ireland, the Propaganda War, Pluto, 1984.
2. Paul Madden, ed., The British Media and Ireland: Truth, the First Casualty, Information on Ireland, 1979.
3. Harold Evans, Good Times, Bad Times, Coronet, 1984, p. 25.
4. John Ware, Secrecy, the Right to Truth and Peace in Northern Ireland, December 1993. Ware, who is frequently in demand as a lecturer, wrote the paper for this purpose, and kindly gave me a copy.
5. Ibid.
6. Readers seeking such documentation can be recommended to Curtis, op. cit.
7. Lower Master of Eton, 1878–87.
8. The Sunday Times, 6/2/72.
9. Simon Winchester, Holy Terror, Faber & Faber, 1974, p. 200.
10. O’Connell, op. cit, p. 37.
11. Winchester, op. cit., p. 20.
12. Evelyn King, MP, Daily Telegraph, 24/8/71.
13. Ibid., 20/8/71.
14. The Guardian, 20/8/71.
15. Curtis, op. cit., p. 10.
16. This happened (in November 1971) in the case of Granada’s South of the Border programme, which sought to illustrate how the Troubles affected the Republic, despite the fact that the board of Granada had voted unanimously to show the programme.
17. As early as ten days after internment (19/8/71), the Donegal Democrat carried eight pages of detailed reports from both eyewitnesses and victims of maltreatment. The paper’s page one headline read: ‘Warning: don’t read this if you have a weak stomach.’
18. The Times, 16/11/71.
19. Financial Times, 17/11/71.
20. Alasdair Milne, The Memoirs of a British Broadcaster, p. 101.
21. Asa Briggs, Governing the BBC, p. 230.
22. Ibid., p. 229.
23. New Statesman, 31/12/71.
24. Rees, op. cit., p. 74.
25. The Daily Mail on 6/1/77, the Irish Times the following day and The Observer on the 23rd.
26. Milne op. cit., p. 102.
27. Ibid.
28. Irish Times, 13/4/95.
29. Peter Taylor, ‘Thames Television’, Index on Censorship, Vol. 7, no. 6, 1978.
30. Bew and Gillespie, op. cit., p. 214.
31. The work of both Curtis and Madden provides such lists.
32. The Guardian, 23/2/80.
33. Milne, op. cit., p. 98.
34. The Sunday Times, 5/11/72.
35. Evening Standard, 11/5/72.
36. It was finally shown by the BBC in 1994.
37. At a private meeting in the House of Commons on 7 March 1977, which was reported on by the Irish Times of 10 March.
38. Curtis, op. cit., p. 55.
39. The Sunday Times, 14/3/77.
40. The Daily Telegraph, 4/3/77.
41. Coogan, On the Blanket, op. cit., p. 147.
42. The Times, 26/11/77.
43. Peter Taylor, Beating the Terrorists, Penguin, 1980.
44. The Daily Telegraph, 11/7/79.
45. The Sun, 13/7/79.
46. Daily Express, 9/11/79.
47. Garret FitzGerald, All in a Life, Gill and Macmillan, 1991, p. 279.
48. New Statesman, 16/11/79.
49. Vincent Hanna, quoted on p. 73 of the minutes of the ADM of the NUJ, April 1980.
50. Evening Standard, 9/11/79.
51. The Guardian, 9/11/79.
52. The Times, 2/8/80.
53. Hansard, Vol. 138, Col. 893.
54. Milne, op. cit., p. 140.
55. Quoted by Milne, op. cit.
56. Curtis, op. cit., p. 184.
57. FitzGerald, op. cit. p. 472.
58. Ibid., p. 462.
59. Charles Curran (ed.), The British Press, a Manifesto, Macmillan Press Ltd, 1978, p. 28.
60. The Sunday Times Insight team, Ulster, Andre Deutsch and Penguin, 1972.
61. Evans, op. cit.
62. Ibid., p. 284.
63. Ibid., p. 293.
64. Irish Press, 5/2/72.
65. Interview with author, 5/5/94.
66. The Observer, 17/1/78.
67. Observer colour supplement, 1/10/78.
68. Curtis, op. cit., pp. 192–3.
69. As the shadow of O’Brien lessened over the Observer – he ceased to be editor-in-chief in 1981 and became a consultant editor – Holland’s by-line reappeared in the paper.
70. The affair is described by Paul O’Higgins in ‘The Irish TV Sackings’, Index on Censorship, 1/1973.
71. 23 November 1972.
72. Dunne and Kerrigan, Round Up All the Usual Suspects, Magill, 1984, p. 86,
73. Dunne and Kerrigan, op. cit.
74. Irish Times, 14/2/77.
75. Six men were originally charged. However the charges were dismissed. Four were then re-charged, but only three were found guilty.
76. He had intended that the writer, Liam O’Flaherty, should be either the editor or at least a major contributor to the journal. Instead he found himself having to deal with an order for O’Flaherty’s arrest. In the disordered conditions of the time, the writer, with a group of like-minded colleagues, had raised the red flag in Dublin, and tried to set up a Soviet.
77. Fitzgerald, op. cit., p. 279.
78. Dunne and Kerrigan, op. cit., p. 181.
Chapter 12
1. Cork Examiner, 17/9/79.
2. Over one million people attended the centrepiece of the visit, an open-air Mass, celebrated by the Pope, in Phoenix Park, Dublin.
3. The Pope’s speech was carried in full in the following day’s national papers. Later in 1979 a complete collection of all his speeches in Ireland (he made an average of three to four a day) was published in Dublin by Veritas Publications.
4. The statement was released at a press conference conducted by O’Conaill, O’Bradaigh and other prominent Republicans in Dublin on 2/10/79. It was subsequently widely publicised in the national press.
5. Gerry Adams, Free Ireland, Towards a Lasting Peace, Brandon, Dingle, 1995, p. 193.
6. Ibid.
7. Link-Up, p. 19, December 1995. A clerical newsletter published by the Irish hierarchy, edited by Fr Tom Stack, PP.
8. Adams, op. cit., p. 193.
9. Ibid., p. 197.
10. Ibid., p. 159.
11. London advised Dublin against allowing the President to meet Adams, but she not alone persisted in shaking hands with him, on 18 June 1993, but later in Coalisland met local representatives who included Sinn Fein councillors.
12. Unless otherwise attributed, the quotations in the pages dealing with the SDLP–Sinn Fein negotiations are taken from the Sinn Fein publication Sinn Fein – SDLP, January–September 1989.The background information to the talks is based on my own knowledge of events.
13. Ibid., p. 197.
14. Ibid., p. 198.
15. Ibid.
16. Sunday Life, 19/2/89.
17. Brooke was a principal opponent of Health Minister Virginia Bottomley in the debate that raged through the Tory ranks throughout the spring and summer of 1995 over her efforts to close some of London’s famous old hospitals.
18. Revealed by Dr Martin Mansergh, in a lecture to the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 22/5/95.
19. An offensive by the Viet Cong in 1970 right across South Vietnam which, though it was eventually repulsed, convinced many observers that the VC were undefeatable. In the course of the onslaught the attackers invaded the American Embassy in Saigon.
20. Alan Clark, Diaries, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993, p. 99.
21. Flackes and Elliot, op. cit., p. 49.
22. In conversation with author, 25/5/95.
23. Literally, ‘beyond the mountains’. Latin tag to describe aspects of Roman Catholic dogma which are more rigorously applied in other sees, e.g. Ireland, ‘beyond the mountains’, than they are in Rome itself, within the Roman Hills.
24. The account of the Sinn Fein talks is based on records supplied to me by Sinn Fein. A compilation of these documents, Setting the Record Straight, was issued in December 1993 and lodged in the Linenhall Library, Belfast, and the National Library, Dublin. Another, less comprehensive, version of the talks, covering their later stages only, was lodged in the House of Commons Library by Sir Patrick Mayhew. An extensive account of the talks is contained in the final chapter of the May 1995 edition of Coogan, The IRA, published by HarperCollins, London.
25. The Times, 12/1/93.
26. An Phoblacht/RepublicanNews, 25/6/92.
27. Belfast Newsletter, 17/12/92.
28. Quoted by Coogan, in De Valera, op. cit., p. 181.
29. Quoted by Jack Holland, The American Connection, Poolbeg, 1989, p. 125.
30. Ibid., p. 137.
31. Ibid., p. 123.
32. Irish Times, 25/1/93.
33. Coogan, Disillusioned Decades, op. cit., p. 168.
34. Holland, op. cit., p. 131.
35. Ibid., p. 137.
36. Coogan, Disillusioned Decades, op. cit., p. 171.
37. O’Dowd and I were in close contact throughout the period, but for the purposes of this book he formally recorded his recollections and assessments in New York during November 1994.
38. The account of Reynolds’ participation in the peace process is based in part on my own observation of his activities, on various conversations with him and on a set of interviews for this book, commencing on 28 May 1995. The quotations are taken from these.
39. Six County attitudes were examined and analysed in depth in The Opsahl Report, Lilliput, 1993. Torkel Opsahl, who died shortly afterwards, was a distinguished Norwegian academic who had attempted to mediate during the Bobby Sands hunger strike. He chaired an inquiry into attitudes in the Six Counties during 1992–3, which found that most people, whatever their religious feelings, thought Sinn Fein should be involved in political talks, although equally a majority felt this could only come about after violence ended.
40. The official report is costly and turgid. More accessible is Fintan O’Toole’s Meanwhile, Back on the Ranch: the Politics of Irish Beef, Vintage, London, 1995.
41. Tim Ryan speaking on ‘Spin Doctors’ at the Humbert Summer School, Ballina, 1994. The Beef Tribunal Report was formally released on 2 August 1993. The leakage occurred on 29 July.
42. Delivered to the Irish Association in Dublin, 5/3/93.
43. Paper submitted by the UUP during the three-stranded talks process, on 7 July 1992.
44. Ibid., 6 July 1992, and amplified on succeeding days.
45. Opsahl Inquiry, op. cit., p. 40.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., p. 44.
49. Rapporteur: Mr. Jaak Vandemeulebroucke.
50. The Directory of Discrimination is one of a series of publications linked to the work of Equality, Andersonstown Road, Belfast.
51. Op. cit., p. 3.
52. Lionel Shiver, an American novelist and journalist.
53. Irish Independent, 30/3/93.
54. Mansergh lecture.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Quoted in Setting the Record Straight, Sinn Fein publication.
58. Copy in author’s possession. The communiqué was also printed in the Irish Times and Independent.
59. Copy in author’s possession.
60. Ibid.
61. Setting the Record Straight, op. cit.
62. Brendan O’Brien, The Long War, O’Brien Press, 1993, p. 247.
63. Private source, author.
64. Irish Times, 1/9/94.
65. Ibid.
66. Mansergh lecture.
67. Irish Times, 1/9/94.
68. Ibid., 24/5/94.
69. Ibid., 7/12/94.
70. The incident occurred on 21 April 1995, at a meeting of party activists in Cork North-West. Bruton was at first surprised by an unexpected question from a local radio reporter, then, with the microphone switched off and the incident, as he thought, unrecorded, he gave his forthright reply.
71. The term was used by the Fianna Fail Chief Whip, Dermot Ahern, on RTE’s Any Questions programme on 12/6/95.
72. A New Framework for Agreement, published by the Irish Government, printed by Cahill’s, Dublin, 1995.
73. 14/12/95.
74. The Sunday Business Post carried an in-depth survey of the overall military position of the Six Counties on 6/11/94. The survey was conducted with the aid of Queen’s University sociologist, Mike Tomlinson.
75. Ibid.
76. The News at One, RTE, 16/6/95.
77. Irish Voice, 31/5/95, 4/6/95.
78. Irish Times, 26/5/95.
79. Ibid.
80. On Radio Ulster, 17/6/95.
81. Irish Times, Irish Independent, 19/6/95.
82. Ibid.
83. In the Dail, and subsequently in a series of TV and print interviews, conducted on the same day, 25/7/95.
84. On RTE’s major weekly radio news programme, This Week, 23/7/95.
85. The State We’re In, by Will Hutton, Cape, London, 1995.
86. Hutton, op. cit., pp. 9–10.
87. Irish Times, 11/7/95.
88. Irish Times, 11/7/95.
89. Ibid.
90. Irish Times, 13/7/95.
91. Irish Times, 15/7/95.
92. Irish Times, 15/7/95.
93. Sunday Business Post, 23/7/95.
94. Ibid.
95. Dail debates, 26/7/95.
96. Sunday Business Post, 23/7/95.
97. Guardian, 27/7/95.
98. The Economic Consequences of Peace in Ireland, by Alan Gray, Indecon International Economic Consultants, Dublin, 1995.
99. Seamus Heaney, The Cure at Troy, A Version of Sophocles’s Philoctetes, Faber, 1990.
Epilogue
1. Irish Times, 13/6/96.
2. The IRA, by Tim Pat Coogan, p. 157, HarperCollins, London, 1995.
3. Irish News, 13/5/96.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Copy in author’s possession.
7. Irish Times, 20/6/96.
8. Sunday Tribune, 23/6/96.
9. Conversation with author, 23/6/96.
10. I drew attention to the statistics in a much-commented-on article in the Irish Times on June 20/06/96, author.
11. Sunday Tribune, 23/6/96.