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These documents were scanned, collated and catalogued by Ruth Murray, Annabel Harris, Isha Pareek, Eleanor Williams, Antoine Yenk, Harriet Carter, Oliver Nicholls, Kieran Wetherwick, and Cerys Griffiths.
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CONFIDENTIAL
CONVERSATION WITH THE TAOISEACH - PIRA CHRISTMAS ANNOUNCEMENT
Line to take
Defensive points
It is essential not to be too forthcoming in our response; what we said last year was not universally well received. Our primary audience must be the long suffering people of Northern Ireland. Anything that gave the impression we were about to make concessions to a short-term cessation, particularly after PIRA's murderous activity recently would not only be offensive but also politically counter-productive;
It is better that any statement should come from Peter Brooke, rather than myself. We do not want to give too much initial significance to a short-lived PIRA suspension on past experience little if anything is likely to come of it. We must not give the impression that we are changing the direction of our security or political policies in response to some political "gimmick";
If we are eventually to make progress - and there can be no guarantee that we can - with Sinn Féin/PIRA in persuading them to abandon violence, we must not rush our fences - least of all in public.
Background
In 1990, PIRA announced on Sunday 23 December that they would observe a three day ceasefire from midnight that day. The Secretary of State responded, publicly, welcoming the cessation of violence; but emphasising the need for a more prolonged renunciation of violence. At the same time, the Army announced that restrictions at permanent vehicle check points on the border would be eased, and relaxed some other precautions (eg on helicopter flying). There was no explicit, or public, linkage between such easements and the ceasefire. HMG's response was more positive than that of Unionist politicians who dismissed the ceasefire as a purely cynical measure, noting that PIRA traditionally took a holiday over the Christmas period anyway. They also criticised the Government's response.
It is against this background that Annex A and the above line to take has been prepared: it demonstrates that the Government is prepared to respond in limited terms to what may well be little more than a cynical manoeuvre; but is also determined to avoid any counter-productive over-reaction.
It is not clear why Mr Haughey should want to speak to the Prime Minister (although it is possible he had originally been "tipped off" about the suspension). The Prime Minister should resist blandishments from him to over-react: the Taoiseach has shown signs in the past of a perhaps too great an optimism that he could achieve some sort of deal with the Provisionals (whose ability to continue the "armed struggle" he tends to underestimate) to renounce violence, and to take too little heed of the imperative of carrying all shades of political opinion in Northern Ireland, including the Unionists, with us if a lasting political settlement (and probably a lasting peace also) is to be achieved.
27 1988 - 2023
38 1993 - 1993
55 101 - 1991
64 1993 - 2020
26 1993 - 1993
57 1993 - 1993
59 1993 - 1993
51 1993 - 1993
18 1993 - 1993
24 1993 - 1994
41 1993 - 1994
32 1993 - 1994
72 101 - 1994
8 101 - 1990
76 101 - 1994
1 1994
60 101 - 1994
65 1993 - 2023
37 101 - 1993
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77 1993 - 1993
58 101 - 2018
49 1993 - 1997
61 101 - 1992
38 101 - 1991
48 1992 - 1993
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64 101 - 1991
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1991-12-23
Describes the line that the British Government will take with regards to the PIRA ceasefire and provides a background for the exact forumaltion of the prepared line, which is enclosed separately as Annex A.
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Unless otherwise specified, this material falls under Crown Copyright and contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
The National Archives of the UK (TNA), digitzed by the Quill Project at https://quillproject.net/resource_collections/351/.