Fergus Finlay: Martin Mansergh was top of the list of peacemakers in the North

Throughout that period of government, the thing that bound Martin and I close together was the peace process, writes Fergus Finlay

When the history of Ireland is written, and the scroll of Ireland’s peacemakers is settled, Martin Mansergh will be high on any list. Picture: Denis Minihane

The most unlikely Fianna Fáiler in the long and illustrious history of that party died last week. And he will, and should, have an honoured place in the history of his country — as well as his party — as a principal architect of a successful peace strategy.

Martin Mansergh was a shy man, never comfortable in the public arena. He was deeply intellectual, and carried himself with the air of an eccentric professor. He was always in the same rumpled grey suit, always with a laugh that could shatter glass. 

There was a time in Ireland when he’d have been sneered at as a West Brit, especially by some of the people in the party he called home. He gave up a guaranteed senior career to take a job where the future was always unpredictable. And I’ll bet he left politics poorer than when he joined it.

He was thoughtful, kind, honest, and incorruptible. But he was also a paradox. 

This incorruptible man worked for years, on a very close basis, for the most corrupt politician we’ve ever had: Charles J Haughey.  

And he was fiercely loyal to him. He worked closely for Bertie Ahern and Albert Reynolds too, and could never be persuaded to say a bad word about any of them — even though he knew the “mistakes” they made all too well.

And he was at least partly responsible for the most traumatic week in my political life.

Then junior minister Martin Manseragh at DCU in 2009 at the formal handing over of the late taoiseach Charley Haughey's private papers and photos to the university. Irish Examiner Archive picture: Billy Higgins

So before I talk about him, let me talk about my complicated relationship with him.

Our first ever meeting was a testy one. My party leader, Dick Spring, had a phenomenal general election in 1992, and the result was that no government could be formed without the participation of the Labour Party. Fine Gael's John Bruton and Fianna Fáil's Albert Reynolds both had lousy elections.

Martin Mansergh was the only one who realised what had to be done

On Albert Reynolds’s behalf, he drafted and sent a set of proposals — what Fianna Fáil was prepared to do in government — that was so heavily based on our election manifesto he could have been accused of plagiarism. 

It was a remarkably effective political trap, and it left us with no choice but to talk to them. That wasn’t easy — they were the outgoing and heavily resourced government that we had been in opposition of for years. It was my job to do some of the drafting alongside Mansergh.

I didn’t want to be there, and probably made my feelings clear. And one thing I was certain of was that this wouldn’t be just another coalition government. 

Martin Mansergh worked closely with Albert Reynolds to complete the Downing St Declaration. Irish Examiner Archive picture: Billy Higgins

Fianna Fáil and Labour had never worked in government before, I told him, and it will only work if we’re seen as a partnership of equals. He probably wondered what kind of arrogant presumption stood in front of him, but he said instantly: “That’s fine then, let’s call this a government of partnership."

And that’s how it was known for as long as it lasted.

Throughout that period of government, the thing that bound Martin and I close together was the peace process. Day after day and night after night we formed part of a team, in my view one of the best teams that ever represented their country politically. 

We helped to write the Downing St Declaration. We helped to cement the first IRA ceasefire, under the leadership of Albert Reynolds and Dick Spring. I think we became friends, or at least friends in battle.

Then that government fell apart in very difficult circumstances that have been much written about. In the aftermath of the collapse, a public enquiry was established to find out, essentially, why it happened. It was basically held over two weeks — Fianna Fáil witnesses in the first week and Labour in the second. 

Martin was the key witness in many ways, probably because he wasn’t publicly known and would be seen as an honest broker.

By the end of that first week, a narrative had formed that the collapse of that government had happened because of a sinister plot by a cabal of unelected advisors — and that yours truly was the main Machiavellian leader of the cabal.

In his evidence, Martin managed to completely conceal any respect he might have had for me or the work we had done together

He managed to create the impression that scoring partisan political points was much more important to me than the peace process itself.

I remember being dumbfounded at the time, and feeling almost destroyed. To make matters worse, there was a television debate before the second week began.

A respected Trinity academic (whom I’d never met in my life) announced that it was well-known to all that my deep family roots in Fine Gael (I had none) had made me determined to destroy the government because it was too sympathetic to the Provos in the peace process.

We all on the Labour side were given a rough ride in the second week, but all gave evidence as truthfully as possible. When it was my turn, I tried to rebut the untrue accusations that had been made and the unfair inferences that Martin in particular had drawn.

We shook hands, and we hardly ever spoke again. But I knew, and I know today, that whatever our differences, Martin Mansergh was an honourable man. Picture: RollingNews.ie

When I was finished I realised that Martin was standing at the back of the room with a number of his Fianna Fáil colleagues. As I passed him, he stepped forward. In the hearing of his own people, he apologised to me for some of the harsher inferences he had drawn in his earlier evidence.

“They weren’t warranted, and I’m sorry, Fergus,” he said.

We shook hands, and we hardly ever spoke again. But I knew, and I know today, that whatever our differences, Martin Mansergh was an honourable man.

When he was making his retirement speech in the Dáil as taoiseach, Charles Haughey quoted Othello to say about himself: “I have done the state some service; they know't; No more of that”. 

If he had said that about Martin Mansergh, it would have been 10 times more true.

In the late 1980s, Charles Haughey gave Martin permission to open a line of dialogue to the Provisional IRA. Charlie being Charlie, it had to be done in a way that Haughey could always deny it. But Mansergh was convinced that if he could make the Provos a part of the solution rather than the heart of the problem, progress could be made. So he worked away in secret, and often at risk, until he persuaded them to say in a letter to his government that they were ready for peace.

After Haughey, he worked with Albert and Dick Spring and the rest of us to complete the Downing St Declaration and see the ceasefire. His intellectual capacity and his complete commitment to the cause of peace were remarkable to see at close quarters.

He served in the Dáil, the Seanad, and even had a couple of years as a junior minister. But when the history of Ireland is written, and the scroll of Ireland’s peacemakers is settled, Martin will be high on any list. 

It’s how his epitaph needs to begin: Martin Mansergh. Architect of peace in Ireland.