Declassified files: Guidance on dealing with Sinn Fein was changed four times

Official guidance to ministers on engaging with Sinn Fein was updated four times in the lead up to the Good Friday Agreement in response to IRA activity and the party’s shifting positions on non-violence.
By The Newsroom
Published 30th Dec 2021, 00:45 BST
Then Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams speaking to the media before going into Belfast's Waterfront Hall. Memos directed staff on how they were to engage with Sinn Fein after the party committed itself to the Mitchell principles, according to newly released documents from the National Archives.Then Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams speaking to the media before going into Belfast's Waterfront Hall. Memos directed staff on how they were to engage with Sinn Fein after the party committed itself to the Mitchell principles, according to newly released documents from the National Archives.
Then Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams speaking to the media before going into Belfast's Waterfront Hall. Memos directed staff on how they were to engage with Sinn Fein after the party committed itself to the Mitchell principles, according to newly released documents from the National Archives.

A series of memos circulated among government departments in Northern Ireland during 1997 and 1998 show how a ban on ministers meeting directly with Sinn Fein was lifted only to be reinstated a few months later.

In May 1997, the month that the Labour government came to power in the UK, new Guidelines for Contact were cleared by Secretary of State Mo Mowlam.

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At the time, the IRA was continuing its campaign of violence – having broken its August 1994 ceasefire in February 1996.

The guidelines are contained in a file released from the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland.

“In the absence of an IRA ceasefire, contact between Sinn Fein and Government Ministers and officials will be circumscribed as follows,” the document reads.

“Ministers will not hold meetings with Sinn Fein elected representatives or an exclusively Sinn Fein delegation in any circumstances nor will they meet, on Government property, a delegation or group which includes Sinn Fein representatives.

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“The denial of Ministerial contact with Sinn Fein as a party is in line with the policy of the Irish Government.”

The guidelines said ministers could continue to participate in outside visits in Northern Ireland and Great Britain on the “understanding that any contacts with Sinn Fein representatives will be incidental to the primary purpose of the visit”.

On such visits, it said social contact with any Sinn Fein representative should be “avoid or minimised”.

The guidance said senior officials could meet with Sinn Fein to discuss policy issues only with the “explicit approval of the appropriate Departmental Minister”.

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The guidance was changed in the wake of the IRA’s second ceasefire in July 1997, then again after the IRA was implicated in two murders in February 1998, and for a fourth time a month later.

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