Anglo-Irish Relations/Analysis: In the lead-up to the Sunningdale Agreement, the Irish Government wanted to convince London of the need for a strong Council of Ireland, writes John Bowman
The term "Irish dimension" first came into popular usage in 1972 after Edward Heath's Conservative government had used it in its Green Paper on Northern Ireland as an acknowledgement that the Republic was an interested party when it came to agreeing political structures in Northern Ireland.
The vagueness of the term was deliberate. It was a blank cheque: to the Paisleyites it threatened a Trojan horse which would allow "foreigners" a say in the governance of the North; to the pragmatic Faulkner Unionists, it represented a mere "necessary nonsense" to assuage nationalist sensibilities; but to the SDLP it was the means by which a strong Council of Ireland could be established to immediately deliver practical North-South co-operation and to hold out the promise of all-Ireland convergence with reunification as the ultimate goal.
Such a promise would help offset the heresy of the SDLP's participation in a Northern Ireland executive.
On New Year's Day 1973, Irish and British civil servants discussed the forthcoming White Paper. Irish civil servants noted the depth of British resistance to the mooted Council of Ireland - "exceedingly cautious and circumspect". At resumed talks three weeks, later the British were still found to be "very reticent". They seemed content with "a weak and ineffectual" council "which could become an object of derision" - likely to "wither amidst recriminations".
Heath had a meeting scheduled with the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, to discuss the White Paper in late February, but this was postponed because of the Irish general election. In the event, Heath's next visitors from Dublin were the victors in that election, the incoming Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, and Tánaiste, Brendan Corish.
The British template for the future governance of Northern Ireland was now imminent. The White Paper was to be published within days and if the incoming Fine Gael-Labour government was to influence it, it needed to act promptly. Heath held three meetings in Downing Street within a week: on March 8th and 9th, he met Cosgrave and Corish, and on March 15th, he met the new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Garret FitzGerald.
To Cosgrave and Corish, Heath emphasised how suspicious the unionist community was about the council of Ireland; how they would "resent dictation" concerning its powers and functions. Another recurring British concern was that the council might make decisions for which the British Treasury would be required to foot the bill.
In a note of salient points prepared for Cosgrave by his civil servants, it was noted that to make the council work, "there must be British will, a British spur and an Irish carrot". Cosgrave emphasised the council should be bipartite with the British excluded: "It should be an Irish machine concerned only with Irish problems."
An Irish memorandum in advance of the publication of the White Paper was delivered to Downing Street on March 15th and it again called for the British to be prescriptive and to insist on an ambitious council "with specific clearly-defined functions" such as would ensure "a climate of welcome" for the White Paper from Northern nationalists.
That evening FitzGerald met Heath in Downing Street. FitzGerald was at pains to emphasise the new government was keen "to avoid creating problems or exacerbating the bruised feelings of the bewildered Protestant majority in the North." He insisted there was nothing "inherently explosive" in the Irish proposals.
Meanwhile in Dublin, a high-powered committee of civil servants trawled all departments for suggestions of what powers might be appropriately ceded to a Council of Ireland. [See adjoining article\]
When Cosgrave next met Heath on July 2nd, there were some indications that Dublin's persistence was paying off. Heath was now emphasising that the council should be capable of growth: it needed to be "open-ended"; were it to be "only a talking shop" it would be "less than useless".
But Heath proved to be more circumspect at his next meeting with Cosgrave at Baldonnel aerodrome on September 17th. The recently enacted legislation providing for a form of devolved government in Northern Ireland defined the parameters of what was possible: the time "was long past the stage of 'fancy ideas'."
On policing, Heath insisted the SDLP was naïve, expecting the impossible: "There were a large number of unrealistic ideas on the subject - including the idea that police forces throughout Ireland should be under the control of a Council of Ireland." Heath insisted that every government must retain the direction of its police forces.
It was also Heath's view that the SDLP and other parties "did not realise 'what is going to be plonked on their laps when we devolve'. They have no experience of government - not an inkling - and do not know what it is to run a government department." They would soon have "a full plate".
Officials met again on October 5th, the British insisting that the key issue was now "how much could be sold to unionists and at what pace and in what manner". On the proposed council secretariat, the British believed "a thoroughly responsible civil servant" would be needed to head it up rather than "a Dag Hammarskjöld type".
On November 8th, FitzGerald met Willie Whitelaw in London. Both were agreed that Brian Faulkner was indispensable to the prospect of a breakthrough. Whitelaw believed Faulkner "was determined to make a go of it not least because he had nowhere else to go"; but he added it was also true that Faulkner "had absolutely nothing more to give".
Whitelaw insisted an agreed power-sharing executive must precede the tripartite talks - otherwise it would be difficult to exclude the wreckers, the Paisley and Craig factions. Ian Paisley, said Whitelaw, "was a dangerous man and had to be confronted and put in his place".
That year, 1973, was arguably successful for Irish foreign policy: by December, the Sunningdale talks had succeeded and an embryonic council had been agreed. Whether its shape as determined by Dublin had been so ambitious that it endangered the entire Sunningdale agreement has remained a point of controversy ever since.
Retrospectively it can be seen that Faulkner had not exaggerated his difficulties in selling the Council of Ireland. On January 1st, 1974, the Sunningdale experiment was under way with a Faulkner-Fitt power-sharing executive exercising devolved powers.
Within days, Faulkner had been deposed as Official Unionist leader; by February the British election had given the anti-Sunningdale unionists their opportunity to register unionist antipathy to the agreement; and by May the power workers strike - aided by Harold Wilson's inept judgment - had brought down the executive.
It would be a generation before something as promising would emerge as an instrument for governing Northern Ireland - enough time for Séamus Mallon's "slow learners" to appreciate the complexities of the issue.
Reading the 1973 papers one gets a feeling of déjà-vu: Faulkner plays David Trimble attempting to cajole the pragmatic wing of unionism to embrace an historic accommodation with Irish nationalism - and Faulkner, too, had four or five "wobblers" among his supporters; Gerry Fitt plays Mark Durkan; Paisley plays Paisley - a shrewd wrecker, in Heath's view.
Only Gerry Adams is absent - he was otherwise engaged in 1973.
• Dr John Bowman is a broadcaster and historian