FROSTY relations between the UK and Ireland spilled over in an astonishingly heated meeting, between Secretary of State Roy Mason and Irish Foreign Minister Michael O'Kennedy.
On May 5, 1978, the two men met in Dublin for the latest in a series of Anglo-Irish discussions.
Key topics on the agenda were cross-border security, the IRA, the La Mon House Hotel bombing and the economy.
Tensions – only now made public – eru
pted amid accusations on both sides about their public conduct on matters regarding Northern Ireland and terrorism.
During talks, the Irish said the UK Government should come out and say the only basis for a lasting peace in Ulster would be within a united Ireland.
This was against a backdrop of continual assertions by nationalists, throughout 1978, that this was the only basis for a deal and calls for a British withdrawal – which even the Daily Mirror backed.
Mr Mason, meanwhile, accused Ireland of destabilising the Province with public “demands” for unity.
These Anglo-Irish discussions were supposed to be about better relations, but even before the meeting there was expectation of a difficult exchange.
A Northern Ireland Office paper was drafted by civil servants for Mr Mason on April 27, to brief him ahead of the talks.
It spoke of attempting to “defuse with as little fuss as possible” issues which were affecting the UK-Ireland relationship.
It was especially concerned with the Republic’s interest in Northern Ireland and it taking on any sort of formal or institutional angle.
Mr Mason was urged to say “we are prepared to tell an interested government (of another country) how we see the situation (in Ulster)”. But the lines must be clear and an arms length and informality maintained.
The questions of attempts to “arise afresh the question of Irish unity” were to be avoided by London officials.
When the meeting came, the minutes of May 5, show it was the Mr O’Kennedy who set the ball rolling for a tetchy discussion.
It reads that he immediately stated he “was very concerned, that without any notice at all to them (the Irish), the Secretary of State indicated that those responsible for La Mon might have come from the South; it had provoked a severe reaction in Dublin.”
Mr O’Kennedy believed there was an implicit suggestion of the Republic harbouring or supporting the terrorists.
But he said there “could no public or private apprehensions about their commitment against the IRA”.
