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THE UK AMBASSADOR to Ireland received a reprimand from the government after then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher questioned the state’s commitment to defeating the IRA.
National archive documents revealed that Taoiseach Charles Haughey ordered a senior official to make clear to the ambassador his displeasure at Thatcher’s comments.
The diplomatic dispute developed in the wake of an IRA attack on Air Chief Marshall and the former Governor of Gibraltar, Sir Peter Terry and his wife, Lady Betty Terry.
The three IRA members who were shot and killed in Gibraltar, Sean Savage, Mairead Farrell and Danny McCann.
Source: PA Images
The couple survived despite being shot through the window of their Staffordshire home in September 1990.
The attack was an attempt at revenge by the IRA because two years earlier Sir Peter, as Governor of Gibraltar, sanctioned the SAS operation that resulted in the shooting deaths of three IRA members in the British overseas territory.
In an interview with the media in Budapest after the shooting in Staffordshire, Thatcher said that the IRA was involved in a “guerrilla war”.
He said there was a question as to whether “we can ensure that the Republic of Ireland is doing everything possible to locate the terrorists, their sources of weapons and their weapons stores.”
The comments provoked the ire of Charlie Haughey, who asked Government Secretary Dermot Nally to contact British Ambassador Sir Nicholas Fenn to raise the issue.
What was said to the ambassador
In a previously confidential internal document from the Department of the Taoiseach, released after the 30-year confidentiality rule, Nally wrote:
At the direction of the Taoiseach, I asked Ambassador Fenn to call me about the comments attributed to the Prime Minister in Budapest. I said that this type of comment could be helpful only to the Provos and would discourage those working against terrorism.
Nally said he had told the ambassador that the attack took place in the UK.
“There was no way that anything the Gardaí might have done could prevent or divert it,” he wrote.
What we really want to know is what the comments are about.
Nally wrote that there had been a recent cross-border meeting of government ministers and Thatcher’s apparent concerns were not raised.
“Nothing said then has given reasons to anticipate the prime minister’s statement,” he said.
Nally reported that Ambassador Fenn explained that Thatcher had been speaking with a “certain sense of exasperation.”
Reflecting on this claim, the Secretary of Government added: “In tiredness there is often truth.”
He said the ambassador had outlined a “shopping list” of the UK Irish requirements.
These included more preventive intelligence; better surveillance; better communication channels between the police forces; an agreement covering the night flight; and an agreement to allow British technicians to install surveillance equipment on Irish aircraft.
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Nally added: “I said again that there was nothing in all this to lead to blame here for a crime committed in Britain, possibly by British subjects.
How could the Garda be expected to take care of that? The list he had given was a list of items that were being discussed elsewhere.
The ambassador said he was in no way suggesting Ireland’s responsibility for the attack and personally expressed his regret for what happened. He will convey Taosieach’s concerns to the appropriate place.
The recently published articles are in the archive of the National Archives under the reference number 2020/17/5.
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