- Event type: CREATE
Northern Ireland Brooke/Mayhew Talks 1991-1992
WORK IN PROGRESS - IN THE FINAL STAGES OF EDITING A series of talks launched by Peter Brooke, Secretary of State for Northern in Ireland, which began in April 1991, and were carried on intermittently by Brooke and his successor, Patrick Mayhew, until November 1992.
Office of the Strand 1 Chairman (British Government Delegation)
In order to adequately reflect the role of the Chairman and his staff in re-drafting documents and controlling the flow of information during bilateral negotiations, we are representing them as a separate committee. In contrast to other Quill negotiations, in these Talks much of the actual work of negotiation and making proposals took place in bilateral meetings between the Chairman and the party delegations. The minutes of these sessions have been preserved in the same format as the minutes of the plenary sessions, and the sessions are modelled from the minutes as separate Committees (British Government/Alliance Bilaterals, etc.). The Chairman would move between these meetings, reporting on the positions of the other delegations and trying to reach accommodation. It is beyond the scope of the current project to model all the internal government meetings which took place during the Talks (although documentation for at least some of them exists in the National Archives), but we can draw on evidence within the sources we are using to show that proposals and agendas for the bilaterals were agreed within the Government team. For example, in a particular round of meetings, the Chairman will open the meeting with a near-identical agenda and summary of the current position of the other parties. To adequately model the fact that the flow of ideas between the delegations was filtered by the Chairman in this way, we have set up a committee called the 'Office of the Chairman' to show the conclusions of each bilateral discussion passing through the Chairman's Office and being redrafted before being passed on to the next delegation.
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Session 14258: 1992-06-15 09:00:00
The Secretary of State exchanges letters with Dr Paisley prior to the Strand 2 agenda-setting meeting.
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Reply from Dr Paisley (15 June 1992)
Ulster Democratic Unionist Party
15 June 1992
[Editor's Note: 'Dear Sec of State' written by hand.]
I appreciate the prompt reply to my communication and I note you hope to be in a position to give details of the proposed meeting in Strand 3 formation during the course of tomorrow. As you will know from my earlier letter I will need this information so that I can respond to Sir Ninian's invitation.
It would be helpful if you could send me a bibliography of the documents which are on public record and which were forwarded to Sir Ninian, so that I can gauge how balanced a briefing he has had and whether or not it might be appropriate for us to forward to him further briefing notes.
[Editor's Note: 'Sincerely Ian R. K. Paisley' written by hand.]
Dr. Ian R K Paisley M.P. M.E.P.
(Leader Democratic Unionist Party)
Decisions yet to be taken
- Reply from Dr Paisley (15 June 1992) (introduced on 1992-06-15 09:00:00 - CREATE - e899220) [This document]
Document Timeline
- Reply from Dr Paisley (15 June 1992) (introduced on 1992-06-15 09:00:00 - CREATE - e899220) [This document] [view current proposal at this moment]