Fitzgerald warned Thatcher on security ties over hunger strikes

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 the 30-year-rule.

In a signal of the diminishing relations, Mrs Thatcher threatened a “sharp and bitter” response if there was any suggestion of less than full co-operation in the fight against the IRA.

With tensions at an all-time high, Mr FitzGerald said the stability of the Republic and its relations with Britain had come under direct threat.

Five people had died on the protest fast by July 10, 1981 when Mr FitzGerald wrote the letter.

But the imminent death of Kieran Doherty, who had been elected to the Dail, was particularly striking fear into the Fine Gael leader.

The Government was extremely frustrated with Downing Street intransigence over a proposed solution by the Catholic Church-established Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, which had mediated between prisoners and the British.

Mr FitzGerald told Mrs Thatcher his newly elected coalition was unable to do or say anything to counter the lack of public confidence in the British government’s handling of the crisis.

“We are thus faced with the danger of a serious and progressive deterioration in bilateral relations,” he said.

The Government had “up until the present” believed there should be no political status for prisoners.

“In these last few days, however, the deplorable situation has been reached that the points of view of the government and the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace are seen to converge with that of the Provisional IRA in criticism of your authorities’ handling of these events,” he said.

In a veiled threat to pull security ties with the British, Mr FitzGerald said co-operation depended on public backing for it, which was being severely eroded.

“British security forces in Northern Ireland have up to now been able to rely on the effective co-operation of our security forces, as has been acknowledged from time to time by British spokesmen,” he said.

“As both governments know, the effectiveness of security measures depends on the prevailing climate of local opinion.”

Mr FitzGerald then urged his counterpart to accept the commission’s suggested resolution “without any loss of time”.

Five days later on July 15 – during which time another hunger striker, Martin Hurson, died – Mrs Thatcher responded with her own stark warnings.

“I cannot believe your government will wish in any way to diminish the scale or intensity of the (security) co-operation,” she wrote.

“I appreciate the importance of local opinion; but the reaction of public opinion here (in Britain) to any suggestion that the authorities in the Republic were offering less than full co-operation in the detection and apprehension of terrorists would be sharp and bitter and there must be a risk that it would have an adverse effect on wider Anglo-Irish relationships.”

Mrs Thatcher said the commission had implied the British were guilty of bad faith in negotiations to end the strike – a charge she denied. Her government “acted honourably throughout”, she insisted.

Furthermore, she cautioned the taoiseach not to be “misled” into thinking there was an easy solution which would only require a little flexibility from her.

At that stage, the prisoners were still holding to their core demands, the prime minister argued. “In our attitude to these demands we are not seeking to be difficult for the sake of saving face,” she added.

Mrs Thatcher said ceding control to inmates “would confer a kind of legitimacy upon the acts for which those prisoners were convicted” while bringing the IRA into direct negotiation would give them a status they would value.

“I am sure that these aims are as unacceptable to us as they would be to you,” she said.

“Furthermore, we are not prepared to subscribe to forms of words which by their generality can mean all things to all men.”

Other state records from the time show that the Department of Foreign Affairs contacted embassies, including in Madrid and Bonn, seeking information where authorities abroad had “negotiated directly” with prisoners in similar protests.