FitzGerald warned Thatcher on security ties over Maze

GARRET FITZGERALD warned Margaret Thatcher that Ireland could be forced to cut off security ties with the British at the height of the Maze hunger strikes.

The then taoiseach, days after being elected to office, told the British prime minister his government’s view of her handling of the crisis was starting to converge with that of the IRA.

“This is naturally the last position in which we would wish to find ourselves,” he said in a secret letter, just declassified under the 30-year rule.