Declassified files: Priest's claim of 1988 secret UVF-IRA Army Council talks

According to the document, marked “Secret” which was released under the Republic’s 30-year rule, the meetings were facilitated by Father John Murphy, a chaplain in the Maze Prison.

The memo, written to the Taoiseach’s Office in November 1988, said that Fr Murphy was anxious to keep the meetings secret and listed the three main enemies of the talks as “the NIO, the RUC and the DUP”.

“Fr Murphy was frankly surprised at the speed with which events had moved and was particularly surprised at the signs of apparent flexibility being shown by the UVF in this exercise where they demonstrated a willingness to at least talk about a wide range of possible future arrangements for Ireland, not excluding concepts like a federal Ireland ... based on the four provinces including a nine-county Ulster with a separate province-type arrangement for Dublin similar to the District of Columbia in the US,” Brendan Mahon, of the Anglo Irish Division wrote.

“John Murphy has now informed me on a highly-confidential basis that these talks have now moved outside of the confines of the prison and that the Army Council of the IRA and the leadership of UVF have now agreed to separate talks with the chaplains outside of the prison.”

The papers state that neither the UDA nor the INLA were involved in the talks, which were indicated to have started in the summer of 1988, with the UVF wanting to exclude the UDA due to a state of confusion within the organisation and “to their fears regarding the level of security force penetration of the UDA”.

However, it was indicated that UUP leader James Molyneaux knew about the talks and Fr Murphy “did not expect any trouble” from him. Mr Mahon indicated he felt Mr Molyneaux had given the “OK” regarding the initiative.

Around the same time as the memo was written, it was noted that unionist protests against the Anglo-Irish Agreement were less well supported than previous years.

Fr Murphy also claimed that the flexibility being shown by the UVF was “indicative of the general uncertainty among loyalists as regards their future in a changed Anglo/Irish relationship”.

Catholic bishops were kept in the dark, with the news that the talks had moved outside the prison kept to “the leadership of the IRA and UVF, two chaplains and now, ourselves”.

Mr Mahon wrote that it was “extremely interesting” that “the military leadership of the IRA (as distinct from Adams, etc) [is] in talks with the most hardline loyalist paramilitary organisation”.

Dr Aaron Edwards, author of the 2017 book ‘UVF: Behind the Mask’, told the News Letter that the significance of the ‘talks’ is difficult to assess.

He said: “If it was on an inter-organisational basis between senior UVF prisoners and IRA prisoners inside the Maze it would have likely been sanctioned by the UVF leadership and could be potentially quite revealing ... if it was merely a seminar between prison house intellectuals then it would have less significance. The indication of UVF meetings with ‘the IRA Army Council’ is uncorroborated and unlikely given that the UVF did not sanction contact via Fr Alec Reid until 1989.”