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FORMER NORTHERN IRELAND Secretary of State Mo Mowlam told Fr. Alec Reid that she was ‘f****d’ if there was another paramilitary killing during the decommissioning impasse in August 1999.
Mowlam, who died from cancer in 2005, was one of the critical figures during the Northern Ireland peace process and drew praise from across the political spectrum for her bravery and no-nonsense approach.
Each year, decades-old government documents are released under the National Archives Act, providing journalists and historians a fresh glimpse into historical events.
Previously confidential files from the Department of An Taoiseach NI Division in 1999 have now been released and shed further light on the aftermath to the Good Friday Agreement.
One such file written by Martin Manseragh, a former NI advisor to successive Fianna Fáil taoisigh, reported that Gerry Adams had said the peace process was “surviving by the grace of God” in the year after the GFA.
Outstanding issues leading to the stagnating process included decommissioning, ongoing paramilitary ‘punishment attacks’, British demilitarisation and policing reform.
Paramilitary groups on both sides struggled to maintain discipline in their ranks and the shooting dead of a Catholic taxi driver Charles Bennett by the Provisional IRA in July 1999 put a specific pressure on the process.
Manseragh and other officials met with Fr. Reid on a number of occasions during this period to gauge the mood within republicanism and reports of these meetings show that the leadership of both Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA were under strain.
The late Fr. Reid was one of the pivotal figures in the Northern Ireland peace process, having acted as an intermediary for paramilitaries and in facilitating talks between Adams and SDLP leader John Hume.
In the weeks following the killing of Bennett, secret Irish government documents contain reports of discussions with Fr. Reid after the priest had held separate meetings with Adams and Mowlam, as well as a briefing he had had from the IRA Army Council.
Reid reported following his briefing from the IRA Army Council that the focus on decommissioning had “caused credibility problems for the Sinn Fein leadership”.
“The Army Council could not decommission one gun without an Army Convention, which would require a two-thirds majority, and without a change in its constitution. This was simply not on at present. It would be ‘pushing at a door, and it will not open’,” Fr. Reid reported to officials.
The files also showed that there were serious questions over whether Adams and Martin McGuinness could convince the Provisional IRA to give up its weapons.
There were even questions over the manner in which decommissioning could take place, with another report showing that Adams had warned Fr. Reid that elements in republicanism viewed dumping the weapons as being interpreted as “surrender”.
In one file, it is reported that a focus on decommissioning could “drive people back to war” and that “the main problem now was simply to hold the movement together and keep the ceasefire”.
In another file, Fr. Reid reported that Adams was “in very indifferent shape despite two weeks’ holiday” and that his impression of the Sinn Féin leader was that “he was depressed and feared the process was doomed”.
His report of Mowlam was more direct, however, saying that she “showed much understanding of the situation” but had told him that “if there was another killing in the next fortnight, she was f****d”.
Reid was encouraged by Irish officials to press home the message to the Republican Movement that they shouldn’t be “pushed into error” by delays as this would “hand the victory to Unionists”.
The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning assessed that the last of the IRA’s weapons were put beyond use in 2005, with loyalist paramilitaries doing so a number of years later in 2009.
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France. Always have been. Always will be.
@Vonvonic: seriously?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: I would agree with Vonvonic. The alliance goes back to Norman-Ireland. A lot of the Normans that settled in Ireland would have classed themselves as more French than English.
@Vonvonic: I would agree you only have to look at the Wolfe Tone connection
@Patrick Corr: it was at Fontenoy that the cry was heard, while charging at the British in the decisive rout by the Irish Brigade, Remember Limerick and Saxon Perfidy.
@Vonvonic: Bien sûr mon ami!
It has to be said that Irelands department of foreign affairs have done a great job over the past few years with the UN Security Council, the observer statuses, etc., but the reality is Ireland has lost our biggest ally in the EU now that the UK has gone and there are a few countries who have their eyes on several of Irelands laws and policies that they will target and not for Irelands benefit. The commenters on this site are 90% anti UK, and definitely anti everything the government does, so it’s not the best comment section to get a decent POV but it would be good to see if Irish people, in general, are aware of where we stand in the EU today
@Local Ore: The article addresses this, we build alliances on a policy basis rather than being wedded to any particular one on all things. This is a highly beneficial approach that creates political capital. The divergence of Ireland and the UK within the EU has been going on so long that when it they did leave, it impacted us far less than many expected. We are well able to plough our own furrow and protect our own interests, while keeping a pragmatic and flexible position in a fast changing world. We are also now the only EU member State with english as a first language. If we weren’t doing so well already, I’d go so far as to say that the UK’s act of self-isolation will be the making of Ireland.
@Eoin Roche: Ireland’s economic success is completely due to FDI. It was 288% of GDP in 2019. The UK accounts for far more of FDI than any EU country. In terms of exports, The US and The UK account for 41% of Irelands exports, France accounts for 4%… I mention this because France competes with Ireland far, far more than people think and they intend to target Irelands FDI, I have members of my team supporting French Public Sector bodies right now reviewing EU policies on how to target the €1Trn FDI Ireland gets. Think of the size of France, we import about €13bn from them, they import about €5bn from us. France and Germany plan to strengthen their ties and “leadership” (control) of the EU over the coming years, this isn’t to support “the making of Ireland”, it’s to grow themselves
@Eoin Roche: Dublin is now an outlier in an EU where reliance on foreign multinationals will no longer be ignored. These companies now account for 32 percent of all jobs in Ireland and 49 percent of employment taxes. 75 percent of recent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Ireland either comes from the U.S. (58 percent) or the U.K. (17 percent). By contrast, just 5 percent comes from Germany. Dublins Economic Model is the talking point of EU policymakers, as I mentioned, and we are already seeing it – harmonised corporation tax. Next will be FDI policy and they are already drawing it up to try to “harmonise” it toward other EU countries.
@Eoin Roche: Correction: Malta has English as a first language.
@Nick Caffrey: Correction: Maltese is the 1st language in Malta, English is 2nd and also an official language
@Local Ore: You are failing to differentiate between US FDI and UK FDI. The US is by far more important than the UK to us, no comparison. Why do you conflate two wildly different countries/economies?
@Leo Sharkey: I’m not conflating them in any way, I’m pointing out that Irelands largest investment, and trade, comes from outside the EU and was heavily protected by the UK supporting Ireland on policy and vice-versa. I’ve seen people on this site say France and Germany are major allies/supporters of Ireland and I wonder if it’s total lack of knowledge, deliberate ignorance or just the anti-UK sentiment of most of the commenters. Only in Ireland do people think Ireland is better off in the EU without the UK… it goes against all logic and facts. The EU is a body of consultation and common action between states, underpinned by legal and institutional arrangements. These arrangements are evolving in response to needs as they arise and France and Germany’s needs to do not align to Irelands.
France and Germany have supported us throughout the whole Brexit process and NI protocol . If they wavered in their support for us, the British would sense an opportunity and end up causing trouble in Northern Ireland.
We are more aligned with our Nordic blood brothers and france than any of the other countries in europe.
It is worth recalling that the old British policy of DIVIDE AND CONQUER failed when they attempted to disunite the EU approach to recent events.
It’s a right tough one, not Portugal or Spain because of the amount that go there on holiday, they know what we are like when let out. Not the French as they’ve always tried to help us but end up making a balls out of it and then think it’s our fault. Not Poland, they know what we’re like too from half of them being here at one stage. It wont be the Italians either as the blue shirts have given Mussolini’s black shirts a bad name! I’ll run out of characters soon so I’m sure others can fill in the blanks, who haven’t we pissed off?
@This time its personable!: Did you read the article? The Scandinavian and Benelux countries are our natural allies in Europe.
@JustMeHere: I did boy, I didn’t include them there I was pointing out the additional reasons why the others aren’t too for caring about us!
I would argue that Angela Merkel and Germany have been our quiet allies for 20 years, France, the Baltic, and Benelux states, but generally speaking we have good relationships with all our EU colleagues.
@Leo Sharkey: I literally work in this area of the public sector and can tell by this comment that you most definitely do not. France has been attacking Irelands tax and FDI for my entire career, the “Dublin Economy” drives them mad in Brussels. The Netherlands directly competes, and wins, in financial services with Ireland. Ireland has a deregulated, highly flexible global economy that lacks the comprehensive social protections of continental counterparts such as the Netherlands or Denmark, the model stands in stark contrast to the centralism unleashed from the Elysée. The countries you mention are highly focused on corporate and digital taxation, data protection and the further centralization of the eurozone – all massively damaging and contrasting to the Irish model.
Henry 8th’s break was the same mentality as Brexit. A difference is that Boris will not be confiscating assets of Europeans and calling it a reformation.
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