Donnelly: Thatcher was a ‘pragmatic woman’

An IRA prison escapee pardoned by Margaret Thatcher’s government has said she was a pragmatist whose ministers made small concessions as part of dealings with Ireland.

Donal Donnelly, 74, fled Belfast’s Crumlin Road jail – which he dubbed Europe’s Alcatraz – on Boxing Day 1960 while serving a sentence for membership of the armed group during its 1950s border campaign.