HUNGER STRIKES:MARGARET THATCHER told her cabinet that Charles Haughey privately backed the British government's position on the hunger strikes of 1980, newly released documents at the British National Archives in London reveal.
On December 11th, as the hunger strikes continued into their third month, Thatcher told her cabinet that “Mr Haughey had regrettably not been willing to condemn the hunger strike in public, but he had made clear in private that he did so; he had not sought to argue that the strikers’ demand for political status should be met; and he accepted that there was nothing more that British authorities could offer them”.
Transcripts of previous discussions between the two governments partly support her claim, although they also show that the Irish government pushed for “cosmetic” changes in the prison regime, stopping short of granting political status to prisoners.
On October 10th, as the prospect of a strike loomed, the British ambassador in Dublin was visited by Brian Lenihan, the minister for foreign affairs.
While Lenihan agreed there was “no question of us granting political status” to the prisoners, he did urge the British “to take a fresh, hard look at the way we were coping with the present campaign of protest” and to consider concessions over the prisoners’ concerns about clothing and work to “head off” the strike.
This seems to have had some effect. Within a fortnight, Thatcher made an offer – through the Northern Ireland Office – for the prisoners in the H blocks to be allowed to wear “civilian-style clothes”, but this was rejected on October 23rd.
Nonetheless, it is equally clear that the Irish government was clearly anxious to avoid a public rift with the British over this issue.
On November 2nd, the taoiseach sent a personal apology to Thatcher following remarks made by Síle de Valera in a byelection speech, in Haughey’s presence, in which she denounced the British for the conditions in the Maze.
She had been a prominent supporter of Haughey and one of the Fianna Fáil TDs who criticised the policies of taoiseach Jack Lynch in relation to Northern Ireland.
Meeting the taoiseach in Luxembourg on December 1st, Thatcher insisted she would not make any further concessions to the protesters beyond “dressing up what had already been offered” and pointed out she had already “taken a lot of stick” following her offer to the prisoners to be allowed to wear civilian-style clothes.
Lenihan replied that “cosmetic changes were really what he and the taoiseach had been talking about” and Haughey himself confirmed that “what he had in mind was something purely presentational”.
Following the meeting, however, one official at the Northern Ireland Office claimed the Irish government’s public statement on the strike was “only moderately constructive”, as it “contains no call to the strikers to desist, nor any hint of denial of the validity of the claim to political status”.