Quill
  1. Overview: Northern Ireland Downing Street Joint Declaration (1993)
  2. Full Record: Northern Ireland Downing Street Joint Declaration (1993)
  3. Committee:British-Hume Bilaterals
  4. Friday, 24 September 1993, at 12:00

Northern Ireland Downing Street Joint Declaration (1993)

This project models the series of formal and informal negotiations which led to the publication, in December 1993, of a declaration issued jointly by the British and Irish Governments. The Joint Declaration was a critical policy document which paved the way for a ceasefire and the entry of Sinn Féin into formal talks. It also laid out a shared set of principles – including, crucially, self-determination for the people of Ireland subject to the consent of the people of Northern Ireland – which would come to underpin the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and provide a framework for its ratification.

British-Hume Bilaterals

This committee has been created to model bilateral contacts between John Hume and the British government.

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Session 21588: 1993-09-24 12:00:00

[Exact date and time unknown] At some point before the publication of the Hume/Adams statement, John Hume spoke to Patrick Mayhew to forewarn him.

Membership (at session start):

John Hume (1 total)

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SDLP

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Enclosure: Commentary by Quentin Thomas on Draft Eight of the Joint Declaration Submitted by the Irish Government and Record of Discussion with Seán Ó hUiginn - (link)

Quentin Thomas encloses a record of a meeting between himself and Seán Ó hUiginn discussing the Joint Declaration Initiative, particularly a new draft (JD8) presented by the Irish government, of which Ó hUiginn was the principal author. This conversation was a preliminary meeting to a scheduled meeting of the Liaison Group in Dublin on 1st October, where principles and language relevant to the Joint Declaration Initiative (JDI) were to be discussed. The Irish government continued to prefer the JDI to overt political development and had resolved to exclude the Provisionals until the British could be brought onboard with the document's phrasing. Discussion between Thomas and Ó hUiginn centred on paragraph 4. Issues raised by the British government included silence in the draft on: the constitutional guarantee, reform of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution. Also problematic were references to irish 'unity' and 'self-determination for Ireland as a whole'. The Irish government remained enthusiastic about the JDI following this discussion. The important context of the talks between John Hume and Gerry Adams - and how far these involved knowledge of the JDI - is discussed in a postscript.

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