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Writing Peace: The National Archives of the UK (TNA)

Record of a Telephone Conversation between Roderic Lyne and Robin Eames on 30 November 1993

Tuesday, 30 November 1993

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A letter recording a telephone conversation between Roderic Lyne and Robin Eames. Lyne briefed Eames on the British Government's line on the Joint Declaration and expressed his concerns regarding the Irish understanding of the need to distance the Declaration from Hume/Adams.

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10 DOWNING STREET
LONDON SW1A 2AA

From the Private Secretary

30 November 1993

Dear Jonathan,

TELEPHONE CONVERSATION WITH ARCHBISHOP EAMES

Archbishop Eames telephoned on the afternoon of 30 November. We had a guarded conversation in preparation for his visit to Dublin to see the Taoiseach on 1 December.

This letter should have the usual restricted distribution.

Eames wanted to check one particular point. He had heard that some changes might have been made over the past day to the document (viz: the British draft Joint Declaration) which we had passed to him. I said that, to my knowledge, we had had no negotiations about the text since its delivery to Dublin last Friday. As he had probably heard (he had), the text had not been well received.

I filled Eames in on the absence of agreement, at the time of writing, on the holding of the Dublin Summit; and on the bilateral political environment. I said that rumours and misplaced conspiracy theories were putting the relationship under strain. It would be absurd if our serious dealings with the Irish Government were to be affected by over-reaction to wild stories in the media. One should remember Metternich's approach to the death of the Russian Ambassador at the Congress of Vienna. Above all, we should keep our eyes fixed firmly on the ball which really mattered. Anything which Eames could do in this direction would be most welcome to the Prime Minister.

I also told Eames that the Irish still seemed to find it hard to understand how essential it was to distance our process from Hume\Adams, if it was to be accepted by the Unionsits. He agreed that this was essential. I asked him to give the frankest possible view of feelings among the Unionists. There was a tendency on the part of the Irish Government to maintain that our reading of Unionist feelings was wrong, or that we were using presumed Unionist objections as an excuse to suit our own purposes. Eames indicated that he did not feel that the Irish understood the Unionists well.

Eames said that he would let us know how he got on tomorrow.

I am sending copies of this letter to John Sawers (FCO) and to Melanie Leech (Cabinet Office).

yours ever,
Roderic.

RODERIC LYNE

Jonathan Stephens Esq
Northern Ireland Office