Shortly before the November summit, Armstrong wrote to Mrs Thatcher to report on his latest meeting, in Dublin, with Nally. FitzGerald, who liked to flatter visiting British officials by seeing them in person, had also summoned Armstrong to a private meeting. Armstrong now reported to Mrs Thatcher what he had said. Using a word which, did he but know it, was a red rag to Mrs Thatcher, who saw it as Marxist jargon, FitzGerald said that the minority in Northern Ireland suffered from ‘alienation’: ‘What was needed was to create something upon which the loyalty of the minority in Northern Ireland could form.’23 The Irish might be prepared to express publicly the fact that the Union would not be overturned in the foreseeable future. ‘In exchange for that,’ Armstrong reported FitzGerald as saying, ‘the minority should be given law and order institutions on which it could focus confidence and loyalty (his word).’24 Against this, Mrs Thatcher drew her series of disapproving wiggles.
Armstrong conveyed to Mrs Thatcher FitzGerald’s desire to handle matters in a special way – at Chequers ‘he would be suggesting that it would be very useful if there could be private discussions of these matters between his people and your people.’25 By this he meant not the Foreign Office, but Michael Lillis and Nally and Armstrong and Goodall. Although Armstrong did not mention the point, such talks threatened to go against the public statement by Jim Prior that no secret deals would be contemplated.
On 2 November, Mrs Thatcher received reports of FitzGerald’s state of mind. FitzGerald believed, the source reported, ‘that the main obstruction to progress on the issue of Northern Ireland did not take the form of constitutional restraints, but was the Prime Minister herself’.26
As the November summit approached, Mrs Thatcher began to worry that the Irish were expecting more of a quid pro quo for security co-operation than she had wanted.27 The meeting on 7 November was uneasy. ‘It was electric the sensation that Mrs Thatcher exuded,’ recalled Michael Lillis. ‘I think it had to do with the issues … her sense of protecting British sovereignty against the ambitions of these mad nationalists but also the issues of loss of life of service people as well as of the population, including, let me say, the Catholic population.’28 When FitzGerald used his favoured word ‘alienation’ to describe the feelings of the Nationalist community, Mrs Thatcher cut him short: ‘I do wish you would stop using that dreadful word, Garret.’29 FitzGerald spoke of the threat from Sinn Fein, and aired the New Ireland Forum’s emerging suggestions of federation, confederation or joint sovereignty.* ‘The Prime Minister said that she noted the Taoiseach’s concern’30 is all that the record betrays of Mrs Thatcher’s thoughts. FitzGerald was clearly somewhat deflated.
But, as so often in the Irish story, power accrued to those who made sure that a process remained in place and then took charge of that process. After FitzGerald had left, the British team gathered round the fire with the Prime Minister and extracted from her what they really wanted, her consent for a formal British response to the Irish proposals. They developed what they called a ‘basic equation’. Britain would agree to offer the Dublin government ‘some form of political involvement in Northern Ireland in return for formal recognition of the Union’.31 Anxious, however, about any accusation of ‘secret negotiations’, Mrs Thatcher now closed down the Lillis–Goodall channel. This made virtually no practical difference, since all further discussions could take place under the auspices of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council. The meetings were therefore publicly acknowledged. But their true subject matter remained secret.
The year 1983 ended with several dreadful terrorist incidents, including the assassination of a rising young Unionist politician, Edgar Graham, the killing by the IRA of two members of the Irish security forces – the first such incident since the beginning of the Troubles – and the IRA’s bombing of Harrods, in London, in which six people died. On balance, these atrocities helped FitzGerald’s cause. He wrote in The Times that both governments shared an interest in fighting terrorism: ‘the next step must be that we all do it together.’32 Mrs Thatcher responded in kind. Paying a surprise visit to the province just before Christmas, she combined a robust condemnation of terrorism (‘We do not surrender to bullets or bombs’) with friendly words for FitzGerald: ‘I warmly welcome and accept the invitation of the Taoiseach to step up even further our co-operation in the battle against terrorism.’33
Early in the new year 1984, Mrs Thatcher brought Jim Prior and Geoffrey Howe to Chequers to discuss the situation in Northern Ireland. Airing her frustration about terrorism, she put forward various ideas which, from time to time, she liked to bring up and which everyone else tried to squash. David Goodall recorded:
The Prime Minister asked why arrangements could not be made to transfer those members of the minority community who did not wish to remain under British rule to the Republic. After all, she said, the Irish were used to large scale movements of population. Only recently there had been a population transfer of some kind. At this point the silence round the fire became transfused with simple bafflement. After a pause, I asked if she could possibly be thinking of Cromwell. ‘Cromwell: of course.’ ‘Well Prime Minister, Cromwell’s policy was known as “To Hell or Connaught” and it left a scar on Anglo-Irish relations which still hasn’t healed.’ The idea of a population transfer was not pursued.34*
However startling Mrs Thatcher’s ‘thinking aloud’ might be, the consequences of the meeting were, once again, satisfactory for those who wanted negotiations. On 16 February, the Anglo-Irish proposals were brought before Cabinet for the first time, with Mrs Thatcher, suffering from laryngitis, speaking less than usual. She explained that a motive for pushing forward with British proposals was to get ahead of the forthcoming Forum report. Her aim, though advanced with tough qualifications – ‘We need an acceptably binding commitment’35 – was to encourage her colleagues towards talks rather than to express doubts. When Tom King, who, much later in the process became Northern Ireland secretary himself, objected that the Irish might not vote to amend Articles 2 and 3 and so matters would stand worse than before, Mrs Thatcher replied, ‘You can’t make it worse; you can’t do nothing.’36 The mood of the meeting was cautious. Willie Whitelaw said, ‘I strongly support the plan, to preserve the Irish Govt’s cooperatn [Armstrong’s shorthand] in security,’ but then characteristically undercut himself by adding that he was ‘Not optimistic about outcome’.37 The Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham,† the most Unionist member of the Cabinet, warned that no referendum in the Republic would get through. But Mrs Thatcher felt able to sum up the meeting, as noted by Armstrong, thus: ‘Cab. approves probe, in utmost secrecy.’38
Preoccupied with the New Ireland Forum, the Irish did not formally engage with the British proposals until the Forum published its report on 2 May 1984. Although praised by FitzGerald as acknowledging for the first time the feelings of the majority in Northern Ireland who considered themselves British, the report was not at all comforting for Unionists. It gave a highly unflattering account of the British role in Ireland, and outlined three futures – the creation of a unitary Irish state, a federal or confederal Irish state, or some form of ‘joint authority’ over the province administered by London and Dublin – all of which would have abolished or undermined the Union. Of these, the Irish government favoured joint authority, which FitzGerald considered different from the joint sovereignty which was unacceptable to Britain.* Joint authority meant, in practice, that Britain and the Republic of Ireland would rule Northern Ireland together, with equal recognition of the symbols and citizenships of the two states. To Mrs Thatcher, this was out of the question. It included joint command of the security services and the establishment of an all-Ireland court and criminal justice system. ‘We had to rule out joint authority’, she later recalled, ‘because it was really a form of joint sovereignty.’39
Once again, however, Mrs Thatcher did nothing to prevent further negotiations. In public, she refrained from attacking the Forum report, confining herself to sounding unspecifically pos
itive. ‘If you look at the numbers of people in our security forces who have given their lives for this,’ she told the BBC, ‘if you look at the number of deaths in Northern Ireland, you look at the terrorism and you think: “This can’t go on forever.” Therefore, we must find something.’40
Privately, however, Mrs Thatcher was angry at the pressure from the Forum: ‘I felt it was trying to coerce us.’41 When she met ministers and officials to discuss the latest Armstrong–Nally proposals on 24 May, her reaction was strong: ‘the starkness of the Irish bid for joint authority savoured of effrontery … and stung her into more than usually unguarded outbursts of irritation.’42
An important consideration in Mrs Thatcher’s mind was the need to keep relations with the United States, only recently recovered from the spat over Grenada (see Chapter 5), in good repair, particularly as President Reagan was about to visit the Republic in June. The Irish government, which prided itself on having an ‘extremely close relationship with Reagan – in ways even more intimate than she did’,43 saw the Forum report as an opportunity to influence American opinion. It exploited the fact that Reagan needed the help of ‘Tip’ O’Neill, the Democratic Irish American Speaker of the House, to get legislation passed. O’Neill ‘actually traded domestic issues with Reagan to make sure that Reagan put a little pressure on her’.44
In reality, Reagan’s ‘Irishness’ was not very strong. According to Judge William Clark, Reagan’s National Security Advisor, the President did have ‘to remind Mrs Thatcher a few times that his own life might go better, considering the Irish influence in the Congress, if London treated its counterparts in Dublin with a little more dignity. But the President didn’t feel very strongly about the Irish issue. I know he was suspected of this … but in spite of his Irish name and his visit to his ancestral home, he didn’t feel that strongly.’45 American pressure was extremely gentle. Before Reagan left for Ireland, his Secretary of State, George Shultz, briefed him on the Forum report:
FitzGerald may ask you to use your good offices with Mrs Thatcher to ‘be more forthcoming’. Without commenting on the merits of the report itself, your best course of action is to reaffirm your support for all efforts, of both the British and Irish governments, to find a peaceful and constitutional solution to the problems of Northern Ireland.46
Certainly Mrs Thatcher had few complaints about this emollient position: ‘Ron Reagan was very helpful in totally and utterly condemning terrorism. He understood everything,’ she recalled.47 But, in return, she was keen, as Charles Powell put it, on ‘keeping that old Irishman Reagan on side’,48 and the best way to give herself some cover was to be seen to be talking to the government of the Republic. She feared criticism from America that Britain was ‘doing nothing’ to address the ‘genuine grievances’ of the minority in Northern Ireland: ‘that is not a reputation that I could have endured.’49
Exchanges now focused on what Mrs Thatcher might agree to in return for the Irish doing away with Articles 2 and 3 of their Constitution. Before Mrs Thatcher and FitzGerald met on 3 September 1984, David Goodall set out for Mrs Thatcher where matters stood. The Irish had proposed a new, unarmed police force drawn from the Nationalist community to police minority areas, and a new joint ‘security force’. These ideas were ‘unrealistic’ and the consequent disarming and break-up of the RUC would have ‘disastrous consequences’. As for constitutional change, Britain would not concede joint anything, he wrote. ‘What we are prepared to offer, however, is a means of exercising direct influence over the affairs of the province through institutionalised consultative arrangements about police and security matters.’50 Mrs Thatcher should make FitzGerald see just how big this was ‘in that it would involve for the first time a formal British acknowledgement of the Irish Government’s right to a say in Northern Ireland’s internal affairs’.51 Mrs Thatcher did not like the phrase ‘right to a say’ and put a wiggly line under it, but she did not jib at the essential deal being floated.
When they met, in Downing Street, FitzGerald told her, with a self-sacrificial air, that it was difficult to see how his government could survive defeat in a referendum on Articles 2 and 3, ‘But, he had consulted his Ministers, who were ready to take the risk.’52 Mrs Thatcher responded with a piece of worldly wisdom. ‘She had been in politics long enough to know that often one started off with an idea but the real difficulty came in translating it into practical politics.’53 What FitzGerald was suggesting would be fine in a world of common sense, ‘But in Northern Ireland one was dealing with folklore, resentment and suspicion.’ His instinct was to play up the principles involved in their negotiations and announce to the world a new vision. Hers was to play them down.
Nothing new was agreed at this meeting, except, as usual, that Armstrong–Nally should keep going. In the ensuing month, officials on both sides entered a ‘mildly euphoric phase’.54 This optimistic atmosphere, however, was soon, almost literally, exploded.
The Conservatives’ annual party conference performance took place in Brighton. As always, Mrs Thatcher prepared her setpiece leader’s speech exhaustively. Late into the night of Thursday 11 October 1984, she was working on the draft in the Napoleon Suite on the first floor of the Grand Hotel, still in full evening dress after the party’s Agents’ Ball. Denis had gone to bed. At about 2.50 in the morning of 12 October, when she had just finished her amendments to the draft and handed them over for typing up, Robin Butler gave her a document about the Liverpool Garden Festival, to consider overnight. ‘I’ll look at it now,’ she said.55 ‘I was feeling drowsy,’ Butler recalled. ‘Suddenly, there was this boom. I said, “There’s a bomb. You ought to come away from the windows.” “I must see if Denis is all right,” said Mrs Thatcher,’ and opened the door to the bedroom. She plunged into the darkness and came out with her husband, who was in his pyjamas, dazed from sleep. The bathroom was badly damaged. If she had been in it at the time, she would have been severely injured.
Immediately across the corridor, in the room set aside for typing and photocopying, Amanda Colvin and Tessa Gaisman, who were enacting Mrs Thatcher’s changes to the speech, immediately knew it was a bomb ‘because we had both, by chance, been in the Harrods bomb the previous December’.56 Stephen Sherbourne, who was with them, thought otherwise. He had heard the sound of breaking glass and wrongly guessed that striking miners, who had been besetting the conference, had broken into the hotel.57 John Gummer, the party Chairman, was also in the typing room, fiddling with the speech. After the blast, he told everyone to lie on the floor. Then, gingerly, he crawled to the door and opened it. Oddly, the corridor lights were still working. He was surprised to be confronted by Mrs Thatcher, also on her hands and knees, and shoeless, on the other side of the door.58 She came into the room. ‘That was meant for me,’ she said. ‘Are you all right, dears?’59 Then she noticed that a Garden Room girl, also helping with the typing, was rather tearful, so she went over to her: ‘It’s probably a bomb, but don’t worry, dear.’60 When Denis emerged, Bob Kingston, her detective, noticed that he was rather shaken, but that Mrs Thatcher was calm and composed.61 Butler told them they must return to Downing Street at once, for the sake of her security. Mrs Thatcher said, ‘I’m not leaving.’62
There followed about twenty minutes of confusion in which people debated where the Prime Minister should go in Brighton for her protection. It was considered risky to leave because of fears of a second bomb, and of snipers. At one point, indeed, there was a further loud explosion. ‘It sounded like a second bomb,’ Mrs Thatcher recalled.63 In fact, it was the sound of falling debris from the blast. There was only one bomb, which had been planted with a long-delay timer by an IRA operative, Patrick Magee,* several weeks earlier under the bath in the sixth-floor room in which he stayed. Magee had worked out where Mrs Thatcher would stay, and had placed the bomb so that its force would blow down the vertical section of the building in which she would be situated. As it turned out, Mrs Thatcher was put in a suite away from the section that Magee had targeted, an
d so others took the force of the blast. None of this, of course, was known at the time.
Mrs Thatcher played little part in the discussions about where to go next, but busied herself worrying about Geoffrey and Elspeth Howe in the suite next door to hers. What looked like smoke, but was actually dust, was coming out from under their door. They were trapped in their room because the door would not open. Their cries could be heard. Eventually, they were released from captivity, unharmed.
The police, in John Gummer’s view, did not know what to do, so various people made helpful suggestions. Gummer himself proposed taking Mrs Thatcher to the nearby house of a doctor he had known when his father was a vicar in Brighton.64 Someone else rang Ian Gow and secured an offer of his house at Hankham, near Eastbourne.* Eventually, the police rejected these ideas and decided to take Mrs Thatcher and her party to Brighton police station. They were escorted down the main stairs of the hotel by firemen, past the pile of rubble that had fallen into the hall and out to a cul-de-sac at the back, with Mrs Thatcher trying to check which people had been accounted for. ‘The cement dust got in your mouth,’ Mrs Thatcher remembered.65 Butler and Bob Kingston packed some of the Thatchers’ clothes and her No. 10 papers and brought them down to the vehicles. Mrs Thatcher herself had ‘dashed into the bedroom to get clothes for the next day – a navy suit, two blouses and shoes’.66 ‘Don’t worry, Prime Minister,’ said Amanda Colvin, ‘I’ve got the speech,’67 and she put a copy of the latest draft into Mrs Thatcher’s bag – evidence of the working assumption that the conference would go on and the speech be delivered.68† Mrs Thatcher’s own secure car had been locked up for the night in the police station and so another vehicle had to be found from the hotel car park. David Wolfson offered his, and drove it. Mrs Thatcher, Denis and her long-standing assistant Cynthia Crawford (Crawfie) travelled with him. The rest of the entourage followed in a bus, including John Gummer’s wife, Penny, shivering in her nightdress. Later Peter Morrison,‡ at that time a junior minister, turned up at the police station. Always one to drink copiously, he had only half woken when the bomb went off, assumed that the noise came from Young Conservative revellers, and gone back to sleep. The Howes, and their dog Budget, who was uninjured, were also brought to the police station.
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