This article was downloaded by: [Ulster University Library]On: 25 March 2015, At: 05:36Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Small Wars & InsurgenciesPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fswi20

The Provisional IRA, the Irishborder, and Anglo-Irish relationsduring the TroublesHenry Patterson aa School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy, theUniversity of Ulster , Jordanstown , Northern IrelandPublished online: 08 Aug 2013.

To cite this article: Henry Patterson (2013) The Provisional IRA, the Irish border, andAnglo-Irish relations during the Troubles, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 24:3, 493-517, DOI:10.1080/09592318.2013.802607

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2013.802607

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, orsuitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressedin this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not theviews of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content shouldnot be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

The Provisional IRA, the Irish border, and Anglo-Irishrelations during the Troubles

Henry Patterson*

School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy, the University of Ulster, Jordanstown,Northern Ireland

(Received 8 June 2012; final version received 24 April 2013)

Using hitherto largely unexplored governmental archives from London andDublin, this article focuses on the security challenges arising from theexistence of the land frontier between the Republic of Ireland and NorthernIreland and the significance of issues of cross-border security cooperation forAnglo-Irish relations from the beginning of the Troubles until the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. It argues that the relatively safe haven of theRepublic was essential to the longevity of the IRA’s campaign and thatsuccessive Irish governments exploited British security concerns to expandtheir political influence on Northern Ireland.

Keywords: Irish border; security cooperation; IRA; Garda Siochana; RUC;British government; Fianna Fail; Anglo-Irish Agreement; safe haven

The Provisional IRA (henceforth IRA) waged the longest and most sustained

campaign of violence in the history of Irish republicanism. From the formation of

the organisation in the final months of 1969 to the IRA’s announcement that its

Army Council had ‘ordered an end to its armed campaign’1 in July 2005, its

campaign had lasted over 30 years.2 In contrast, the IRA’s foundational campaign

against the British state which led to the end of British rule in 26 of Ireland’s

32 counties lasted from January 1919 to December 1921 and its failed Border

campaign from December 1956 to February 1962. This article focuses on a factor

that has largely been ignored in explanations of the IRA’s capacity to maintain its

campaign: the existence of the land boundary of over 250 miles between the

United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. It makes extensive use of governmental

archives to provide the first detailed analysis of the significance of the issue of

cross-border security issues for the main actors in the conflict.

The challenges that faced the security forces in Northern Ireland because of

the border were identified early in the Troubles and were a persistent and often

contentious theme in Anglo-Irish relations over the next 30 years. Despite its

importance, there has been a dearth of academic literature on the significance of

the border, although it has featured in the accounts of journalists and IRA

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

*Email: h.patterson@ulster.ac.uk

Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2013

Vol. 24, No. 3, 493–517, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2013.802607

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

defectors. A reading of these works gives some indication of the ways in which

the IRA was able to exploit the existence of a land frontier between Northern

Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. IRA volunteers used it as a means of escape

throughout the Troubles. Substantial numbers located themselves in the towns

and villages of border counties of the Republic where they became part of IRA

units launching attacks into Northern Ireland and then retreating back across the

border.3 IRA training camps operated both in border counties but also in parts of

the Republic far from the border.4 It was considerably easier both to manufacture

homemade explosives in the Republic and to import weapons for later transfer

to the North.5 The IRA was funded in part by the proceeds of cross-border

smuggling and bank robberies, kidnapping and extortion in the Republic.6

Throughout the Troubles successive British governments argued that the

border was crucial to the IRA and that the key to dealing with it was more

effective cooperation between the security forces North and South. However, as

this article will demonstrate, Irish governments never accepted this British

argument, contending that the roles of the border and Irish territory in violence in

Northern Ireland were exaggerated and that their security policies were as robust

as was necessary. At the root of these differences were conflicting political

perspectives, and it is impossible to understand the tensions over security

cooperation, or the lack of it, without situating security issues within the context

of broader issues of political change in Northern Ireland and the Irish state’s

political ambitions.

Using hitherto largely unexplored governmental archives from London and

Dublin, the focus of this article is on the security challenges arising from the

existence of the border and how these affected and were in turn affected

by Anglo-Irish relations. The central argument is that, unlike previous IRA

campaigns when the Irish state acted decisively to deal with subversion, this did

not happen during the Troubles because of the radically different political

context. The crisis and collapse of the Unionist state between 1968 and 1972

encouraged a radicalisation of political ambitions in the Republic and the result

was that successive Irish governments, while prepared to take action against the

more flagrant manifestations of IRA activity on Irish territory, were much more

reluctant to provide the sort of cross-border cooperation desired by the British.

This failure by the Irish state has been largely ignored in the existing literature on

Anglo-Irish relations but without it is impossible to understand key developments

like the Anglo-Irish Agreement or the capacity of the IRA to carry on its

campaign for a quarter of a century.

The border as a security challenge

The border was created in the early 1920s, a product of the Treaty of 1921

negotiated to end the conflict between the original IRA and the British

government. It created new states on the island: a 26-county Irish Free State

(from 1948 the Republic of Ireland) and a 6-county Northern Ireland. Unlike

494 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

most other national frontiers, because of centuries of freedom of movement of

people between the two islands, there were no restrictions on movement between

the Republic, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain: passports or identity

documents were not necessary for those passing from one jurisdiction to the

other.7 The new Irish state had imposed significant tariffs on imported goods and

this resulted in a number of ‘approved’ crossings with customs posts which those

carrying commodities from one state to the other were supposed to use.

Inevitably this produced a widespread system of smuggling of livestock and

goods, which exploited the numerous ‘unapproved’ roads where there were no

customs officials.

A British army report in 1971 pointed out the challenges the border raised:

The border was not devised for its strategic or tactical significance. It follows theoriginal county boundaries . . . . many farms and communities straddle the border.Some 300 miles long it is traversed by 20 approved crossings by 17 other crossingpoints on four concession routes . . . and 158 unapproved roads apart frominnumerable cross-country tracks and rails.8

Border communities had enjoyed unrestricted movement for most of the period

since partition: ‘they consider the border as an administrative line to be exploited

(e.g. smuggling) or ignored as an inconvenience’.9 There was strong resentment

against any restrictions on freedom of movement and any attempts to block

customary crossing points would be resisted. Attempts by the security forces in

the North to obstruct the movement of terrorists had already provoked significant

protests.

The IRA was able to exploit the fact that it was organised on an all-Ireland

basis while its opponents were divided into two separate sets of policing and

military institutions with different and, at times, conflicting political masters. It

also benefitted from the fact that the border areas of both states contained strong

reservoirs of support for militancy. This was particularly so in Northern Ireland

where the border counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh had Catholic majorities who

regarded the Protestant/Unionist government of the state as illegitimate and who

were excluded from any share in local government by the gerrymandering of

electoral boundaries from which flowed discrimination in the allocation of

council housing and employment.10 It was Catholic grievances over these issues

together with resentment against the state’s part-time anti-IRA militia, the Ulster

Special Constabulary or ‘B’ Specials, a wholly Protestant force, that fuelled

support for the Civil Rights movement whose marches in 1968 and 1969 initiated

the crisis of the Northern Irish state and the subsequent ‘Troubles’.

The IRA, Irish political culture, and Fianna Fail

For the IRA, as for all Irish nationalists, the land frontier between Northern Ireland

and the Irish Republic was an imperial imposition, a mutilation of the natural unity

of the island and the Irish nation. From the formation of the two states in 1921 the

partition question was defined as the unfinished business of the national revolution:

Small Wars & Insurgencies 495

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

in the Irish Constitution of 1937 the ending of partition became a constitutional

imperative. The dominant party in the politics of the Republic, Fianna Fail, put the

ending of partition as its first priority. The illegitimacy of partition and the northern

state were thus core themes of the political culture of the Republic. The eruption of

violence in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s was seen as the inevitable result of the

undemocratic and sectarian nature of the Northern Irish state. Southern sympathies

were overwhelmingly with Northern Catholics and when thousands of these fled

south after the outbreak of sectarian violence in Belfast in August 1969, the initial

armed actions of the IRA were seen as a legitimate defensive response to state and

loyalist violence. The Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Jack Lynch, opposed the

introduction of British troops on to the streets of Londonderry and Belfast and

proclaimed that ‘the reunification of the national territory can provide the only

permanent solution for the problem.’11 The crisis of the Northern state produced a

radicalisation of expectations on the part of the Irish state and the nationals in both

North and South. Leading figures in Lynch’s government were prepared to use state

resources to import arms for distribution to ‘defence committees’ in the North,

committees dominated by the fledgling IRA. Although Lynch sacked the ministers

concerned, the ‘Arms Crisis’12 indicated the strength of republican sympathies

within Fianna Fail and the key conspirator, Charles Haughey, would go on to

become leader of the party and Taoiseach within a decade.

From August 1969 to February 1972 the IRA, many of whose first leaders

were based in the Republic and whose ‘Army Council’ held its meetings in the

South, was assured of what the leading Irish intellectual and Labour Party TD

(member of the Irish Parliament) Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien referred to the

‘sneaking regard for the “boys”’, which was harboured by many members of

Fianna Fail and which he claimed had infected the political culture with an

ambiguity towards the use of violence.13 By the end of 1971 Lynch’s government

faced a major challenge from the reverberations of northern violence in the

Republic. The intense communal violence that followed the introduction of

internment in the North led to an influx of 6000 Catholic refugees to border areas

of the Republic where many were housed in camps supervised by the Irish army.

The presence of refugees from the North along with an increasing number of IRA

men on the run had created a febrile atmosphere in the border towns of the

Republic.14 There was initially sympathy for ‘on-the-runs’ which extended

beyond traditional republican supporters. The killing by British paratroopers of

13 civil rights marchers in Derry on Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972 ratcheted

up anti-British feeling in the Republic.

The IRA, although ideologically opposed to Fianna Fail for its alleged

‘collaborationist’ attitude to the British presence in Ireland, was careful not to

risk unnecessary conflict with the Irish state. The organisation maintained

Standing Order 8 adopted by the IRA in 1954 forbidding any ‘militant action’

against the security forces of the Irish state.15 In the early years of the Troubles

this contributed to a tendency in the Republic to see them as defenders of

Northern Catholics rather than a subversive threat to the Irish state. The popular

496 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

ambiguity towards the IRA was reflected in the refusal of the Irish courts to

extradite IRA members who were wanted by the British authorities. The long-

standing position of Irish governments had been to refuse to extradite individuals

whose crime could be considered to have a ‘political motivation’. It was spelled

out during the IRA’s 1956–1962 Border campaign by the Taoiseach, John

A. Costello:

. . . there can be no question of our handing over, either to the British or to the SixCounty authorities, persons who they may accuse of armed political activities,either in Britain or the Six Counties.16

The Republic was a signatory to the European Convention on Extradition 1957,

which recognised political offences as non-extraditable. The British argued that,

while the Convention recognised the right, it did not impose the duty, and the

Republic could choose to do otherwise.17 The result was that, unless the IRA

member committed a crime in the Republic, he was relatively safe from arrest. In

the words of a British army analysis of the IRA produced in 1978: ‘Terrorists can

live there without fear of extradition for crimes committed in the North.’18

The limits of what could be expected from Lynch were made clear by the

response he made to an early request for more cooperation against the IRA. In

February 1971 the British ambassador to the Republic, John Peck, wrote to Lynch

to point out the precarious position of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland,

James Chichester-Clark, and the threat this constituted to the introduction of

reforms in Northern Ireland. Peck identified a key problem as the perception

among Ulster Unionists that the IRA was treated with ‘continuing, if not growing,

tolerance’ in the Republic. Although this was ‘an unfair simplification’ it was

undermining the reform process in Northern Ireland. He pressed Lynch for

‘discreet collaboration between the police and security services in Dublin,

London, and Northern Ireland’.19

In the post-war period there had been regular contact between the two police

forces, the Garda Siochana (Garda) and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in

relation to ordinary crime and smuggling.20 There had also been a significant

degree of covert cooperation against the IRA during the 1956–1962 campaign.21

There is some evidence that links were maintained in the early months of the

Troubles. Peter Berry, the Secretary of the Republic’s Department of Justice,

used a police liaison channel in September 1970 to inform the RUC Special

Branch of possible IRA importation of arms into Northern Ireland and of a plot to

place explosives in the cars of British soldiers who were crossing the border in

civilian clothes to drink in pubs in border towns.22 However, as the crisis in the

North deepened, Lynch showed himself increasingly reluctant to maintain such

links. His response to Peck was a terse dismissal of the proposal for collaboration

between the two police forces.23 On 17 March 1971 the British Prime Minister,

Edward Heath, sent a personal message and appeal to Lynch informing him that

the resignation of Chichester-Clark was a real possibility as moderate Unionists

were being driven to the right by the deteriorating security situation. He pleaded

Small Wars & Insurgencies 497

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

with Lynch to help the Northern premier by ‘early and effective action against the

IRA’ including harassment of training camps and improved patrolling of the

Border by the Irish army and the Garda.24

However, Lynch was constrained by the republican militancy of a section of

his party and also by a wider perception in nationalist Ireland that the British

army was increasingly acting in a partisan and repressive way against the

Catholic community.25 Heath’s support for the Belfast government’s introduc-

tion of internment without trial on 9 August 1971 led to a sharp deterioration in

relations with Dublin. Patrick Hillery, Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs, arrived at

the Home Office in London on 11 August claiming that current British policies

would ‘lead to war in Ireland, not only in the North’. To the Home Secretary,

Reginald Maudling’s, request for help against the IRA who were training,

organising, and finding refuge south of the border, Hillery’s response was to

exclaim ‘They hate us as much as they hate you’ and added that it would be

politically impossible for the Irish to take action against the IRA. There was no

possibility of the Irish government introducing internment unless it could be

presented as part of a move towards a united Ireland.26

The Irish security forces were initially almost overwhelmed by the explosion

of IRA activity on both sides of the border. The internal security of the state was

the prime responsibility of the unarmed Garda Siochana. Garda strength was

around 6500 in 1971 with approximately 6% of these in border stations.27

Intelligence on the IRA and other paramilitary groups was the responsibility of

section C3 based in Garda headquarters in Dublin. This contained Special Branch

and the Special Detective Unit, both of which were armed. In the initial period of

the Troubles the spiralling escalation of paramilitary activity threatened to

swamp C3’s capacity. In 1970 it opened 55 new intelligence files; in 1971, 89;

while in the next two years the number rocketed to 1595 in 1972 and 1575 in

1973.28 However, financial constraints meant that the number of staff members

allocated to the analysis, assessment, and distribution of intelligence in these files

was kept to 14. The number in the Special Detective Unit assigned to intelligence

and surveillance was, an inquiry found in 1973, ‘insufficient for the maintenance

of a sufficiently good flow of intelligence’29

Direct rule and security cooperation

The British decision to suspend the Unionist administration and impose direct

rule from London on 24 March 1972 was welcomed by Lynch’s government, as

was the release of substantial numbers of internees. Heath appointed the cabinet

heavyweight, William Whitelaw, as the first Secretary of State for Northern

Ireland. Whitelaw set out to initiate broad based talks on the future of Northern

Ireland in which Northern nationalists and Dublin would have an integral role.30

When the IRA escalated its urban bombing campaign with the multiple car

bombs in Belfast that killed 11 people on ‘Bloody Friday’ on 21 July, Whitelaw

seized the opportunity to launch Operation Motorman, the biggest British

498 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

military operation since Suez, to reclaim the ‘no-go’ areas of Belfast and Derry

for the security forces. In the aftermath of Motorman there was a significant

reduction in IRA activity in Belfast and Derry and cross-border activities

assumed an increasing significance for the organisation.31

The new political context encouraged a more positive Irish attitude to cross-

border cooperation. Hillery told the British that there was no lack of political will

in Dublin to cooperate to defeat the IRA,32 and many of those IRA men who fled

across the border into Donegal after Motorman were arrested by the Garda and

Irish army patrols.33 In the autumn the British published a green paper on the

future of Northern Ireland which made provision for an ‘Irish Dimension’ to take

account of the national identity of Northern Catholics and the interest of Dublin

in the North. Heath was now prepared to accord the Irish a role in the

constitutional future of the North. He told Lynch that he was prepared to make

special arrangements through the Foreign Office to keep the Taoiseach informed

of British intentions and allow him to make his own proposals. 34

It was also the case that the Irish state had its own security concerns. In 1972

loyalist terrorists launched a series of no-warning bomb attacks in the Republic,

which they blamed for providing a safe haven for the IRA. Bombs were left in a

Dublin railway station and in hotels, and on 1 December two car bombs exploded

in the centre of Dublin killing 2 people and injuring 127. Further car bomb attacks

took place later in the month in border towns and villages causing more deaths

and injuries.35 Intelligence about loyalism could only be obtained from the

security forces in Northern Ireland and this in itself justified some degree of

ongoing contact. The IRA’s pretensions also meant that it represented an explicit

challenge to the authority and legitimacy of the Irish state, which no government

could ignore. Previous Fianna Fail governments had adopted stringent measures

including military courts, internment, and the death penalty against earlier IRA

campaigns and after direct rule Lynch’s government toughened its approach,

reintroducing sections of the 1940 Offences against the State Act to create a

Special Criminal Court without a jury to try terrorist offences, shutting down the

Dublin headquarters of Sinn Fein, the political wing of PIRA, and arresting

leading members of the IRA including the Chief of Staff, Sean MacStiofain.36

But Lynch’s government and its successors, while prepared to act against

challenges to their own domestic authority from the IRA, remained reluctant to

accept that the key to dealing with violence in the North was heightened cross-

border cooperation. In part this flowed from a nationalist political ideology,

which located the origins of violence in partition and its eradication as coming

from a process of radical political reform in the North leading to eventual Irish

unity. It was also the case that the British desire for cooperation gave the Irish a

powerful bargaining counter: they could trade off increased cooperation for an

enhanced role for the Republic in any political deal in Northern Ireland.37

The result was that Lynch’s government continued to prevaricate on British

requests for improved cooperation as a means of maintaining pressure for radical

change in the North. This was at a time when the changing distribution of IRA

Small Wars & Insurgencies 499

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

attacks intensified British concerns about the PIRA’s exploitation of the border.

After Operation Motorman, the IRA was forced to concentrate more of its

activities in border areas. Whitelaw’s security advisers produced a report on the

activities of the main IRA units based in border towns in the Republic that

demonstrated the seriousness of the threat.38 Between Operation Motorman

(31 July 1972) and November 1972 there had been 286 security incidents on or

close to the border including bomb attacks, shooting and mining incidents, and

assassinations.39 These had been carried out by IRA units operating from border

towns in the Republic where they could operate largely unhindered.40 A copy of

the report was sent to Lynch. However, Heath had to revisit the issue when, on

1 March 1973, Lynch’s party lost the general election to a coalition of the main

opposition party, Fine Gael, and the Irish Labour Party.

The Coalition and cross-border cooperation

In a personal message to the new Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, Heath referred to

the security dossier, which he had sent to Lynch, and an updated version, which

was given to Cosgrave:

We were not happy with the response we had to the representations we made to yourpredecessor. There is ample evidence that a number of ASUs have been operatingfrom the Republic with little or no hindrance from the local Gardai, despite the factthat the people concerned are well known.41

Heath proposed a high-level meeting of security experts including senior police

and military officials but this was resisted by the Irish who argued that the Irish

army were in a different position to that of their British counterpart in the North

where the army had the key role in counter-insurgency operations along the

border. Cosgrave and his colleagues argued that the Irish army could only act in

aid to the civil power: the Garda, and therefore opposed what the British referred

to as ‘Four Square’ meetings where senior Garda and Irish army officers would

meet their RUC and British army counterparts.42 This refusal to have direct

contact between the British army and either section of the Irish security forces

would be maintained throughout the Troubles and was a major bugbear for the

British and in particular the Ministry of Defence and the army commanders in

Northern Ireland. The result was that any communication from the British army

to its Irish counterpart had first to go the RUC, who would then pass it on to the

Garda, who in turn would communicate it to the army. As O’Halpin notes, this

undoubtedly lessened operational effectiveness.43

The Irish position reflected in large part the constraining influence of

nationalist ideology on Dublin administrations. The British army was the force

identified as the enemy during the War of Independence and its more recent role

in controversial incidents in Northern Ireland meant that official links with it

would be anathema to a powerful current of public opinion, one that was

particularly powerful within Fianna Fail. The role of British troops on the border

was also a major irritant. The blocking and cratering of roads was a source of

500 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

much local aggravation and many formal complaints by the Irish Department of

Foreign Affairs to the British embassy.44 For the British army, the closure

of border roads was an essential measure to canalise IRA active service units

(ASUs) into a smaller number of crossings which could be more easily

controlled. Many of the roads closed had been used by ASUs based in the border

towns and villages of the Republic and their closure was a means of disrupting

their operations. However, the road closures were often actively opposed by

locals and had led on a number of occasions to violent confrontations with British

troops.45 Fianna Fail had many parliamentary representatives from border areas

who denounced road closures as unnecessary disruptions of local trade and

communications. Fine Gael had traditionally defined itself as a party of law and

order and scourge of subversion, but in government it was constantly looking

over its shoulder to avoid Fianna Fail claims that it was less than resolute in

standing up to the British.

This was particularly so in the politically sensitive area of incursions by

British soldiers into the Republic. Many of these incursions were due to the

complexity of the border itself, which wound its way sinuously between the two

states. Paths and roads frequently crossed from one jurisdiction to the other and

back again. However, as the British ambassador, Sir Arthur Galsworthy, noted of

the Irish response to the arrest of six British soldiers in a civilian vehicle who

were stopped at a Garda checkpoint in the border town of Clones:

There is still a deep-seated feeling of instinctive opposition to the idea of Britishsoldiers entering the Republic in order to snatch Irishmen, however misguided ormiscreant the latter might be . . . . If Fianna Fail could successfully accuse theCoalition of having in any way condoned such a dreadful thing, the governmentwould be gravely embarrassed.46

When the soldiers were not charged and escorted to the border by the Garda the

government was bitterly criticised by Fianna Fail deputies in the Dail. It was alleged

that the patrol had planned to kidnap and bringNorth an IRA suspect whowas living

near the border.47 This would be one of the myriad reports and claims of British

‘spies’ and ‘death squads’ which were common in the Irish media.48 Irish concern

about incursions reached its highpoint in January 1976 when, after a series of brutal

sectarian murders in the border area of South Armagh, the British Prime Minister,

Harold Wilson, decided to deploy the Special Air Service (SAS) to the area.

South Armagh, or ‘bandit country’ as it became known in the media, was an

area where the local ASU, reinforced from across the border by ASUs based in

the Dundalk area of county Louth, had been able to impose a heavy toll on the

British army in the village of Crossmaglen where the army base had to have all

supplies flown in by helicopter due to the IRA’s control of the roads.49 After an

RUC man and a soldier were shot dead in the area in December 1974, the British

sent a detailed analysis of the security problem to Dublin. It pointed out that

Crossmaglen was flanked on three sides by the border, which was between two

and five kilometres away. Since 1969 2 policemen and 24 soldiers had been killed

and most of these attacks had been committed ‘by terrorists who are known to

Small Wars & Insurgencies 501

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

have come across the border and/or fled back there afterwards’.50 British

countermeasures had relied on the blocking of unapproved roads and the

Northern Ireland Secretary, Merlyn Rees, asked the Irish to assist by

concentrating Garda and Irish army patrols on unapproved roads in the

Crossmaglen area.51 The next year was to see no let-up in IRA attacks and little

evidence of increased activity by the security forces south of the border.

Wilson’s decision was a direct response to a particularly atrocious attack: the

‘Kingsmill massacre’ when in alleged retaliation for recent loyalist murders of

Catholics, an armed group stopped a minibus carrying home workers to Kingsmill

village and after separating out the one Catholic, machine-gunned his Protestant

workmates killing 10 of them. The group responsible called itself the ‘Republican

Action Force’ and the IRA has always denied involvement. However, an inquiry

by the Historical Inquiries Team of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which

reported in 2011, laid the blame firmly on the shoulders of the Provisionals and

claimed that the perpetrators escaped prosecution by fleeing into the Republic

where most of them were still resident.52 The van used in the attack had been

stolen from outside an hotel near the border in county Louth and was found

abandoned south of Dundalk by Gardai the morning after the attack.53

The deployment of the SAS served to highlight the negative dialectic that

developed between the two states’ distinct border deployments. The British were

increasingly frustrated with what they regarded as the Republic’s prickly

concerns over border infringements of their sovereignty. Convinced that the Irish

could do more to exchange intelligence and coordinate operations, they were

tempted into occasional adventurism south of the border. A series of SAS

operations on the border complicated the political environment for Cosgrave’s

administration. In March 1976 Sean McKenna, identified by the army as a key

IRA local commander, was taken from his home in the Republic by an SAS unit

and deposited in Northern Ireland where he was arrested by an army patrol. In

April, Peter Cleary, another leading IRA man was arrested by an SAS patrol

when he was visiting his girlfriend’s home at Forkhill, South Armagh, just 50

metres inside Northern Ireland. According to the soldiers, Cleary was shot dead

trying to overpower his guard as they waited for a helicopter to arrive.54 Both

incidents provided the IRA with what they claimed was unchallengeable

evidence of British ‘black’ operations along the border and cavalier disregard for

the Republic’s territorial integrity.

An even more politically damaging event occurred in May 1976 when eight

SAS men were arrested by Gardai near Dundalk. A car containing four SAS

soldiers, two in the uniform of the parachute regiment and two in civilian clothes,

was stopped at night at a Garda/Irish army checkpoint 700 yards inside the

Republic. When the SAS men did not return to their base, two further cars were

sent out to search for them. Each contained two SAS soldiers also dressed in

civilian clothes and both were stopped at the same checkpoint. Gardai became

suspicious because of the evasive replies given by the men and by the fact that

they were heavily armed with a variety of unorthodox weapons which included

502 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

daggers and pump action shotguns.55 The soldiers were arrested and later charged

with possession of firearms with intent to endanger life.

The case threatened to generate a major crisis in Anglo-Irish relations. The

NIO praised the role of the SAS on the border and pointed out that many people

crossed the border in South Armagh, ‘some of them murderous thugs’ who had

killed 40 soldiers along the border since 1971.56 The men were required to return

to the Republic to appear before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. They were

acquitted of the charge that would have entailed a jail term but fined on a lesser

charge. The British ambassador commented that while the men had escaped

imprisonment, ‘It was outrageous that men, who had made a human error while

operating against terrorists in hazardous conditions, should be exposed to the

danger and humiliation of a trial.’57

Despite this, the British recognised that there was a genuine desire within

the Coalition government to improve cooperation against the IRA. Both the

Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, and the Minister of Justice, Patrick Cooney, were

bitter opponents of the Provisionals and their sentiments were shared by

the Minister of Defence, Patrick Donegan, and their Labour Party colleague,

Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien.58 The collapse of the power-sharing Executive in

Northern Ireland in May 1974 led to fear among Irish policymakers that this was

encouraging the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to consider a radical

shift in policy towards British withdrawal. The destabilising effects of such a

move terrified the Irish government and encouraged it to adopt a more

accommodating position on improvements in security cooperation.59 The result

was a significant development in the formal structures of cross-border security

cooperation.

At a meeting between Cooney and Rees at Baldonnel military airport in

September 1974 there was agreement to set up four joint RUC/Garda panels on

communications, exchange of information, advance planning, and the detection

of arms, ammunition, and explosives.60 The communications panel was asked to

recommend quick and secure means of communication for dealing with border

incidents. It would involve a comprehensive network of links between RUC and

Garda stations. As part of the process the RUC arranged to loan the Garda

‘Goliath’ radio sets for secure wireless communication. The British had proposed

that the communications link should include the military but this was not

acceptable to the Irish. The panel on advance planning was regarded by the

British as potentially the most important in that it was hoped that it would set up

machinery for consultation and discussion: ‘a continuing forum for practical,

operational policemen’.61 The panels on the exchange of information and the

detection of arms and explosives aimed to build on and consolidate existing

Garda–RUC links. The Coalition had also sanctioned a significant increase in

Garda and Irish army numbers on the border.62

However, both the Army and the RUC, while not doubting the commitment

of Irish ministers to action against the IRA, had severe doubts about the

implementation of these measures on the ground. The Army was particularly

Small Wars & Insurgencies 503

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

dismissive of joint Garda/Irish army operations along the border. The Irish army

was present to assist the Garda, who were unarmed, but unlike in Northern

Ireland solders had no powers of search or arrest. Operation reports from British

Army units on the border tended to be dismissive, even contemptuous, of the

quality and commitment of their Irish counterparts.63 The Chief Constable of

the RUC, while not doubting the commitment of the Irish government to the

development of cooperation, believed that it was not going to be easy to get

dramatic results out of the Garda:

They are just not used to moving fast. It goes against the grain of their whole way oflife and of conducting business. Second, in their hearts they are scared. They havenever yet been targets of the IRA and they do not want to become them now. Thirdlythey just have not got enough men or enough money to provide a comprehensivepolice service, comparable to our own.64

Garda cooperation with the RUC was influenced by the practical reality of

being an unarmed force, which relied on the support of the local community in

which its members were based. Although the British and the RUC doubted that

collusion with the IRA was carried on by more than a handful they did believe

that a minority were either equivocal in their attitude or simply lethargic. More

significant were political constraints. All appointments and dismissals of officers

from superintendent upwards had to be agreed by ministers, and this inevitably

led to senior Garda being acutely aware of the priorities of their political masters.

The effect was noted in an NIO briefing document:

Most members of the Garda appear genuinely keen both to cooperate with the RUCand to crack down on the IRA on their side of the border- though even those who arekeen are fairly slow to adapt their techniques to accord with modern police methods.But their enthusiasm is easily dissipated by any suspicion that they are acting morevigorously than their Government would really wish them to.65

The improvements in cooperation introduced by the Coalition remained

extremely susceptible to shifts in Irish public opinion on developments in the

North. These were mediated through a Fianna Fail opposition, which in the mid

1970s was adopting a more aggressively nationalist line on Northern Ireland

policy. The effects of this became clear after the IRA carried out what was at the

time its most high-profile attack on Irish territory: the assassination of the British

ambassador, Christopher Ewart-Biggs, whose car was blown up by a landmine in

a culvert within yards of his residence in south Dublin in July 1976. Although

Cooney denied that the deaths were the result of a security shambles, Cosgrave

and his ministers spoke of their shame at the failure of the Irish state to protect the

ambassador.66 They also committed themselves to tightening of anti-terrorist

legislation. However, British officials noted the volatility of Irish public opinion:

It could easily swing back to its old ambivalence, particularly if there should besome cause celebre in the North for the republican propaganda machine to exploit.Even robust and straightforward men like Mr Cooney find it all too easy to thinkthat, although the two countries have a common enemy in the IRA terrorist, theRepublic cannot fight him side by side with the British army.67

504 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

The volatility became clear when the Dail was recalled for a special

emergency session and Cosgrave proposed three measures: the declaration of a

national emergency, an Emergency Powers Bill extending the period terrorist

suspects could be held without charge to seven days and a Criminal Law Bill,

which allowed the Irish army similar powers of search and arrest as the Gardai.68

Fianna Fail lambasted the government for a repressive response which was

infringing on civil liberties in the Republic because of pressure from London. In

opposition the party had moved decisively towards a stridently nationalist

position. Its spokesman on Northern Ireland focused on loyalist assassinations of

Catholics and criticised the British army in Northern Ireland for ‘its traditional

hostile attitudes to the Nationalist population . . . by harassing Irish people the

army has ensured that violence will continue’.69 Fianna Fail’s landslide victory in

the 1977 general election was interpreted in the Republic as a product of their

hard line on Northern Ireland and their denunciations of the Coalition for

‘collaboration’ with the British.70

Fianna Fail and the politics of denial

The return of Lynch to power in 1977 raised fears in London that improvements

in Garda/RUC cooperation under the Coalition would be jeopardised.71 While the

institutional structures agreed at Baldonell were maintained, the political

atmosphere in which they functioned did deteriorate significantly. In the North

the main nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), was

taking a distinctly more militant tone and there was a broad nationalist feeling

that British policy had taken a pro-Unionist slant. After the collapse of the power-

sharing Executive and the subsequent Constitutional Convention (1975–1976),

the new Labour Secretary of State, Roy Mason, declared himself uninterested in

further political initiatives and proclaimed the virtues of the stability provided by

direct rule. His emphasis on tough security measures against paramilitaries and

dismissal of political initiatives produced a strong nationalist backlash.72 Lynch

made it clear to London that, unless there was a political initiative that looked

beyond the ‘narrow ground’ of Northern Ireland, security cooperation would be

politically unsustainable in the Republic.73

Lynch’s government was also extremely sensitive to British criticisms of their

contribution to cross-border security. The Irish claimed that only 3% of terrorist

incidents that took place in theNorth had their origins in theRepublic.74 This figure

was obtained by simply counting incidents that took place directly on the border

and in which it could be shown that the ASU involved was based in the Republic at

the time of attack or had briefly crossed the border to carry it out. This approach

ignored the much broader ramifications of the IRA’s use of Irish territory.75

The sharp divergence between Irish and British perspectives on the issue was

sharply delineated after the IRA incinerated 12 people in a firebomb attack on the

La Mon House hotel on the outskirts of Belfast on 17 February 1978. In a special

debate on security in the House of Commons, Mason claimed that it was likely

Small Wars & Insurgencies 505

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

that those responsible were now in the Republic. The speech was based on a

security briefing document, ‘The Use of the Border by the Provisional IRA’,

which the British ambassador subsequently gave to the Department of Foreign

Affairs. The first paragraph set out the central British contention on the centrality

of the border for the Provisionals:

The border . . . . is a major factor in providing shelter and supplies for the totalProvisional IRA effort in the North. This is much more important than its secondaryrole as a shield for short range raids along its length.We have to deal therefore notwithan isolated and autonomous organisation in Northern Ireland but with a terrorist bodyoperating throughout the island. The level of operations at present maintained byPIRA in the North would not be feasible without support from South of the border.76

The Republic provided a ‘safe haven’ for the IRA in three ways. First was

short-range cross-border penetration. This was carried out by a number of ASUs

which operated in border areas carrying out ‘short sharp forays’ into the North

and returning across the border. Second was longer-range penetration where

several ASUs operating in rural areas well inside Northern Ireland used the

Republic as a safe haven to which they retired when pressure from the security

forces in the North got too great. The document instanced the south Derry

Provisionals who, after intense activity in March and April 1977, withdrew to

county Donegal returning to the North in the November. They were responsible

for a number of recent attacks including the murder of a part-time UDR man and

his 10-year-old daughter in Maghera in February 1978.77 Finally there were

individual terrorists being sought in Northern Ireland for specific offences who

successfully took refuge in the South. The cases mentioned were those of

Bernadette Sands, sister of the future IRA martyr Bobby Sands, who was badly

injured while assembling cassette incendiaries in Belfast in October 1977 and

who received treatment at Monaghan hospital while registered under a false name

and Kevin Hannaway, the OC of the Belfast Brigade, treated in Dundalk hospital

after an assassination attempt.78

Thedocument claimed that the supplyofweapons to theProvisionalswas almost

entirely by routes that passed through the Republic. There was strong evidence that

homemade mortars used in the North were manufactured in the Republic. Much of

the IRA’s training programme was conducted in the Republic in the more remote

areas of border counties, particularly Donegal. Intelligence indicated that training

was going on the use of M60 machine guns as well as mortars and rifles.79

The Irish response denied that any significant proportion of violence inNorthern

Ireland originated in or had a direct connection with the Republic. It claimed the

British made sweeping allegations based on ‘isolated incidents which are known or

alleged to have occurred’.80 It claimed that no evidence to substantiate claims about

borderASUshad beenprovided by theRUC to theGarda andwithout evidence court

charges could not be sustained. Similarly it claimed no evidence was supplied

on ASUs using the Republic as a safe haven. Neither had evidence of Sands and

Hannaway’s involvement in crimes in the North been forthcoming. The document

was equally dismissive of claims about the Republic being the source of the vast

506 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

majority of IRA weapons and large amounts of homemade explosives. The blanket

denial of the validity of much of the British document did not impress Paul Keating

the Irish ambassador in London. He noted that when the British ambassador had

handed the document over he had pointed out that its contents were known to and

agreed by the Garda. Keating suggested that if the facts alleged in the memorandum

were substantially correct and if they had been discussed with the Garda then the

Irish should be more circumspect in their response:

It is very difficult for us to argue that the border is not a factor of violence in theNorth if it is true that at this stage there are training camps in the South orlaboratories for creating home-made explosives though we can of course point outthat we have no concrete evidence. It may be better to accept that the border is animportant factor in the present campaign as it is any event the root cause of alldifficulties in Ireland.81

Thatcher, Haughey, and the IRA

The British focus on the cross-border dimension of IRA activity was brutally

vindicated in August 1979. Lord Louis Mountbatten and three of his party were

killed by an IRA bomb, which had been placed on his boat at Mullaghmore,

county Sligo where he had a holiday home. Later that day the British army

suffered its worst single loss during the Troubles when 18 soldiers were killed

by two massive bombs at Narrow Water on the shore of Carlingford Lough.

The bombs were detonated from the Irish side of the Lough and the survivors

came under fire from an IRA position south of the border.82

By the end of 1978 the army’s assessment of the IRA was that, due to a

strategic reassessment and reorganisation along cellular lines, it had the capacity

to continue its campaign for at least five more years and ‘certainly as long as

a British Army presence remains in Northern Ireland’.83 The assessment

highlighted the role of the Republic in sustaining the organisation’s capacity:

The Republic provides many of the facilities of the classic safe haven so essential toany successful terrorist movement. And it will probably continue to do so for theforeseeable future.84

Even before the Mountbatten/NarrowWater attacks there had been a growing

conviction at the highest level of the British government and the security forces

that existing anti-terrorist strategies were not working. This was linked to the

broader issues of Anglo-Irish relations. Nationalists in Northern Ireland, led by

the SDLP leader, John Hume, and Lynch’s government were waging an effective

campaign in the United States to delegitimise British policies in Northern Ireland.

It was alleged that British unwillingness to strike out on a new political initiative,

which would transcend the existing Northern Irish framework to directly involve

Dublin in the search for a solution, had created a political vacuum which the

Provisionals had exploited.85

When the Conservatives won the general election in June 1979, the new

Defence Secretary, Francis Pym, made a visit to Northern Ireland from which he

Small Wars & Insurgencies 507

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

returned with a pessimistic assessment of the security situation and a radical

suggestion for addressing it.

The cross-border dimension is even more important now than it was five years ago.PIRA in the North are now almost exclusively dependent on the South for thesupply of weapons and explosives, training and for a relatively safe haven and theyhave in recent months concentrated their operations in those areas which are mostaccessible from the South 86

Pym’s suggestion was for a major diplomatic initiative involving the Republic as

a quid pro quo for improved cross-border security cooperation. It was supported

by the Army and although it had the potential to clash with Mr Thatcher’s public

identification with Unionism, it was increasingly clear that it chimed with

thinking within both the Foreign Office and the NIO.

In the aftermath of the August attacks, Thatcher pressed Lynch for action

against the IRA. Her proposals included a deepening of cooperation in the

intelligence field between MI6 and Irish Special Branch; the institution of

dedicated Garda crime squads on the border; RUC attendance at the interrogation

of IRA suspects in Garda stations; and permission for British helicopters to

overfly Irish territory to a depth of 15 kilometres in ‘hot pursuit’ of IRA units.87

When it emerged that Lynch had conceded helicopter overflights to a depth of

five kilometres the hostile reaction in his party forced him to resign.88

Initially his successor, Charles Haughey, did nothing to alter the overflight

arrangements and increased Garda activity and numbers on the border.89 In return

for this, he wanted Thatcher to launch a major constitutional initiative to resolve

the Northern conflict through partnership with Dublin. A radical initiative on an

Anglo-Irish basis would, he claimed, allow the Republic to not simply maintain

and improve cross-border security cooperation but possibly to forsake its

traditional policy of neutrality and join NATO.90 At the same time, despite Irish

governments’ previous insistence that they were fulfilling all their obligations on

security cooperation and that no more could be done, it soon became clear that the

Garda had had new directions from Haughey to substantially increase

cooperation with the RUC. The Permanent Secretary of the NIO, Sir Kenneth

Stowe, reported on talks with officials in Dublin:

The message was very clear that so far as new Taoiseach was concerned he wasexpecting the competent authorities and in particular the Gardai to deal rigorouslywith crime, including terrorism, wherever they found it without waiting forministerial guidance.91

The improvement encouraged both the NIO and the Foreign Office to push for a

radical revision of British policy, which was set out by officials in the autumn

of 1980:

For political stability to be achieved attitudes have to change. In order for them tochange it seems necessary to establish a wider framework in which to approach howNorthern Ireland is to be governed and what its constitutional relationship with bothGreat Britain and the Irish Republic might be. It would also require the Irish to be

508 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

drawn into the process of seeking practical solutions to the problem . . . it cannot beseen where precisely this approach might lead.92

At a summit with Thatcher in December 1980 Haughey proposed that in

return for a conference between the two governments to review ‘the totality of

relationships between the two countries’ he would be prepared to lead a ‘crusade

to end violence’. He was less willing to consider any substantive improvement in

security cooperation.93 Despite Thatcher’s scepticism about Haughey’s main

proposal, her fear of the withdrawal of security cooperation on the border led to

her acceptance of Haughey’s grandiloquent phraseology in the post-summit

communique. This acknowledged the ‘unique relationship’ with Ireland and

permitted the establishment of joint study groups to find ways of expressing this

uniqueness in ‘new institutional structures’. The two leaders were to devote their

next meeting to the ‘special consideration’ of the ‘totality of relations within

these islands’.94

The IRA hunger strikes and Fianna Fail’s loss of power in 1981 put an end to

this phase and when he returned to power briefly in 1982 Haughey reverted to a

harder nationalist line. However, whatever her disillusion with Haughey,

Thatcher remained convinced that Dublin held the key to ending the IRA’s

campaign. She reluctantly agreed to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, which

provided the Irish government with an unprecedented influence in the governance

of Northern Ireland because of the pressing ‘need for greater security’.95 But as

one of her advisers noted as far as improved security cooperation went ‘it was a

disappointing bargain’ or in the words of another official it was a ‘f—ing awful

agreement’.96

The failure of the Anglo-Irish Agreement

Thatcher’s own angry comments on what she saw as the Republic’s failure to

deliver are well known: ‘the concessions alienated the Unionists without gaining

the level of security co-operation we had a right to expect.’97 Although her

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the time, Tom King, regarded her

sentiments as overly negative, his own evaluation of the security dividend was not

particularly positive. While he confirmed that Garda–RUC cooperation ‘on the

ground’ got an impetus from the signing of the Agreement, he added the crucial

caveat that it remained hostage to the shifting political climate in Dublin. It was

subject to periodic ‘emotional waves’ over disputed incidents in Northern

Ireland.98 King’s mixed review of the security impact of the Agreement echoes

that of a former senior RUC officer who was involved in cross-border security

issues in the 1980s and 1990s:

The Agreement allowed political weight to be given to both the Garda and the RUCto push for better relationships and it probably freed up and speeded up thecommunications and exchanges of intelligence . . . it was all to the good and youwere able to use the stimulus to suggest better working arrangements and it also

Small Wars & Insurgencies 509

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

provided an element of additional money so that the Garda and the RUC were ableto improve communications systems . . . 99

This officer also emphasised the extent of the challenge posed by an increasingly

professional and technically sophisticated enemy who could exploit the territory

of the Republic. By the 1980s its continuing importance as an escape route –

‘There was a whole infrastructure that received you and looked after you’ – and

its use for training camps was supplemented by its key role in the supply of

weapons and engineering:

You had a ‘just-in-time’ supply system so that rather than hold big dumps of armsnorth of the border, they were all held in the Republic and Southern Command madesure that as you required arms and munitions they were released so you didn’t runthe risk of losing quantities . . . They had a quartermaster system that was capable ofgetting the stuff up to the North as it was needed . . . . The other big issue was theengineering side where a big investment was made by the IRA so as not to have ashooting war . . . you could avoid confrontations with the British army if you usedremote-controlled bombs, land-mines and sophisticated booby-trap devices. Moreor less all of that was engineered and produced south of the border and brought up inbits and pieces and reconstructed in the North. The Provisionals made excellent useof the fact that there was a border to separate off their support systems from the theiractive service systems north of the border.100

It was to the Republic that four boatloads of Libyan arms and explosives

amounting to over 120 tons arrived in 1985–1986 to be secreted in bunkers

throughout the country.101 Although the last consignment in the Eksund was

intercepted by the French authorities in October 1987,102 the successful shipments

had provided the organisation with a major boost to its military capacity, which it

used to intensify its campaign in the North putting the security gains of the

Agreement to the test. Some of the weapons and explosives were recovered by a

Garda national search. However, the search was unprecedented. It was a result of

the government’s acute embarrassment because it was an IRA unit based in the

Republic that carried out a bomb attack on a Remembrance Day ceremony in

Enniskillen on 8 November 1987 killing 10 civilians and a retired RUC officer.103

Less than a year after the signing of the Agreement there was little evidence

that it had put an end to the megaphone diplomacy that had periodically

characterised Anglo-Irish relations. By this time there had been eight meetings

of the key institutional embodiment of the Agreement: the Anglo-Irish

Intergovernmental Conference, which was co-chaired by the Northern Ireland

Secretary and the Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs. These meetings were often

attended by the Chief Constable and the Garda Commissioner. However, at a

conference in Oxford in September 1986 King demanded faster action against the

IRA by Dublin and revealed the continuing divergence between British and Irish

approaches:

The first and most important leg of the Anglo-Irish Agreement was combatingterrorism. It hadn’t been fully understood at the start by the Irish that the British putan overriding importance on security. The attitude was ‘aren’t the British going onabout it a bit.’ It showed a failure to recognise how bitter the feelings were in the

510 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

loyalist community about IRA violence. Arms finds south of the border confirmedin the minds of loyalists that the Republic had been a logistical base for supplies andresources.104

The critical tone reflected an IRA attack in Newry in July when three RUC

officers sitting in a police car were shot dead. The car used in the attack had been

stolen in the Mullingar in the Republic.105 However, at the meeting of the

Intergovernmental Conference that took place after the attack the main concern

of the Irish seemed to be RUC decisions on the re-routing of Orange marches.106

It was little wonder that the Ulster Unionist leader, James Molyneaux, claimed

the border security situation had actually deteriorated since the Agreement and

that the Irish government did not have the capacity to deliver what it had

promised Thatcher.107

In August 1987 the Provisionals obtained a confidential Garda document

detailing the movements of the British ambassador, Sir Nicholas Fenn, leading to

an inquiry which failed to pinpoint the source of the leak.108 There is little

evidence in the British files for the period that collusion with the Provisionals

involved a significant number of Gardai. However, more recently the issue of

Garda collusion has had a higher profile. In his history of the Provisional

campaign in South Armagh, Toby Harnden claims that a Garda officer in the

Dundalk station colluded with the IRA in the 1989 murder of two senior RUC

officers who came to Dundalk as part of an investigation into the cross-border

smuggling activities of the leading South Armagh Provisional, Thomas ‘Slab’

Murphy.109 The allegations are currently being investigated by the Smithwick

Tribunal in Dublin.110 During that inquiry a former RUC officer has claimed that

the same Garda officer was in charge of the investigation into the Narrow Water

attack in 1979, and that he obstructed the RUC attempts to get forensic evidence

at the spot in the Republic from where the bombs were detonated which allowed

two IRA suspects arrested near the firing site in the Republic to be released

without charge.111 However, it is important not to exaggerate the extent of

collusion. A former senior RUC officer involved in North–South cooperation in

the 1980s saw collusion as a real but relatively minor problem:

Because of their history there was an element of misguided sympathy among someGardai, others took the attitude ‘Well, if I don’t give them any hassle, they’ll notgive me any hassle’ and a blind eye was turned and there was also sheer fear because‘we are unarmed and living in the midst of these people – it’s not my problem sowhy be over-officious?’ . . . I would accept that there was an element of individualcollusion, but nothing systemic . . . I think the Garda are a very honorableorganisation . . . but individual Gardai may have sold their soul and integrity simplyfor the expediency of the times.112

However, he did bemoan the degree to which Garda cooperation was subject to

political direction from Dublin:

I do believe that the situation in the North was seen as a political opportunity in theSouth, to force Mrs Thatcher’s hand and to buy themselves into having a politicalsay in the development of government in Northern Ireland.

Small Wars & Insurgencies 511

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

In a series of interviews with those involved in negotiating the Anglo-Irish

Agreement, Eamon O’Kane noted the striking dislocation between British and

Irish accounts: while the British mentioned the importance of the security

dimension, the Irish negotiators claimed that the security issue was discussed

very little during the negotiations, in part because they claimed it was already

very good.113 This disjuncture had its roots in the profoundly different ways that

Irish and British officials and politicians framed the security issue. A succinct

summary of the differences was given by Sir John Andrew who was head of the

NIO at the time of the Agreement. For the Irish, the key issue was the ‘alienation’

of the nationalist community from the security forces:

We meant different things by security. The British meant first and foremost meantcatching terrorists, preferably catching them and if we couldn’t catch them shootingthem . . . . The Irish saw security much more in terms of the community in the Northand gaining its support.114

Thus by the end of the decade, despite the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the

Provisionals were still able to use Irish territory to sustain their campaign. In

1988, 10 of the 16 most active ASUs were based in the Republic.115 Without the

strategic advantage given them by the border and Irish territory, it is doubtful

if the IRA could have maintained their campaign at such a level for so long

thus allowing their leaders to reap the political rewards of the peace process of

the 1990s.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Leverhulme Trust, which awarded me aResearch Fellowship to work on the Irish State and the Troubles.

Notes

1. Patterson, Ireland since 1939, 356.2. Two of the best histories of the IRA are Smith, Fighting for Ireland and English,

Armed Struggle.3. The former Provisional, Eamonn Collins, has much on the importance of the border

town of Dundalk for the IRA campaign: Collins, Killing Rage, 11–28.4. See O’Callaghan, The Informer for use of the Republic for training.5. The double agent ‘Kevin Fulton’ was heavily involved in manufacture of

homemade explosives in border counties of the Republic: Fulton, Unsung Hero.6. Harnden, ‘Bandit Country’ has numerous references to IRA involvement in

smuggling, e.g. 249, 337, 451–2.7. Heslinga, The Irish Border, 14.8. The National Archives, Kew, London (henceforward: TNA) CJ4/213, ‘Interim

Report: Control of NI Borders’, 5 May 1971. Approved roads were those which hadcustoms barriers; concession roads were designed to facilitate free access by themost direct route between towns in the Republic and Northern Ireland. These wereopen only to designated vehicles: security force personnel and doctors; unapprovedroads had no customs barriers and were the main problem for security forces.

9. Ibid.

512 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

10. The classic dissection of the sectarian dimension of the Northern Ireland state is

Farrell, Northern Ireland.11. O’Donnell, Fianna Fail, 30.12. O’Brien, The Arms Trial.13. Conor Cruise O’Brien, ‘Shades of Republicanism’, Irish Times, 27 March 1975.14. Christopher Warman, ‘Irish Army reject reports of mutiny’, Times, 27 August 1971.15. Coogan, The IRA, 328.16. Farrell, Sheltering the Fugitive? 42.17. Cunningham, British Government Policy in Northern Ireland, 105.18. TNA, FCO 87/976 ‘External support for terrorism’, section of Northern Ireland

Future Terrorist Trends, 11 May 1979.19. University College Cork, Jack Lynch Papers, letter from John Peck to the

Taoiseach, 11 February 1971.20. Kennedy, Division and Consensus, 165.21. O’Halpin, Defending Ireland, 299–300.22. University College Dublin Archives (UCDA), Dr Patrick Hillery Papers, P205/36

memorandum from official to Minister of Foreign Affairs, 4 September 1970.23. Hillery Papers, P205/36, letter from Patrick Hillery to John Peck, 17 February 1971.24. Keogh, Jack Lynch, 300.25. Williamson, ‘Moderation under Fire’, 201.26. TNA, CJ4/183, Dr Hillery’s discussion with the Home Secretary, 11 August 1971.27. UCDA, Papers of Dr Garret FitzGerald, P215/83, ‘Aspects of Security Policy’,

March–April 1974.28. Commissionof Inquiry into theDublinandMonaghanbombingsof 1974,FinalReport,

March 2007, 70–2. http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/dublin/macentee0400407finalpdf

(accessed 29 March 2011).29. Ibid.30. Walsh, Patrick Hillery, 287.31. Smith and Neumann, ‘Motorman’s Long Journey’. The effect of Motorman on IRA

operations was noted in TNA, FCO87/248, ‘Cross Border Activities of the IRA

after Operation Motorman’, 13 March 1973.32. Craig, Crisis of Confidence, 130.33. O Beachain, Destiny of the Soldiers, 348.34. Keogh, Jack Lynch, 358–61.35. Joe Joyce, ‘Border town residents seek extra security’, Irish Times, 30 December

1972.36. Keogh, Jack Lynch, 365–6.37. Smith, The British State and the Northern Ireland Crisis, 214.38. TNA, FCO 87/47, Whitelaw letter to the Prime Minister, 21 November 1972.39. Ibid.40. TNA, FCO 87/248, ‘Cross Border Activities of IRA after Operation Motorman’.41. TNA, FCO 87/247, message from PM to Taoiseach on Border Security, 13 April

1973.42. TNA, FCO 87/247, Sir Arthur Galsworthy to UK Representative, Belfast, 14 April

1973.43. O’Halpin, Defending Ireland, 334.44. In the three and a half years from 1 January 1973 to 12 May 1976, 304 incursions by

the British army were reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs and 261

became the basis for formal complaints: Keating, A Place among the Nations, 248.45. UCDA, Papers of Dr Garret FitzGerald, P215/655, File on Kiltyclogher Road

Closures, 31 July 1974–7 March 1977.

Small Wars & Insurgencies 513

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

46. TNA, FCO 87/245, Galsworthy to White, Republic of Ireland Department, 25 May1973.

47. TNA, FCO 87/244, telegram from Galsworthy to UK Representative, Belfast,15 June 1973.

48. See McArdle, The Secret War for a good example.49. TNA, CJ4/638, ‘Border incidents’, 1 September 1974.50. Ibid.51. TNA, CJ4/638, J.B. Bourn, NIO, to Ambassador, Dublin, 4 December 1974.52. Gerry Moriarty, ‘IRA blamed for “sectarian slaughter” of ten at Kingsmill’, Irish

Times, 22 June 2011.53. UCDA, FitzGerald Papers, P215/187, ‘Southern involvement in Monday night’s

killing’, note by John Swift, 7 January 1976.54. Urban, Big Boys’ Rules, 9.55. TNA, FCO 87/498 G.W. Harding, Republic of Ireland Department to Private

Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, ‘SAS Incident on Irish Border’,7 May 1976 and CJ4/1641, Memorandum from Secretary of State, Northern Irelandon SAS Incursion for Cabinet General Committee, 17 January 1977. See also Bew,Frampton, and Gurruchaga, Talking to Terrorists, 67–8.

56. Rees, Northern Ireland, 295–6.57. TNA, FCO 87/668, ‘SAS Case’, 7/8 March 1977.58. Interviews with Dr Garret FitzGerald, Dublin, 26 October 2010 and Mr Patrick

Cooney, Dun Laoghaire, 2 June 2011.59. National Archives Dublin (NAD), TAOIS/2005/7/607, in a briefing paper for the

Taoiseach who was to meet Wilson in September 1974 he was alerted to the dangerof ‘the build up of British irritation . . . to the point where we will contributeseriously to their desire to leave Northern Ireland rapidly and hand us the bill whichwould include responsibility for an anarchic situation . . . In security we wouldappear to have a common interest with the British Government in putting downviolence and establishing peace and stability in Northern Ireland.’

60. TNA, CJ4/1022, J.B. Bourn, Minute on Baldonnel Security Panels, 30 May 1975.61. Ibid.62. NAD, TAOIS/2005/7/607, Briefing Paper on Security for meeting between the

Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister, September 1974.63. TNA, CJ4/63, ‘Irish Army’ GSO 3 Ops, Lisburn to Commander Land Forces,

19 September 1974.64. Ibid.65. TNA, CJ4/1755/2, ‘Background Notes: Cross-Border Terrorism’, 28 September

1977.66. Dick Walsh, ‘Cabinet holds emergency meeting’, Irish Times, 22 July 1976 and

‘Security failure refuted by Cooney’, Irish Times, 23 July 1976.67. TNA, FCO 87/490, ‘The assassination of HM Ambassador in Dublin’, report by

J.R. Hickman, Charge d’Affaires, Dublin, 25 July 1976.68. ‘Dublin on the offensive against the IRA’, Financial Times, 27 August 1976.69. TNA, CJ4/803, Brief for Secretary of State’s meeting with Ruairi Brugha, 7 August

1975 and speech by Brugha, Irish Times, 15 March 1977.70. TNA, FCO 87/704, letter from Robin Haydon, British ambassador, Dublin, to Sir

Anthony Duff, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 7 April 1978.71. TNA, CJ4/1755/1 ‘General Election in the Republic: Implications for Northern

Ireland’, 20 July 1977.72. Neumann, ‘Winning the “War on Terror”’.73. A senior Irish official, Sean Donlon, made it clear to embassy staff that ‘if signs

of movement in Northern Ireland proved illusory, Mr Lynch would be obliged to

514 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

restate Fianna Fail policy in fairly hard terms’, TNA, FCO 87/607 ‘Irishgovernment views on Northern Ireland’, 3 November 1977.

74. Bew, Frampton, and Gurruchaga, Talking to Terrorists, 79.75. A former member of RUC Special Branch made the point that much of the

information that formed the basis for their evaluation of the importance of theRepublic for the IRA was based on intelligence and the sources of this intelligencecould not be revealed to the Garda which often led to a ‘stand-off’ between themand the Garda: interview, Belfast, 21 January 2010.

76. NAD, DFA/2008/79/3163, Document given by British Ambassador to theDepartment of Foreign Affairs, 6 March 1978.

77. Ibid. and McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, 744–5.78. NAD, DFA/2008/79/3163, Document given by British Ambassador to the

Department of Foreign Affairs, 6 March 1978.79. Ibid.80. NAD, DFA/2008/79/3163, ‘Violence in Northern Ireland’, document given by DFA

to British Ambassador on 14 March 1978.81. NAD, DFA/2008/79/3163, letter from Paul J.G. Keating, Ambassador, London to

Sean Donlon, Assistant Secretary, DFA, 8 March 1978.82. McKittrick et al., Lost Lives, 793–8.83. TNA, FCO 87/976, ‘External support for terrorism other than finance’ section of

Future Terrorist Trends attached to ‘Leak of MOD Intelligence Assessment to theProvisional IRA’, memorandum from E.A.J. Ferguson, FCO, to Private Secretary,Foreign Secretary, 11 May 1979.

84. NA, FCO 87/976, ‘External support for terrorism other than finance’, section ofFuture Terrorist Trends, attached to ‘Leak of MOD Intelligence Assessment to theProvisional IRA’, memorandum from E.A.J. Ferguson, FCO to Private Secretary,Foreign Secretary, 11 May 1979.

85. NAD, DFA/2009/120/1913, meeting of Minister of Foreign Affairs with Secretaryof State for Northern Ireland, 28 June 1979.

86. TNA, FCO87/974, letter from Francis Pym to Northern Ireland Secretary, 8 June1979.

87. TNA, PREM 19/79 Ireland (Visit of Taoiseach) Note of meeting between the PrimeMinister and Mr Jack Lynch, 5 September 1979.

88. Keogh, Jack Lynch, 429.89. TNA, FCO 87/999, Sir Kenneth Stowe, NIO to Clive Whitmore, 10 Downing

Street, 25 February 1980.90. Deaglan de Breadun, ‘Release shows scope of Haughey efforts to progress on

North’, Irish Times, 30 December 2010.91. TNA, FCO 87/1073, Stowe to Clive Whitmore, Downing Street, 25 February 1980.92. TNA, FCO 87/1036, ‘Northern Ireland: Developing a Wider Framework’, Note by

officials, 13 November 1980.93. Deaglan de Breadun, ‘Haughey vowed “crusade to end violence”’ Irish Times,

31 December 2010.94. Bew, Frampton, and Gurruchaga, Talking to Terrorists, 86.95. Thatcher, Downing Street Years, 385.96. Both quotes are from Bew, ‘The Irish government and the Agreement’, 47.97. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, 410–15.98. Interview with Lord King, House of Lords, 16 March 2011.99. Interview with former RUC Special Branch officer, Belfast, 21 January 2010.100. Ibid.101. Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 19–20.102. For the capture of the Eksund, see Moloney, A Secret History, Prologue.

Small Wars & Insurgencies 515

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

103. O’Brien, The Long War, 142–4.104. ‘King urges faster cooperation on security’, Irish Times, 22 September 1986.105. ‘Who Rules?’ Irish Times, 29 July 1986.106. Report on eighth meeting of Intergovernmental Conference, Irish Times, 29 July

1986.107. Martin Cowley, ‘Newry killings show need for security links – King’, Irish Times,

29 July 1986.108. Sean Flynn, ‘Inquiry into security leak’, Irish Times, 14 August 1987.109. Harnden, Bandit Country, 216–20.110. Interview with former RUC Special Branch officer, Belfast, 21 January 2010.111. Tim O’Brien, ‘Garda cooperation “non-existent”’, Irish Times, 28 February 2012.112. Interview with former RUC Special Branch officer, Belfast, 21 January 2010.113. O’Kane, Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland since 1980, 84–5.114. Ibid., 85.115. Ministry of Defence, Operation Banner, 4–4.

Bibliography

Bew, J., M. Frampton, and I. Gurruchaga. Talking to Terrorists Making Peace in NorthernIreland and the Basque Country. London: Hurst, 2009.

Bew, Paul. ‘The Irish Government and the Agreement’. In The Anglo-Irish Agreement:Rethinking its Legacy, edited by A. Aughey and C. Gormley-Heenan, 38–49.Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011.

Collins, Eamonn. Killing Rage. London: Granta, 1998.Coogan, Tim Pat. The IRA. London: Fontana, 1987.Craig, Anthony. Crisis of Confidence: Anglo-Irish Relations in the Early Troubles. Dublin:

Irish Academic Press, 2010.Cunningham, Michael. British Government Policy in Northern Ireland 1969–1989.

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991.English, Richard. Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA. London: Macmillan, 2003.Farrell, Michael. Northern Ireland: The Orange State. London: Pluto, 1980.Farrell, Michael. Sheltering the Fugitive? The Extradition of Irish Political Offenders.

Cork and Dublin: Mercier Press, 1985.Fulton, Kevin. Unsung Hero. London: John Blake Publishers, 2008.Harnden, Toby. ‘Bandit Country’: The IRA and South Armagh. London: Coronet Books,

1999.Heslinga, M.W. The Irish Border as a Cultural Divide. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1979.Keating, P. A Place Among Nations: Issues of Foreign Policy. Dublin: Institute of Public

Administration, 1978.Kennedy, Michael. Division and Consensus: The Politics of Cross-Border Relations in

Ireland 1925–1969. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2000.Keogh, Jack. Jack Lynch: A Biography. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2008.McArdle, Patsy. The Secret War An Account of the Sinister Activities along the Border.

Dublin & Cork: The Mercier Press, 1984.McKittrick, David. Lost Lives. London and Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2004.Maguire, John. IRA Internments and the Irish Government: Subversives and the State

1939–1962. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2008.Ministry of Defence. Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern

Ireland. Army Code 71842, July 2006.Mulqueen, Michael. Re-evaluating Irish National Security Policy. Manchester:

Manchester University Press, 2009.

516 H. Patterson

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015

Neumann, Peter R. ‘Winning the “War on Terror”: Roy Mason’s Contribution to Counter-Terrorism in Northern Ireland’. Small Wars and Insurgencies 14, no. 3 (2003): 45–64.

Beachain, Donnacha. Destiny of the Soldiers: Fianna Fail, Irish Republicanism and theIRA 1926–1973. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2010.

O’Brien, Brendan. The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Fein. Dublin: The O’Brien Press,1999.

O’Brien, Justin. The Arms Trial. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2000.O’Callaghan, Sean. The Informer. London: Bantam Press, 1998.O’Donnell, Catherine. Fianna Fail, Irish Republicanism and the Northern Irish Troubles

1968–2005. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007.O’Halpin, Eunan. Defending Ireland: The Irish State and Its Enemies Since 1922. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2000.O’Kane, Eamonn. Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland since 1980: The Totality of

Relationships. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007.Patterson, Henry. Ireland since 1939: The Persistence of Conflict. London: Penguin, 2007.Rees, Merlyn. Northern Ireland; A Personal Persepctive. London: Methuen, 1985.Smith, M.L.R. Fighting for Ireland: The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican

Movement. London: Routledge, 1997.Smith, M.L.R., and Peter R. Neumann. ‘Motorman’s Long Journey: Changing the

Strategic Setting in Northern Ireland’. Contemporary British History 19, no. 4(December 2005): 413–35.

Smith, William Beatty. The British State and the Northern Ireland Crisis 1969–1973.Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2011.

Thatcher, Margaret. Downing Street Years. London: Harper Collins, 1993.Urban, Mark. Big Boys’ Rules: The SAS and the Secret Struggle against the IRA. London:

Faber, 2001.Walsh, John. Patrick Hillery: The Official Biography. Dublin: New Island, 2008.Williamson, Daniel C. ‘Moderation Under Fire: The Arms Trial Crisis, the Lower Falls

Curfew and Anglo-Irish Cooperation on Northern Ireland’. Irish Studies inInternational Affairs 21 (2010): 197–206.

Small Wars & Insurgencies 517

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Uls

ter

Uni

vers

ity L

ibra

ry]

at 0

5:36

25

Mar

ch 2

015