Irish ‘liked to roll pitch in their favour’ in intergovernmental conferences

Mo Mowlam and David Andrews led the British and Irish delegations at an intergovernmental conference in 1998 (Ben Curtis/PA)

The Government liked to “roll the pitch in favour of their own team” in intergovernmental conferences with Britain, a senior Northern Ireland Office (NIO) official said in 1998.

Declassified state papers from the North reveal behind-the-scenes preparations for a meeting between the two governments in Dublin just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.