Mrs Thatcher came under immense pressure. At home on mainland Britain, and among Unionists in the province, there was almost complete support for resistance to the hunger strike; she was much more aware than most of her colleagues that it was essential not to break this trust with the majority. In the rest of the world, the opposite was the case. In the Republic, the United States and the EEC, calls for a way out grew louder.† On 22 April, Armstrong wrote to Mrs Thatcher about the Republic’s attitude. With an almost guilty punctiliousness, he explained the exact reason why Dermot Nally had telephoned him that morning: ‘The first purpose of the call was to discuss the date for the next meeting of the steering Group of the Anglo-Irish joint studies.’84 But the real purport of the call, and of Armstrong’s note, was to convey Haughey’s anxiety about the hunger strike. The Taoiseach was worried, said Nally, as reported by Armstrong, that, if Sands died soon, ‘The whole areas [sic] would go up in flames.’85 How about getting the European Commission for Human Rights involved in some solution, Haughey suggested? He wanted the Commissioners to go into the Maze as, in effect, mediators, which would then allow him to call for the strikers to give up. Mrs Thatcher resisted mediation, though not absolutely, by the Human Rights Commission. A record of a telephone conversation with Humphrey Atkins at this time shows that she was prepared for Sands’s death and that of the others who had followed him into a hunger strike:
THE PRIME MINISTER: But there are two or three others behind him [Sands] aren’t there Humphrey?
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND: Yes … I think there is bound to be a weak link later.
THE PRIME MINISTER: Yes I think they will be getting worried after all if one died and then a second one died then a third one died and nothing happened.
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND: Yes it doesn’t look very attractive.86
The situation was not, in Atkins’s inadequate phrase, very attractive to either side. On 5 May 1981, Sands died. Thirty thousand people – 100,000 in the estimation of the organizers – attended his funeral in Belfast. In death, Sands became a world figure. Streets were named after him in Paris and Teheran. Haughey urged Mrs Thatcher to give ground, fearing the political rise of Sinn Fein in the Republic as well as in the province. John Hume of the SDLP called on her at No. 10 and begged her to make concessions on clothing and free association, lest he be ‘swept away’ politically by the disturbances. Mrs Thatcher dismissed his anxieties: ‘The people who had been killed by the PIRA had had no choice. The hunger strikers had a choice … Any wavering on the issue of political status would be a licence to kill.’87 Michael Foot came to see her later the same day, asking for an ‘escape-route’ over the hunger strike. Mrs Thatcher rebuked him: ‘The Prime Minister said that Mr Foot’s message had been exactly the same as that of Mr Hume. Her answer was “No”. Foot was giving notice that he was “a push-over”.’88
On 12 May, the second hunger striker, Francis Hughes, had died. On 19 May Mrs Thatcher was given chilling evidence of the attitude of some of those involved. Raymond McCreesh, a hunger striker who had given some indications that he wanted to end his fast, was visited by his brother Brian, a Catholic priest. Father McCreesh was overheard telling Raymond: ‘Your brother and I were proud to carry the coffins of Bobby Sands and Frank Hughes. They are in heaven waiting for you.’89*
Throughout this tense time, Robert Armstrong was firm against concessions to the prisoners. Disagreeing with Robert Wade-Gery, who was more anxious to appease, he had held to a line similar to Mrs Thatcher’s.90 But he continued to push his belief that there had to be ‘long-term political development’,91 and he warned the Prime Minister of the dangers of another Bloody Sunday (the rioting in Londonderry in 1972 when thirteen people were killed by British soldiers). His anxieties about the Catholic reaction were shared by what the IRA liked to call the ‘securocrats’. At Chequers on 27 May the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, General Sir Richard Lawson, and the Chief Constable of the RUC, Jack Hermon, joined Kenneth Stowe to tell Mrs Thatcher that the alienation of the Catholic population was now a greater challenge than the security problem. The government should ‘dispel the impression of inflexibility’ and make a gesture towards Catholics by setting up an inquiry into prison conditions.92 A clearly windy Humphrey Atkins warned Mrs Thatcher that ‘I now feel strongly that a continuing, apparently endless, series of deaths from hunger strikes will cumulatively lose us both the Catholic population of Northern Ireland and the sympathy of world opinion,’ and recommended more ‘political development in the North’ to match the policy of ‘continuing to pursue – as we are committed to doing – the development of relations with Dublin’.93 Armstrong, however, was silkily dismissive of any Atkins initiative as he prepared his chief for the OD meeting to discuss these matters: ‘You will also wish to have at the back of your mind the possibility that you may wish to appoint a new Secretary of State before long.’94 He knew that a Cabinet reshuffle was imminent.
The international clamour intensified. Tip O’Neill, always vocal on behalf of the Irish lobby, called on President Reagan to intervene with Mrs Thatcher privately to help break the impasse. Reagan studiously avoided any commitment and went on holiday. At the beginning of June, the members of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace (ICJP), a body set up by the Irish Catholic hierarchy primarily concerned with aid to Third World countries, suggested that they might be able to play a role in bringing the hunger strike to an end. Beginning on 23 June, Michael Alison,* the Minister of State at the NIO responsible for prisons, had a series of meetings with the members of the ICJP. On 29 June, Humphrey Atkins released a statement which the ICJP took to be positive but which emphasized the government’s ‘bottom line’ – that there could be no concessions or reforms until the hunger strike had ended. In their secret communications, smuggled out of the prison by mouth, the IRA leader in the Maze, Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane, told Gerry Adams that he was worried by the opinion of the strikers’ families: ‘If Brits don’t meet with Commission and forward a very watery offer, can we cope with the families i.e. prevent their disintegration if we refuse … It appears that they [the British] are not interested in simply undermining us, but completely annihilating us … They are insane – at least Maggie is anyway.’95 But ‘Maggie’ was not insane, nor bent on annihilation. She was perplexed, even confused, about tactics.
What happened next is a story so tangled with the needs of the different parties to justify themselves that no wholly accurate account seems possible, and even after the release of state papers under the thirty-year rule the actions and motivations of those involved are greatly disputed.96
From Mrs Thatcher’s point of view the aim was to make no concessions ‘in any way’, and yet to entertain the suggestion of the new Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald,† who had come into office on 30 June 1981, that the ICJP should be allowed to play a greater role. The Commissioners, it was suggested, would be allowed into the Maze to repeat the government’s message to the prisoners and, without negotiating, would return with the prisoners’ reply.97 Mrs Thatcher discussed this idea with Alison and senior colleagues. Although she thought that it was ‘unlikely’ to work, she was persuaded by colleagues such as Carrington and Whitelaw to allow it to go ahead. At least there might be some value in the scheme, she believed, if it could ‘demonstrate that the blame for the hunger strikers lay with the strikers themselves’.98 In his meetings with the ICJP, Alison referred to ‘the lady behind the veil’ as the final, exacting arbiter of his position. The Commission understood him to be referring to Mrs Thatcher in person, but Alison later claimed that this was only a symbolic way of telling the Commission that he was not the ultimate authority.99 On 4 July, Mrs Thatcher spoke to Alison twice on the telephone about his discussions with the ICJP, indicating the seriousness with which she considered the proposals. She instructed him that the ICJP could go into the prison so long as they accepted that ‘control and security remain with HMG [Her Majesty’s Government]’. She agreed wi
th Alison that the Commission would tell the prisoners that they must end the strike unconditionally, but in the knowledge that the government was under a moral ‘obligation to move forward’ on the areas of clothing, free association and prison work.100 The ICJP thought this was an ‘about-face’ on clothing which might bring a result.
On 4 and 5 July 1981, as the death of the next hunger striker, Joe McDonnell, seemed imminent, the ICJP went into the Maze. The proposals which they brought appeared that they might satisfy the strikers. It was clear to the ICJP that the prisoners’ families were at odds with Brendan McFarlane, making it more difficult to obtain a settlement.101 At this point, however, the ICJP’s efforts crossed wires with the once-more active British secret contact with the IRA. Through this contact, it was made clear to the government that the IRA were concerned about the role of the ICJP. From this point the secret channel became the primary means of communication. An associate of the IRA, codenamed Soon, was the interlocutor. Many years later, Brendan Duddy confirmed102 that he had once again been involved in discussions at this time. The contact asked the British to allow a Provisional Sinn Fein representative secretly into the prison. They refused to permit Adams or McGuinness, whom the IRA suggested, but allowed Danny Morrison.* In the course of conversations with the contact, some of them probably with McGuinness in the room,† the PIRA requirements were set out. As well as the substantive concessions about clothing and so on (which fell short of the prisoners’ five demands, but which they were inclined to accept), the IRA were very concerned about the danger of what they called ‘panic’, by which they meant the fear within their own ranks of the appearance of sell-out or of double-crossing by the British. They therefore wanted parcels of clothes to be ready for wear immediately after the end of the strike and for the statement which the British would make after the end to be agreed by them in advance.103 Mrs Thatcher herself was shown the draft of the message which would be sent through the channel, and altered it, toughening it up a little on points about work and association. She also approved the following: ‘If the reply we receive is unsatisfactory and there is subsequently any public reference to this exchange we shall deny it took place.’104 There can be no doubt, therefore, that Mrs Thatcher went against her public protestations about not negotiating with terrorists, and actively did so, though at a remove. ‘The lady behind the veil’ had weakened.
On 7 July, a meeting took place between Mrs Thatcher, Atkins, Whitelaw, Gilmour and others. It was agreed that the proposed Atkins statement should be shown to PIRA in advance, with its terms revised at the order of Mrs Thatcher.105 The message was sent. Shortly after midnight Atkins met Mrs Thatcher to explain that PIRA had objected to the message received, and that the government had therefore responded that discussions were now at an end. The IRA then (‘a very rapid reaction’) said that what they did not like was the tone rather than the content of the statement.106 The government therefore decided to ‘elaborate’ on the draft statement to PIRA overnight, presumably in the hope of getting agreement. At 5.40 that morning, however, Joe McDonnell, the next hunger striker in the queue, died, and it was too late for any means of ending the strike.
In the endgame, Adams and his associates had mishandled matters. As McFarlane had written to Adams at 10 p.m. the night before: ‘I’ve been thinking that if we don’t pull this off and Joe dies then RA [IRA] are going to come under some bad stick from all quarters.’107 The problem for Adams and McGuinness was that the political success caused by the hunger strike seemed too great to take the risk of ending it unless they could claim an unambiguous victory: hence their preoccupation with the ‘tone’ of the British statement more than the content.108 It may also be that Gerry Adams was nervous that those of his senior colleagues who did not know about the back-channel would suspect double-dealing on his part. As the hunger strike unfolded, it became clear that the IRA had missed a big chance to deal and had ‘shot their bolt’.109*
The British were also blamed, of course. In the propaganda war, Britain was made to look intransigent for not reaching agreement when the prisoners, it was alleged, had withdrawn their demands for political status. The ICJP accused the government of bad faith. Garret FitzGerald also blamed British intransigence for the failure to find a solution. In an angry letter to Mrs Thatcher, conveying these thoughts, he called future cross-border co-operation into question. She was beset with reports from embassies, notably in Dublin and Washington, about unfavourable foreign reaction, and was persuaded by Carrington, worried that relations with the Republic and the United States ‘were now at serious risk’, to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross into the Maze.110 But she refused his suggestion that the prisoners should be surreptitiously fed intravenously with glucose in their drips. Force-feeding, she believed, ‘was almost a violence against the person’, and if people wanted to kill themselves, they should be discouraged but not prevented.111 In Britain, public opinion remained solidly behind her.
The dilemmas besetting Mrs Thatcher in her handling of the hunger strike are well illustrated by a further attempt, later in July, to use the channel to the IRA. On 18 July, Philip Woodfield,* who had succeeded Stowe as permanent under-secretary at the NIO, came to her to report that PIRA had just asked that a British official go to meet the hunger strikers. Would this be a good idea, he asked, so that the official could clarify the government’s position, in effect offering a little bit more? As Woodfield put it, coldly, there was, in Northern Ireland terms, ‘a good deal to be said for letting the hunger strike continue’,112 but the opposite applied to the Republic and the United States. Mrs Thatcher said that she was ‘less concerned about the situation in Dublin than in North America’. She decided that the channel should be activated that night and the official should go in the next day. But she rang Atkins first. Probably stung by what had happened a fortnight earlier, he counselled against this course, saying that the thing was bound to leak. So Mrs Thatcher went back on her earlier decision, comforting herself over her change of mind by saying that she was ‘more concerned to do the right thing by Northern Ireland than to try to satisfy international critics’.113 The following morning, however, it emerged that the channel had, in fact, been activated without waiting for Mrs Thatcher’s final approval. Since this had happened, Atkins decided to use it to send a message to the Provisionals that more might be done on prison clothes. No useful reply came from PIRA, and Atkins ordered the channel closed on the evening of 20 July. Farce and tragedy were near allied.
Brendan McFarlane had made it clear that the prisoners ‘have no power to give up’.114 He meant that the decisions on their life and death were for the IRA alone, and therefore it was the IRA alone with whom the government should deal. But in fact the IRA’s grip on the prisoners, most of whose families naturally did not want them to die, was weakening. On 31 July, the family of Paddy Quinn, who had been on hunger strike for forty-seven days, intervened to save his life. By the middle of August, three more hunger strikers had died. On 20 August, Owen Carron, who had been Bobby Sands’s agent in the first Fermanagh by-election, was victorious in the second. The tenth hunger striker died on polling day. With each death, there were protests and renewed rioting, but each time the public attention was less. Mrs Thatcher’s government was winning, at least in the sense that no one now believed that she would give in to the IRA. Garret FitzGerald, who had been so loud against her in July, quietened down over the summer. He realized that his public criticisms of the British government undermined the possibility of further progress on the political side. He may also have realized that the Republic was on weak ground in suggesting any concessions to hunger strikers when its own history was one of robust refusal. Dermot Nally remembered FitzGerald quoting Eamon de Valera, arguably the most nationalist of Irish prime ministers: ‘No government which I have led has given in to this sort of blackmail.’115 FitzGerald reverted to his aspirations for a change in the relationship between the Republic and the United Kingdom, and publicly floated his idea that the Iri
sh constitution’s claim to Northern Ireland should be amended.
On 14 September 1981, Mrs Thatcher reshuffled her Cabinet. She replaced Humphrey Atkins, as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, with Jim Prior. Prior had fought hard against the move* and his reluctance to go to the province made him immediately unpopular with the Unionist population. Nor were Unionists pleased that, as part of the deal by which, in return for ‘exile’, he could have his own people round him, he chose junior ministers – notably Lord Gowrie and Nicholas Scott – whose views were well known to be green.† But the fact that Mrs Thatcher gave Prior quite a free hand in his new job did at least clarify the decision-making process. He had more scope than Atkins. In relation to the hunger strike, he used it. ‘He came in saying to himself and to us that he was going to get things moving. To get the SDLP on board he would want to make progress with the hunger strikers. So there was a linkage with political progress.’116 On 17 September, he visited the Maze prison to see for himself.
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