How Ted Heath showed more political courage than our leaders

ONE of the more surprising features of the newly-released State papers was the eagerness of British Prime Minister Ted Heath to establish a power-sharing executive in the North with an all-Irish dimension.

The basis for what later became the Sunningdale Agreement was already being formulated in Heath's mind even before the change of governments in Dublin in March 1973.

Prior to Bloody Sunday, Heath adopted a contemptuous attitude towards the Dublin Government on matters relating to Northern Ireland. He said the North was none of Dublin's business. He was decidedly curt with Jack Lynch on the telephone on the night of Bloody Sunday, but a year later things were very different.