Thatcher told Dublin power-sharing was 'anathema to the Unionists' - as Irish PM urged her to exploit unionist divisions
Dublin urged Margaret Thatcher to exploit divisions within unionism in the wake of the Anglo Irish Agreement – and sell devolution as a way of “diminishing” the role of a UK-Irish forum set up under the deal.
Minutes of a meeting between the prime minister and her Irish counterpart Garret FitzGerald show Mrs Thatcher saying that reverting to power-sharing would be no good – describing it as an “anathema to the Unionists”.
The Conservative party leader – who provoked unionist fury after signing the pact which gave Dublin a formal advisory role in Northern Ireland for the first time – showed sympathy with the unionist position during the 1986 meeting.
Irish PM Garret FitzGerald had urged her to exploit divisions within unionism – and explain to them that devolution would be a way of “diminishing” the role of the Intergovernmental Conference. It key part of the Anglo Irish Agreement (AIA) – and despised by unionists.
However, minutes show she was concerned to avoid a “head on confrontation” with unionist leaders in an upcoming meeting – saying she would need to be able to offer them a “structure of consultation” which would “enable them to feel that Unionist views were taken fully into account in the work of the Intergovernmental Conference”.
Meeting records state the UK side as saying: “There had been conferences on devolution before. They had lasted interminably and got nowhere. There needed to be some degree of prior understanding on structures. It was no good reverting to power sharing. This was anathema to the Unionists”.
Mrs Thatcher argued that a majority of people in NI believed that nationalists had “got everything from the Agreement and the Unionists nothing”.
“It seemed to her that the Irish Government was altogether too demanding while failing to understand adequately the very serious and difficult situation which HMG faced”, the notes state.
Mr Thatcher argued that “there was a serious risk that it would all come unstuck”. While the UK was “fully committed” to the AIA – for it to work there had to be “at least the grudging acquiescence of the Unionists”.