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Anglo-Irish Relations since 1968: A ‘Fever Chart’ Interpretation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Paul Arthur
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Extract

BURKE ISSUED THE CAUTION IN 1767: ‘WHEN ANY COMMUNITY is subordinately connected with another, the great danger of the connection is the extreme pride and self-complacency of the superior which in all matters of controversy will probably decide in its own favour’. He was writing about the American colonies but his remarks are equally pertinent to relations between Britain and Ireland then and now. Given this asymmetrical relationship and a long history of mutual hostility, it may appear curious that an almost audible sigh of relief was heard in London when a coalition government, headed by Dr Garret FitzGerald, was sworn in to lead a new Dail on 14 December 1982.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1983 , pp. 157 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1983

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References

1 See his Towards a New Ireland, London, Temple Smith, 1972, and the Fine Gael policy document, Ireland—Our Future Together, Dublin, 1979.

2 Quoted in The Irish Times, 11 November 1982.

3 The phrase is borrowed from Patrick Keatinge, ‘An Odd Couple? Obstacles and Opportunities in Inter-;State Political Co-Operation between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom’, in Rea, D. (ed.), Political Co-Operation in Divided Societies, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1982, p. 319 Google Scholar.

4 Vital, David, The Making of British Foreign Policy, London, Allen & Unwin, 1968, p. 110 Google Scholar.

5 Keatinge, Patrick, A Place Among the Nations, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration, 1978, pp. 106–8Google Scholar, cites instances of hostile Home Office reaction in the 1930s; Fanning, Ronan, ‘The Response of the London and Belfast Governments to the Declaration of the Republic of Ireland, 1948–49’, International Affairs, 1981–82, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 94–114 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, produces similar evidence for the 1940s. And a respected Ulster politician leaves us with his impression of deputations to Whitehall in the 1960s: ‘The Home Office officials were not only unhelpful, they were downright obstructive, and we had grounds for believing that they were secretly furnishing Stormont with reports on our private representations to Labour Ministers’. See Brett, C. E. B., Long Shadows Cast Before, Edinburgh, Bartholomew & Son, 1978, p. 135 Google Scholar.

6 Peck, John, Dublin From Downing Street, Dublin, 1978, pp. 16–17 and p. 116Google Scholar.

7 Fanning, op. cit., p. 113 and passim.

8 Patrick Keatinge, in Rea, Op. cit., p. 321.

9 CAB/128/15/2A-;3A, cited in Fanning, op. cit., p. 111.

10 See Patrick Keatinge, 1978, Op. cit., Ch. 4 and 6, for a development of this point.

11 Quoted in Garvin, Tom, The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1981, p. 189 Google Scholar.

12 Louvain Lecture to the Irish Club in Belgium reported in The Irish Times, 25 March 1982.

13 Wallace, William, The Foreign Policy Process in Britain, London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1975, p. 1 Google Scholar.

14 Liam de Paor, ‘The Case of the Retention of Articles 2 and 3’, The Irish Times, 4 September 1981.

15 See Donal Barrington, Uniting Ireland, Tuairim pamphlet, Dublin, nd, passim.

16 See eight articles by Senator John Kelly (a Professor of Law and member of Fine Gael) entitled ‘Towards a Northern Policy’, The Irish Times, 31 August–8 September 1970; and individual articles by Senator Mary Robinson (another academic lawyer), 8 July 1970; R. C. Geary, 20 July 1970; Michael Sweetman, 24 July 1970; and Hugh Munro, 31 August 1970 (all The Irish Times). Only Geary adopted an ‘anti-;national’ position when he described Articles 2 and 3 as ‘a national menace’, and all of them sought a solution within the island’s boundaries.

17 Raymond Fletcher, MP for Ilkeston (Labour), HC Debates, vol. 853, col. 1601.

18 Even after the euphoria of his second summit meeting in Dublin Castle (8 December 1980) when he was presented with the ‘most important British delegation to visit this country since the foundation of the State’ he conceded that ‘we have made and are making constructive progress along the road to a solution. I do not say that such a solution will come tomorrow or the next day or the day after, for it will require restraint and patience, understanding and generosity, and maybe a longer rather than a shorter period of time. But come it will’. Presidential Address to the Fiftieth Fianna Fail Ard-;Fheis, 11 April 1981.

19 Towards a New Ireland, London, 1972, p. 113.

20 Cohan, A. S., ‘The Question of a United Ireland: Perspectives of the Irish Political Elite’, International Affairs, 1977. Vol. 53, No. 2, p. 248 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim.

21 Bradford, Roy, Administration, Winter 1972, 20, 4, p. 61 Google Scholar. He was replying to Charles F. Carter, ‘Permuations of Government’, pp. 50–7 in the same issue. An earlier condominium proposal was made by Richie Ryan (Fine Gael TD), The Irish Times, 12 February 1972.

22 Vital, op. cit., p. 99.

23 Following a limited attempt at constitutional change in the Republic and the election of a President who was a Protestant, the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, expressed his disappointment that Unionist reaction had not been more favourable: ‘I appreciated then [1973] that it was futile making any constitutional changes in advance of unity and that any further changes should be made in an all-;Ireland context’. Lynch, Jack, ‘My Life and Times’, Magill, 11 1979, p. 46 Google Scholar.

24 Michael McInerney, The Irish Times political correspondent has an uncannily accurate account of the form direct rule would take if necessary in the 27 October 1970 issue.

25 All quotes from Paul Rose, a former Labour MP, ‘The English problem that afflicts Ireland’, The Irish Times, 19 March 1979. Another MP, the Conservative John Biggs-;Davison, describes present administrative arrangements as ‘intergration minus’. See his ‘A More Perfect Union’, Spectator, 8 May 1982, pp. 12–13.

26 The Irish Times, 14 June 1974 and 25 November 1974.

27 See FitzGerald, Garret, ‘Preconditions for an Irish Peace’, The London Review of Books, 1, 2, 8 11 1979, pp. 1–4 Google Scholar.

28 Donoghue, Denis, ‘Inside the Maze—Legitimising heirs to the Men of 1916’, The Listener, 3 09 1981, p. 227 Google Scholar.

29 MacDonagh, Oliver, ‘Time’s Revenges and Revenge’s Time: A Review of Anglo-Irish Relations’, Anglo-Irish Studies, 4, 1979, p. 15 Google Scholar.

30 Garret FitzGerald launching his constitutional crusade in an interview in The Cork Examiner, 22 September 1981.

31 The Northern Ireland Constitution, (Cmnd 5675), London 1974, para 45(b).

32 On alternative models to the Northern Ireland problem see D. Rea (ed.), op. cit., passim..