Anglo-Irish Agreement Research Articles

Blurring the line? Music, sound and “sonic gaze” in post-ceasefire Troubles-themed film

This article appraises developments in soundtracks of narrative fiction features based on the Northern Ireland Troubles, focusing on selected titles released in the post-ceasefire period that was consolidated by the Anglo-Irish (“Good Friday”) agreement of 1998. It does this with reference to earlier approaches to music and sound for Troubles-themed film, and by drawing on Danijela Kulezic-Wilson’s sound-design-is-the-new-score proposition. The article advances “sonic gaze” as a pertinent critical lens through which to complement artistic appraisals of historical and contemporary soundtracks in light of political and colonial contexts and legacies. In comparison to earlier Troubles-themed film, a small number of narrative fiction features from the turn of the twenty-first century propose alternative positions and/or innovations in their overall sound design. Readings of Resurrection Man (Marc Evans, 1998), Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008), Five Minutes of Heaven (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2009) and ’71 (Yann Demange, 2014) interpret several significant soundtrack developments. These arise from the involvement of popular music producers, notably David Holmes, technological affordances (production and postproduction) and alternative artistic perspectives that interrupted a colonial-anthropological sonic gaze. The article concludes that Hunger comes closest to Liz Greene and Kulezic-Wilson’s theorisations on the integrated soundtrack and on narrative film’s potential for achieving a holistic audiovisual musicality.

Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party and the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1975-1990. By Stephen Kelly

When teaching American undergraduates about the conflict in Northern Ireland just after finishing my PhD, I always found time to show a video of Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘Out, out, out’ speech, where the Prime Minister summarily ruled out the three political models proposed to solve the conflict in Northern Ireland published in the report by the New Irish Forum in May 1984. Often, I would pair that video with a clip of the Revd. Ian Paisley’s bellowing ‘Never! Never! Never!’ to a Unionist crowd of 100,000 assembled in front of Belfast City Hall to protest the Anglo–Irish Agreement (AIA). These worked well together pedagogically as a vignette of political intransigence as students drew parallels between both leaders, noting the ways their rhetoric forestalled other potential political futures. Invariably a student would reference Thatcher’s moniker as ‘the Iron Lady’ and I would pitch in that Paisley was nicknamed ‘Dr No’—it all seemed like a match made in heaven. Of course, parallel political rhetoric does not make political alliances; indeed, Thatcher’s relationship to Unionists, if not Unionism, was fraught with personal animosity (she thought Paisley and his deputy, Peter Robinson, ‘self-indulged megalomaniacs’ (p. 235)), while Unionists fearful of British treachery and deceit viewed Thatcher and her policies as ‘inconsistent to the brink of schizophrenia’ (p. 72).

Haughey by Gary Murphy

Reviewed by: Haughey by Gary Murphy Stephen Collins (bio) Gary Murphy, Haughey (Dublin: Gill Books, 2021), 716 pages. During his lifetime Charles Haughey captured the public imagination like no other politician, inspiring fanatical loyalty from some and deep suspicion from others. He was charismatic, divisive, intimidating and hugely able; prone to dreadful decision on some occasions and inspired choices on others. It was the contradictions in Haughey’s character that made him so endlessly fascinating. The boy who grew up in a local authority estate turning himself into the lord of the manor at Kinsealy and aping the habits of the gentry; the innovative Minister in the 1960s who was fired in the dead of night for the alleged conspiracy to import arms in 1970; his long march to the Fianna Fail leadership in 1979, followed by a succession of bitter heaves as his internal foes sought to remove him from office. It was an endlessly fascinating story, and the media lapped it up. During his lifetime, newspaper editors knew that putting a large photograph of Charlie on the front page would sell papers. The public appetite for information about Haughey is still strong, given the way Gary Murphy’s lengthy biography became a best seller last Christmas. The author, who is professor of politics at DCU, had access to Haughey’s papers, and he has gleaned a lot of new material from the archive for his biography. [End Page 200] The strength of the book is the comprehensive treatment of Haughey’s political life from his first unsuccessful by election outing in 1951 to the tribunals which marred his reputation in the 1990s. Access to the archive has enabled the author to provide a detailed account reflecting Haughey’s own view of most of the big events that shaped his career. The exception is the arms crisis, about which neither Haughey, nor Jack Lynch, the man who sacked him, were ever prepared to talk. Maybe because of the reliance on Haughey’s papers, the author gives his subject the benefit of the doubt on almost all the controversies that dogged his career. While this approach does provide a helpful insight into how Haughey regarded the world, the cumulative impact is a feeling that he is being let off the hook too easily. There is no doubt that Haughey deserves to be given credit for a number of important achievements. He was a reforming Minister for Justice in the 1960s who advanced women’s rights through the Family Home Protection Act. He was a conventional Minister for Finance, but his tenure in Merrion Street will be remembered for the introduction of free travel for pensioners. As Taoiseach between 1987 and 1992 he presided over the tough decisions that were required to drag the country out of its decade-long recession and pave the way for the prosperity of modern Ireland. A decision which helped that process was his support for the creation of the financial services centre in Dublin’s docklands. On the negative side, during his first term as Taoiseach between 1979 and 1981 he chickened out of the decisions he knew were needed to turn the economy around, and in opposition thereafter he did everything possible to stop his great rival, Garret FitzGerald, from implementing the necessary policies to get the country’s public finances under control. He did the same in the run-up to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 when he attempted what amounted to national sabotage by trying to undermine the process at home and abroad. On divorce he showed a deep level of cynicism by opposing constitutional change, given his own colourful personal life. To be fair, Murphy does not try and sweep these and other failures under the carpet, but in most cases he makes too many excuses for Haughey’s behaviour and gives no credit to FitzGerald for his genuine commitment to reform. A more serious criticism is that the book doesn’t really capture Haughey’s personality or the sense of danger and excitement that marked the various phases of his political career. Early on Murphy puts his finger on a key [End Page 201] element of Haughey’s personality...

The making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985: a memoir by David Goodall. Edited by Frank Sheridan. Pp vii, 237. Dublin: National University of Ireland. 2021. €35.00/€20.00.

The making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985: a memoir by David Goodall. Edited by Frank Sheridan. Pp vii, 237. Dublin: National University of Ireland. 2021. €35.00/€20.00.

“It will do no more than annoy the Protestants”: the 1991 Northern Ireland census and the Irish language

Making use of archival sources, this article reconstructs the decision-making process behind the addition of an Irish language question to the 1991 Northern Ireland census. It highlights a distinctive feature of the case: whereas such decisions usually result from state-society interactions, the question was rather suggested by the Irish government, using the role granted to it by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement to act as a kin state to promote the cultural interests of nationalists in Northern Ireland. Officials in Belfast were initially reluctant to accede to this request, though feared refusal might result in a repeat of nationalist boycotts of previous censuses. Ultimately, the precedent set by language questions employed in Wales and Scotland made exclusion hard to justify and officials reluctantly agreed to the question, coming to see the precedent as a useful argument with which to fend off potential unionist opposition, which they feared might have resulted in a rival boycott. The inclusion of the question has subsequently had significant consequences for political claims-making about the status of the Irish language in Northern Ireland.

David Goodall, The Making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985: A Memoir edited by Frank Sheridan

David Goodall, The Making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985: A Memoir edited by Frank Sheridan

Political Interventions to ‘Ripen’ Peace Initiatives: An Analysis of the Northern Ireland and Israeli/Palestinian Conflicts

ABSTRACT As President of the United States, Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel served to heighten tensions in the Middle East and instantly undermined his stated goal of bringing peace to the troubled region. This paper will argue that there are important lessons to be gained from the political process in Northern Ireland to help bolster a peace process in the Middle East. Through an analysis of Unionist politics pre- and post- the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the paper will argue that there is a need to not only encourage militants to make peace, but also to incentivise regional hegemons into meaningful negotiations. The paper will highlight the important role played by international hegemonic powers as they seek to create a Strategically Benefical Moment for all sides in the conflict as they seek to ‘ripen’ the conditions for peace.

The Making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985: A Memoir by David Goodall ed. by Frank Sheridan

The Making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985: A Memoir by David Goodall, edited by Frank Sheridan with contributions by Morwenna Goodall, Michael Lillis, Robert Renwick, Charles Powell, Stephen Collins and Maurice Manning (National University of Ireland, 2021), 244 pages Sir David Goodall was a British diplomat educated by the Benedictine monks at Ampleforth and then at Oxford. He was central on the British side at official level to the negotiation with the Irish government of what has been called the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. After retirement from the diplomatic service in 1991 he wrote quite a frank memoir of the negotiation, which he lodged in an archive for the benefit of historians to be read later. Now published five years after his death in 2016, it affords a unique insight into the tortuous process that produced the Agreement and into the principal players. It all began for him shortly after he was seconded to serve in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet office in 1982. He found himself at a small dinner party she was giving for Lord Shackleton, the son of the polar explorer. Shackleton, a former Labour cabinet minister, was helping out with advice on the Falklands Islands, disagreements about whose recent reconquest had fractured relations between the Prime Minister and Taoiseach Charles Haughey. After dinner she bade Goodall to stay on for a drink. The conversation turned to Ireland. Goodall remarked sadly that the only place where the lives of British soldiers were now being lost in anger was in Northern Ireland. They discussed their Irish ancestry – both Goodall’s grandfathers were born in Ireland and Mrs Thatcher confessed to having a great-grandmother called Sullivan. ‘If we get back next time,’ she rounded off the exchange, ‘I think I would like to do something about Ireland’. When she got back in 1983 she was receptive to an approach from Garret FitzGerald’s government to revive the Anglo-Irish Governmental Council established by Thatcher and Haughey when they were getting on well. At the steering committee, which met in Dublin to prepare for it, Goodall encountered Michael Lillis, head of the Anglo-Irish Division in the Department for Foreign Affairs. They went for a walk along the Grand Canal. Lillis had authority to speak for Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, whose most trusted adviser he was. He floated a radical new departure for Northern Ireland, offering unequivocal Irish acceptance of the right of Northern Review Articles: Winter 2021–22 Studies • volume 110 • number 440 488 Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom for as long as it was the wish of the majority there. In exchange he asked for the participation of Irish security forces in operations in the North and for judges from the Republic to sit in terrorist trials there. It was hoped that this, buttressed by giving the Irish government a say on security in Northern Ireland, would reconcile the Catholic minority in the North to the institutions of law and order and so stem the rise in support for Sinn Féin, which could have disastrous consequences for the island as a whole. Goodall was taken aback by what he described as ‘astonishingly far reaching ideas’ and was uncertain if they were to be taken seriously; he had little doubt that a suggestion to have Irish troops and police operating in the North would be a non-starter in London. The immediate British response was orientated to the problems created by attacks from the Republic and the ease with which those involved could escape across the border and avoid apprehension. Their counter-proposal was to create a security zone on both sides of the border that would be jointly policed, so allowing the security forces in Northern Ireland to invade the Republic in pursuit of terrorists. It was a non-starter in Dublin. Goodall had read Cecil Woodham-Smith’s book on the Irish famine and shared her view that ‘the English, normally kind, behaved in Ireland as they behaved nowhere else’ and was disposed to make amends. His research into his own family history in Ireland had given him a feel what it was like to be both a Catholic nationalist...

Brokering the Good Friday Agreement: the Untold Story by Mary E Daly (review)

Book Reviews Mary E Daly (ed.), Brokering the Good Friday Agreement: the Untold Story (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2019), 208 pages. For those who’ve been infected with the virus of the Northern Ireland peace process, perhaps as a result of insufficient social distancing, there has as yet been no vaccine developed which is capable of quelling their enthusiasm for more testimony of the kind brought together in this book. It is a series of personal accounts by some of the most distinguished Irish public servants to have contributed to the search for peace in the three decades leading up to Good Friday 1998, which were delivered at a conference hosted by the Royal Irish Academy in March 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Agreement. All the essays offer support for the simple point made by Olivia O’Leary in her foreword: the slow realisation over time by both the Irish and the British governments that they were much stronger when they worked together than when, as she puts it, they remained hostage to their respective extremists. It was a long journey for both Dublin and London and the necessary understanding was only gradually acquired. For an English reader who may be aware just how under-informed successive British governments were about developments in Northern Ireland in the period from 1945, it is intriguing to discover from Seán Donlon’s piece that at the outset of the Troubles there was no one in either the Department of the Taoiseach or the Department of Foreign Affairs tasked with reporting on the North. Ted Smyth’s account of the New Ireland Forum confirms that ignorance of Northern Ireland was a feature of the Irish political class too. The Sunningdale Conference in December 1973 was a telling indicator of what might be possible, as Donlon and Noel Dorr remind us. Seamus Mallon’s famous reference to slow learners is one way of characterising the period between 1974 and 1998, though in fairness to the two governments they themselves made quicker progress than that interval suggests. Michael Lillis makes the direct connection between Sunningdale and the next major stopping point in this collection, the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. His account of its origins, intentions and consequences is invaluable. It has always seemed remarkable to this observer that Mrs Thatcher was Studies • volume 109 • number 436 466 persuaded to sign up to it only a year after being so nearly assassinated in Brighton, but, as Charles Moore notes in his biography of her, it was extraordinary in retrospect how little British policy on Northern Ireland changed in the aftermath of the bombing. Her own subsequent verdict that the Agreement was ‘something uniquely valuable and lasting’ is on the record, but Lillis’s analysis would confirm some of her anxieties and concerns about its substance, not least his description of Garret Fitzgerald’s ‘key but “unspoken” objective to push its terms as closely as possible to a system of joint authority … for the government of Northern Ireland’. Martin Mansergh’s succinct summary of its significance would almost certainly have confirmed such doubts, though a balanced historical judgement must surely echo his conclusion that the Agreement was instrumental in ‘leading to an eventual break in the prolonged political and military deadlock, even if in its immediate aftermath the opposite seemed to be the case’. There are several ways of expressing that instrumentality. One is, as Mansergh does, by referring to the impact on the parties in Northern Ireland. Another is, as David Donoghue suggests, by attributing to it the launch of a genuine partnership between the two governments which had its ultimate fruits in the Good Friday Agreement and the subsequent decade or so of attempted implementation. One telling aspect of the developing partnership is recounted in Richard Ryan’s fascinating account of how he built and broadened Irish contacts in Westminster, especially in the Conservative party, such that there might eventually be parliamentary support for what became the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The effectiveness of that operation is a great tribute to the quality of Irish diplomacy. Briefer references to the Brooke-Mayhew talks and the Downing Street Declaration in December 1993 evidence...

Theology and Ecology in Dialogue: The Wisdom of Laudato Si' by Dermot A Lane (review)

of trust between the negotiators, but also the development of a common ability to comprehend their respective mind sets. The two are not the same, as several contributors testify in the context of the lead-up to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The four panel overviews are the most frustrating elements in the book. This is not because they lack depth or insight, but rather because they whet the appetite for yet more contributions to the archive, not least from those who participated in the discussions that followed the oral presentations. One such audience member was Wally Kirwan, who is commended by Margaret Thatcher’s biographer for having read her state of mind well in recommending to Garret Fitzgerald that the Irish government should seek to engage her attention on the Northern Ireland problem with a security-led approach. Fortunately, he has given an interview to Graham Spencer in a two volume set entitled Inside Accounts and published earlier this year. Margaret O’Callaghan gets it right: these public officials and other actors in the drama should be encouraged to keep writing and talking. The last words should, however, be from Barbara Jones’s overview. She quotes one of John Hume’s memorable speeches to emphasise his creative presence, which ripples throughout. That itself is a well-judged epilogue, though she makes a more general point which deserves its moment, namely, the value of the ‘continuity of public service expertise’ in Dublin over the decades of the process. Sustaining that capacity has not always been a sufficient priority on the British side of the equation. Sir Jonathan Phillips worked in the UK Government’s Northern Ireland Office from 2002–2010, first as Political Director and then Permanent Secretary. He is now Warden of Keble College, Oxford. Dermot A Lane, Theology and Ecology in Dialogue: The Wisdom of Laudato Si’ (Dublin: Messenger Publications, 2020), 176 pages. In Theology and Ecology in Dialogue: The Wisdom of Laudato Si’, Dermot A Lane responds to the invitation offered by the encyclical of Pope Francis to investigate the intrinsic relationship between these two long-distanced disciplines. The publication of a monograph by Dermot Lane is always a significant event. Already he has written works on God, Christology, Winter 2020-2021: Book Reviews Studies • volume 109 • number 436 469 eschatology, inter-religious dialogue and religious education. This latest book gathers many insights of this theologian-pastor to address a new and pressing concern, as converging forces threaten the very existence of our common home. In chapter 1, Lane considers Laudato Si’ ‘a theological chest waiting to be explored’ (p.12). The key to unlocking the treasure is the concept of ‘integral ecology’, mentioned explicitly at least ten times in the encyclical. Lane (p.16) quotes Pope Francis’s description of St Francis of Assisi as an ‘example par excellence … of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically’, that ‘shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace (LS, 10)’. Integral ecology is the space where theology and ecology come into dialogue. Here, ‘ecology must interrogate the way theology is done. Equally, theology must engage critically and constructively with ecology’ (p.20). Ecology challenges the ‘domination’ understanding of Genesis 1; theology challenges the anthropomorphic stance of science. In Laudato Sì, Pope Francis calls for an ‘appropriate hermeneutic’that reads the creation narrative in context and that unmasks any interpretation that grants humans dominion over the earth (LS, 67). The corollaries of this vision permeate Lane’s book. Integral ecology, Lane justly claims, allows us to overcome many of the dualisms of modernity: sacred and secular; objective and subjective; spirit and matter; anthropocentrism and biocentrism; political and mystical; spiritual and material; nature and culture (p.15). It commits us to realizing that climate change is connected to economics, healthcare, migration, food supplies and politics. Ecology, Lane insists, ‘is not an add-on to theology; instead ecology should permeate the whole of theology, moral, systematic and liturgical’ (p.14). In chapter 2, Lane argues that anthropocentrism is ‘a major cause of the ecological crisis’ (p.32). It de-sacralises nature and so alienates the human from...

‘The Anglo-Irish Agreement put us on side with the Americans’: Margaret Thatcher, Anglo-American relations and the path to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, 1979-1985

ABSTRACT This article offers a critical re-evaluation of British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with U.S president, Jimmy Carter (1977–1981) and his successor, Ronald Reagan (1981–1989), in the context of the Northern Ireland conflict from 1979 to 1985. Specifically, it examines the impact that the ‘Irish Question’ had on the changing nature of Anglo-American relations from Thatcher’s entry to No. 10 Downing Street in May 1979 to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) in November 1985.

The 1985 Supplementary Extradition Treaty between the United States of America and the United Kingdom: an exercise in soft power

ABSTRACTThe relationship between the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland during the years of conflict in Northern Ireland has been the topic of significant scholarly literature, but rarely has this literature examined the statecraft behind US interventions in Northern Ireland in the years before the election of President Bill Clinton. In this article, I will use a range of recently declassified state papers and a series of personal interviews to examine the introduction of the 1985 Supplementary Extradition Treaty between the United States and United Kingdom and show how the British government successfully manoeuvred their American counterparts, in both the Executive and Legislative branches, towards ratification of both the extradition treaty and the Anglo-Irish Agreement Support Act of 1986.

Ripe moments for Exiting Political Violence: an Analysis of the Northern Ireland Case

William Zartman’s concept of ‘ripeness’ has been strongly criticised on both methodological and substantive grounds, yet it remains central to both academic and policy debates. This paper assesses the usefulness of Zartman’s model through an analysis of the three peace agreements which were negotiated during the Northern Ireland conflict—the 1973 power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement, the 1985 inter-governmental Anglo-Irish Agreement and the 1998 Belfast Agreement. It uses a refined version of Zartman’s model to argue that the concept of ‘ripeness’ remains a useful means to analyse the potential for peace and that it can provide an explanation for the relative success of the 1998 Belfast Agreement and for the failure of previous agreements.

Arthur Aughey and Cathy Gormley-Heenan (eds) (2011). The Anglo-Irish Agreement, Re-thinking its Legacy

Arthur Aughey and Cathy Gormley-Heenan (eds) (2011). <i>The Anglo-Irish Agreement, Re-thinking its Legacy</i>

The Catholic Church and the Hunger Strikes of Terence MacSwiney and Bobby Sands

Differences in the reactions of the Irish Catholic Church to the hunger strikes of Terence MacSwiney and Robert ‘Bobby’ Sands can be explained through the Church's relationship with the British government. The Church supported MacSwiney's 1920 hunger strike, whereas the tiered hierarchical structure of the Church split in response to Sands’ strike in 1981. Two major reasons account for the differing reactions to these protests: the Church's desire to control Irish education in 1920; and the magnification of class and political differences between the Church clergy and hierarchy in 1981. The Church was united in its support of Irish republicanism during MacSwiney's strike. By the late nineteenth century, the British government had ceded most control over Ireland's primary and secondary education to Protestant and Catholic churches. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1921, when the Free State government gave the Catholic Church even greater autonomy over education, the Church changed its position on hunger striking. During Sands’ 1981 strike, many lower-class Irish clergymen, who cared less about British political sensitivities than the hierarchy, sympathised with the hunger strikers’ cause. Meanwhile, the Irish and English hierarchies continued to condemn violence and hunger striking.

‘British Rights for British Citizens’: The Campaign for ‘Equal Citizenship’ for Northern Ireland

This essay traces the evolution of the demand that the principal British political parties should extend organisation to Northern Ireland. Although originally nurtured by a small Stalinist sect of the far left, the ideal of electoral integration or ‘equal citizenship’ would in time come to exercise considerable appeal among middle-class unionists disorientated by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. This unlikely political alliance would give rise to a vibrant pressure group—the Campaign for Equal Citizenship (CEC)—which played a vocal role in Northern Irish political life in the late 1980s. While often vaunted as its essential attribute, the political diversity of the CEC would foster divisions that would ensure its swift demise. The paper concludes that the decline of electoral integrationism in the early 1990s represented perhaps a prerequisite of a nascent peace process that envisaged a very different political future for Northern Ireland.

‘The First Major Step in the Peace Process’? Exploring the Impact of the Anglo-Irish Agreement on Irish Republican Thinking

This article supports interpretations of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 as a significant factor contributing to the development of the Northern Ireland peace process. However, it also emphasises a certain serendipity in the Agreement's effect on northern nationalist, and more specifically republican, politics in the region. In particular, it stresses that a specific interpretation of the Agreement promoted by the Social Democratic and Labour Party inspired a dialogue with republicanism, encouraging an ongoing reappraisal within the latter about the nature of Britain's role in Northern Ireland. This, the article argues, reinforced the movement towards a more political approach that republicans had begun in the 1980s, and encouraged their eventual embrace of a constitutional strategy in the 1990s. However, in advancing this argument, the article notes that such an outcome was far from the minds of the British and Irish officials who negotiated the Anglo-Irish Agreement. The Agreement was intended to marginalise rather than accommodate republicans. Despite this, it provided an inadvertent incentive to draw militant republicanism into the democratic process in Northern Ireland.

The Dimensions of Irish Government Involvement in the Pursuit of a Settlement of the Northern Ireland Conflict

The role of the Irish government changed significantly throughout the course of the conflict in Northern Ireland. During the early years the Irish government defined a core policy position but struggled to find a role that would involve it in the settlement of the conflict. The Irish role in the pursuit of a settlement increased in the aftermath of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the later development of a peace process. This led to a gradual evolution of Irish policy as the new intergovernmental role was developed and the Irish government shifted its approach towards increased dialogue and discussion with nationalists and republicans, while maintaining the central importance of the intergovernmental relationship. The different dimensions of Irish government involvement, including its core policy, the role of political leaders, party dynamics and the role of civil servants and diplomats, are all under analysis to explain how the Irish government contributed to the settlement of the Northern Ireland conflict.

Peering in from the window ledge of the Union: the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland

In this article I examine one particular way in which the Anglo-Irish Agreement redefined unionist politics in the late 1980s. While the operation of “direct rule” had drawn the unionist middle classes ever closer to Britain in economic and cultural terms, it had also left them in a precarious position politically. The nature and scale of this political subservience was brought home dramatically in 1985 when the British government signed an international agreement giving the Dublin government the right to be consulted on Northern Irish affairs. In the period of political flux summoned by the Hillsborough Accord, elements of the unionist middle classes were drawn to the previously marginal ideas of a small leftist organisation that argued for the British political parties to organise in the region. Given the material interests and social conservatism of those attracted to it, the call for “equal citizenship” would inevitably take the form primarily of a movement seeking to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland.

The Provisional IRA, the Irish border, and Anglo-Irish relations during the Troubles

Using hitherto largely unexplored governmental archives from London and Dublin, this article focuses on the security challenges arising from the existence of the land frontier between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and the significance of issues of cross-border security cooperation for Anglo-Irish relations from the beginning of the Troubles until the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. It argues that the relatively safe haven of the Republic was essential to the longevity of the IRA's campaign and that successive Irish governments exploited British security concerns to expand their political influence on Northern Ireland.