Do you want to go straight to a particular resource? Use the Jump Tool and follow 2 steps:
This can usually be found in the top hero section of overview, delegations visualize, session visualize, event visualize, commentary collection, commentary item, resource collection, and resource item pages.
Enter the shortcut code for the page that you wish to search for.
These documents were scanned, collated and catalogued by Ruth Murray, Annabel Harris, Isha Pareek, Eleanor Williams, Antoine Yenk, Harriet Carter, Rosa Moore, Oliver Nicholls, Kieran Wetherwick, and Cerys Griffiths.
Collection associations (1)
Already have an account? Login here
Don't have an account? Register here
Forgot your password? Click here to reset it
None
Copyright
None
Physical Copy Information
None
Digital Copy Information
None
15 November 1993
R M J Lyne Esq No 10 Downing Street London SW1
MEETING WITH THE TAOISEACH, 12 NOVEMBER
I enclose the promised account of Friday's meeting (I have not copied it: if you are content, could you please do this?) Our subsequent dinner with Mansergh and O hUiginn added little of substance. They sought to persuade us that they were justified in their assessment of what PIRA might need to call a halt to violence. We sought to persuade them – with difficulty – that a Joint Declaration could present the most severe political difficulties for the Prime Minister and the Government. We also explored to death the reasons for the fundamental misunderstanding between the two Heads of Government. The important thing is that following your visit we both have a better idea of the other's position.
You invited my comments. First, I believe that most of what the Taoiseach said can be taken at face value. He is convinced that an opportunity exists, and he wants to take it for the best of motives and because, as he puts it, not to take it would be politically untenable. He has great faith in his relationship with the Prime Minister and he has gone out on a limb with nationalist opinion in the Republic (including some in his own party) and in Northern Ireland in coming out in British company against John Hume, Sinn Fein and the simplistic call for "peace". Like many Irish people, he believes that as regards Irish affairs the learning curve of many British politicians is steep and their attention span brief: another reason for him to go for it now. He also shares the widespread Irish assumption that the British, for whom Ireland is only one of many concerns, tend to get it wrong unless they are guided by the Irish. The resultant rather hectoring approach can easily look like threatening behaviour – as it did on Friday. Of course, the lines between guidance, warning and threat are thin ones, and the Irish are quite able to overstep them. Many of their recent public statements constitute an attempt to put pressure on us to behave sensibly, as they would see it, and this is doubtless one of the purposes of the Tanaiste's three-day visit to the United States beginning today.
I would distrust what the Taoiseach said about the acceptability of the draft Declaration to unionists. I understand that Archbishop Eames' account of what he has told the Taoiseach is not quite what we heard from the Taoiseach on Friday. More generally, the Taoiseach (and the Tanaiste, and other Ministers) have a tendency to believe in the power of words to bridge gaps of substance; and to allow their judgement to be influenced by what they want to hear. (They recently came a cropper over EU structural funds for precisely these reasons.) They are therefore not the best brokers of texts – though I would trust Mansergh on this more than I would the others.
I was struck by the emotional way in which the Taoiseach reacted to our attempts to probe his views on alternative strategies (provoking a negative PIRA response; offering only a seat at the table as the price of the cessation of violence; issuing a declaration only when violence has stopped). He refused to discuss them and produced an artificial head of steam. This and his fake tantrum at the end of the meeting were obviously designed to underline his determination to proceed on the course he proposes and not be sidetracked. However, I believe that the views we heard from him and the others on nationalist and PIRA psychology were right. You objected that it was all theology: but they are theologists.
I find it difficult to say that we should do as the Taoiseach wants, because I am not the judge of unionist reactions and anyway I have not seen the draft text. But if we turn him down, I am reasonably certain that the Taoiseach's warnings about reaction in the Republic will prove correct, and that we risk some sort of rupture with the Irish. How bad a rupture is hard to say. The Irish don't want a rupture any more than we do, and were Reynolds to escape from his hook – either by smoking out the Provisionals, or by finding an anodyne formula at the 3 December Summit which let the air out of the bag slowly – we might both escape without much damage. But some in the Irish Government (perhaps not Reynolds) would want to make us pay for ignoring their wishes, and there would be plenty of others – notably PIRA/Sinn Fein – eager to drive any wedges in deeper.
But I do believe that this could be a time of opportunity, and that we should do all we can to test it. A no-risk response would be unlikely to do this.
26
22
62
61 1997 - 1997
84 1996 - 1997
112 1997 - 1997
4 1997 - 1997
70 1997 - 1997
85 1997 - 1997
52 1997 - 1997
65 1992 - 1997
3
109 1997 - 1997
89 1997 - 1997
83 1997 - 1997
57 1992 - 1997
68 1997 - 1997
94 1997 - 1997
74 1997 - 1997
68 1997 - 1997
53 1997 - 1997
125 1995 - 1998
107 1996 - 1998
131 1998 - 1998
86 1998 - 1998
38 1991 - 1991
61 1991 - 1992
48 1992 - 1993
58 1993 - 1993
59 1993 - 1993
84 1993 - 1993
134 1993 - 1994
48 1996 - 1996
43 1996 - 1996
86 1996 - 1996
79 1996 - 1996
78 1996 - 1996
55 1996 - 1996
86 1996 - 1996
20 1996 - 1996
22 1996 - 1996
17 1996 - 1996
69 1996 - 1996
31 1996 - 1996
64 1996 - 1996
96 1992 - 1997
79 1996 - 1997
58 1996 - 1997
117 1996 - 1997
46 1997 - 1997
49 1996 - 1997
27 1988 - 1990
8 1989 - 1990
55 1990 - 1991
64 1991 - 1991
60 1993 - 1994
77 1993 - 1993
64 1993 - 1993
49 1993 - 1995
54 1993 - 1993
57 1993 - 1993
59 1993 - 1993
51 1993 - 1993
26 1993 - 1993
38 1993 - 1993
65 1993 - 1993
37 1993 - 1993
32 1993 - 1993
18 1993 - 1993
24 1993 - 1994
41 1993 - 1994
76 1993 - 1994
32 1993 - 1994
72 1993 - 1994
1 1994
33 1996 - 1996
14 1996 - 1997
4 1996 - 1996
41 1996 - 1996
33 1996 - 1996
30 1996 - 1996
7 1996 - 1996
24 1996 - 1996
17 1996 - 1996
9 1996 - 1996
59 1996 - 1996
73 1996 - 1996
71 1996 - 1996
54 1996 - 1996
22 1996 - 1996
53 1996 - 1996
77 1996 - 1996
67 1996 - 1996
66 1996 - 1996
49 1996 - 1996
20 1996 - 1997
32 1996 - 1996
47 1996 - 1996
34 1996 - 1996
37 /196 - 1996
31 1996 - 1996
45 1996 - 1996
33 196 - 1996
60 1996 - 1996
77 1996 - 1996
6 1996 - 1997
39 1996 - 1996
14 1996 - 1996
14 1996 - 1996
11 1996 - 1996
61 1996 - 1996
23 1996 - 1996
16 1996 - 1996
David Blatherwick writes to Roderic Lyne enclosing his note for the record of their 12 November 1993 meeting with Albert Reynolds, Martin Mansergh and Seán Ó hUiginn. He also provides further commentary on his impressions of the meeting, stressing that, whilst their perception of widespread unionist assent to the Joint Declaration might be optimistic, the Irish were earnest in their desire for peace and their hope in being able to secure it. Further notes that a break with them over this would be difficult to avoid given the likely reaction in the Republic of Ireland to a loss of momentum.
N/A
N/A
Unless further or otherwise specified below, this material falls under Crown Copyright and contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
The National Archives of the UK (TNA), digitized by the Quill Project at https://quillproject.net/resource_collections/351/.